New York Times

Hard-hitting New York Times piece looks at South Africa’s economic apartheid

If you somehow live with your head in the sand and you're not aware of the struggles faced by the majority of South Africa's population, the New York Times will wise you up.

By Alexis Haden -

October 27, 2017

DIEPSLOOT, SOUTH AFRICA – JUNE 9: Sharon Ndlovu does her laundry next to sewage on June 9, 2015 in Diepsloot, South Africa. Diepsloot is plagues by constant sewage blockages that have the council worried. Authorities blame the overcrowding for the problem, saying the sewer systems that were built when the township was established were designed only to cover a certain number of people. (Photo by Gallo Images / Sowetan / Antonio Muchave)

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Look, if you live in South Africa and you still don’t think economic apartheid is a thing, then you might want to catch a wake-up.
Nonetheless, the New York Times has just published a pretty epic piece dealing with just that.  Here’s a little extract.

In the history of civil rights, South Africa lays claim to a momentous achievement — the demolition of apartheid and the construction of a democracy. But for black South Africans, who account for three-fourths of this nation of roughly 55 million people, political liberation has yet to translate into broad material gains. Apartheid has essentially persisted in economic form.

The piece deals with several issues, including state capture and how, after the fall of apartheid, land and other assets was “largely left in the hands of a predominantly white elite”.
The piece also slams the ANC’s approach to building housing, saying that while “empires of new housing” was built, it was “concentrated it in the townships, reinforcing the geographic strictures of apartheid”.

Large swaths of the black population remain hunkered down in squalor, on land they do not legally own. Those with jobs often endure commutes of an hour or more on private minibuses that extract outsize slices of their paychecks.

The article goes into details of the lives of several different people in different situations, some hamstrung by the challenges of poverty and the obstacles they face – everything from how rife corruption is to the challenges in township schools.

The ranks of South Africa’s black, Asian and mixed-race millionaires expanded to 17,300 from 6,200 from 2007 to 2015, according to New World Wealth, a consultant based in Johannesburg. What many of these people have in common are lucrative ties to government.
“For your business to survive and thrive, you must know a politician,” one interviewee tells the paper.

If you even have some modicum of awareness about South Africa’s inequality, there probably won’t be too much in this piece that surprises you. Although, it still worth a read and well written.
If you’re somehow living with your head in the sand, then do yourself a favour and give it a read.
All of this just days after Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba painted an utterly grim picture of South Africa’s economic outlook. Somethings surely gotta give…
Read: New York Times – End of Apartheid in South Africa? Not in Economic