theabortionatorI think it's going to take at least 50 years to get things to a reasonable point there. The apartheid years really fucked that place. The corruption is pretty horrible.
Africa in general is still kind of a shitshow. I def feel for a lot of these places and the people that live there. It's a crazy world.
Africa is not wholly bad or a shitshow. The US State Department just released its list of 10 safest countries in the world to visit. Zambia came in at #1. I'll admit I have no idea how this is true...it would seem like Canada, Norway, Iceland, etc. would be a lot safer. However, I've never been to Zambia so who knows.
South Africa's biggest, and most pressing problem, is that everyone hates everyone else, with a valid reason. The Boers came in long ago and "got" a tremendous amount of land. Whether this land was taken by force, "purchased" (whose was it to sell???), or by other means, the Boers came to hold most of the good land in South Africa. As time went on, the Boers (now Afrikaaners) built impressive farms, estates, and so forth. They became the ruling class. The blacks descended into poverty and the Afrikaaners thrived.
Fast forward many years. Nelson Mandala comes into power and gives the land "back" to the blacks. These land grabs ripped out from under them what the Afrikaaners had built over many generations. Sure, the original taking of the lands was wrong, but it was not this generation's doing. Because African history is an oral history, not a written history, it was difficult/impossible to verify to whom land should be returned. As such, the great farms and estates got broken up, abused, and went to complete ruin. Many Afrikaaners were left with nothing and came to absolutely hate the blacks.
On the part of the blacks, they had reason for hating the white Afrikaaners. As they saw it, the white Afrikaaners stole their land, lived in riches, and relegated the blacks to poverty and disease. So the blacks hate the Afrikaaners for past (and ongoing) wrongs, and the white Afrikaaners hate the blacks for "stealing" their land from them and giving them essentially nothing in return. There is no solution to this that I can see.
In my time in the country, I was continually awed at the open and deliberate racism. I went to a bar in a hotel and it was explained to me that no blacks were allowed. Obviously this was not legal, but it was simply fact. There are no mixed-race couples. The blacks and whites do not associate with one another. No leader is going to fix this problem. I don't think it can be fixed.
