Small wonder. For the chilling fact remains that while the economic gap between people defined in terms of racial categories (black as distinct from white) has narrowed statistically (as some blacks have become very rich indeed) the gap between rich and poor has actually widened. Needless to say, in South Africa such depressing facts are too readily apparent to cause surprise. The real question is: how long can it be before the anger these facts even now give rise to becomes ever more potent politically?
Great piece. There's an important lesson to be learned about race and class here. Those who see the world in racial terms cannot help but lament that for the average Black SA's living standard has become even worse under the ANC than it had been under the Boer government. Those who thought that once a Black government was installed things would improve for the long-suffering Black population have no understanding of class. The racism which existed (and still does) in SA was a product of the economic relationship between international capital, which coveted SA's resources and labor, and the country's inhabitants, a legacy of the British Empire. The end of apartheid saw a replacement of capital's White management team with its new Black management team. Nothing really changed, save that capital could be even more rapacious once the unstable White government was gone. For there to be justice in SA, the people must rise up, banish capitalism, and take power directly into their own hands. Then and only then will they be free, and racism will blow away like tumbleweed.
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/79003
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
The ANC centenary: A display of elite power
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/79002
