One dominant impression from a first and extensive exposure to South Africa is of multitudes of people crushed between the brutalities of apartheid, on the one side, and the wretchedness caused by strife and disinvestment, promoted by the antiapartheid African National Congress (ANC), on the other.
The wild welcome accorded to ANC leader Nelson Mandela during his international tours reflects rightful rage against institutionalized racism. Yet pro-Mandela banners, slogans, and T-shirts make no contribution to the real problem facing South African society: How can the country's wealth expand fast enough - and fairly enough - to provide a decent existence for a black population that has tripled since World War II and is now mostly under 24 years old?
The authorities have abolished some of apartheid's worst features, including pass laws, segregated transport, and the ban on interracial marriages. They have not rescinded the iniquitous laws that force blacks to live where whites want them to. In practice, this is either in "townships" outside white towns (where the number of people squeezed in is generally larger than in the original town) or on slabs of land that had been tribal territories and are now misleadingly named "homelands." The oddly shaped boundaries were traced by whites to reserve for themselves the best townships and the richest resources.
Only about half of black workers are regularly employed. Those from the townships spend large parts of their working life commuting to and from their workplaces in white towns. Those from the homelands are expected to desert their families and spend most of the year in single-sex hostels at white farms or factories. The homelands themselves are far too poor to provide a living for their inhabitants.
Most Africans, both urban and rural, live off handouts from their extended families. Under the traditions of communal responsibility, incomes are willingly shared.
Traveling around the country, my photographer and I saw many signs of malnutrition, particularly among children, and this, as hospital workers reminded us, is often fatal. But unlike in many other African countries, nobody was "televisably" starving - and their plight never made the headlines. In contrast to my experiences in other poor countries, I saw few beggars.
The worst conditions were in "squatter camps," shantytowns that the government had not authorized and where it consequently felt no obligation to provide water taps, lavatories, electricity, or paved roads. In these, almost everybody was unemployed.
At Umtata, in the homeland of Transkei, we were introduction to members of the Pan African Congress, reportedly more extremists than the ANC but equally friendly to white visitors. They took us to the Anglican mission, where the minister volunteered to drive us in his van to the municipal dump, where about 150 people had settled. Men, women, children, and dogs lived off scavenging. "They are contented," said the minister. "I have found them rural homes but they want to stay where they are." He had appointed a lay member of the mission to work with them and try to get them to move before they were stricken by
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