/Part one in a series exploring how post-apartheid South Africa’s
stalled transition to equality can inform Israel-Palestine’s future./
CAPE TOWN — Every Monday morning, my son’s nanny, Miriam, travels an
hour across Cape Town to our home. The journey takes her through shanty
towns, turf wars between rival gangs, and a jumble of horribly
inadequate public infrastructure. There are often protests that end with
the police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at residents fed up with
the sordid state of public services.
Once Miriam reaches our home in central Cape Town, it’s as if she has
been teleported to another world. Thousands of low-income workers make a
similar journey every morning to return to essentially lawless townships
in the evening. The spatial divide between these areas, dictated by
years of conscious urban planning, is neatly organized along racial and
class lines.
South Africa’s triumph over apartheid nearly 30 years ago was one of the
most dramatic events of the 20th century. Peaceful coexistence,
reconciliation, and the creation of viable democratic institutions are
among the many achievements of the post-apartheid period. When an
Egyptian journalistasked
<https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/02/06/why-does-ruth-bader-ginsburg-like-the-south-african-constitution-so-much/>the
late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg whether Egyptians
should emulate the American constitution, sheinsisted
<https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-09-19-ruth-bader-ginsburg-an-ally-of-the-south-african-constitution/>they
look to South Africa’s instead, calling it “a deliberate attempt to have
a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights.”
Yet, after 30 years, this praise appears to have been misplaced.
Post-apartheid South Africa has been labelled as the world’s most
unequalsociety
<https://time.com/longform/south-africa-unequal-country/>. Economic
prowess remains deeply connected to race, with the more expensive
residential areas being almost exclusively white and the shantytowns
Black. With rampant drug and gang violence, some townships in Cape Town,
such as Khayelitsha, have the highest levels ofgun violence
<https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/407087/cape-town-now-ranks-as-the-8th-most-violent-city-in-the-world/>globally.
In contrast, the picturesque neighborhoods of Camps Bay and Sea Point
are home to the most expensive real estate on the African continent. The
distance between these areas is little more than 30km — less than a 45
minute drive away.
https://www.972mag.com/south-africa-capitalism-apartheid/
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