The Plague of Inequality

South Africa, when one thinks of South Africa it is easy to forget that this country is really a part of Africa. With its fairly large white population, and wealth (compared to other African nations), it's easy to see why some may mentally seperate the country from the continent. It was thought that after the fall of apartheid, and with the election of Nelson Mandela, and the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC), that the hardships of South Africans would be mended. However, over two decades after the fact, this is simply not the case.


According to a recent Guardian article, South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world. The high rate of violence is then being attributed to the massive divide in equality. In South Africa there is those in extreme poverty (the majority), and those that are well off. The middle-class in South Africa is almost non-existent, and for this reason the article argues is the catalyst for the unusually high rate of violence. Poverty has lead the country to be divided again, not this time by race, but rather economic barriers. With poverty, has come resentment towards those who are wealthy, hatred for those who have versus those who have not, and self-hatred for being in the situation that those living in poverty are in.

Apparently the government is so "behind" that the more well off citizens have hired private security firms to act as their police in their area of living as opposed to the real police. Poverty has to be solved in South Africa, and not just there but in the rest of the country. Poverty is the root of all evils and allows extremist views to become reality as they seem like the only escape out of the vicious cycle.

Source(s):
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/01/south-africa-violent-crime-murders-increase-inequality