Wednesday, March 13, 2013

South Africa's deepseated social and economic crisis...

Nelson Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel, the brilliant Mozambican leader who married the man everyone here calls by his clan name Madiba, is speaking out even as her husband Nelson Mandela no longer can.

She calls South Africa an “angry nation… on the brink of ‘something very dangerous’. She was speaking at a memorial for a Mozambican cab driver whose killing by the police was caught on a cellphone camera and went viral. The police deny they were brutal, despite the video, which further outrages a country that seems to be increasingly turning on the politicians they see as plundering its resources.

Machel minced no words, saying South Africa is a society ‘bleeding and breathing pain’ and warned against ‘deeper trouble from the past that has not been addressed.”

That “deeper trouble” evoked the compromise negotiated settlement that won political power for the ANC through elections in the early 90′s, but kept economic power in the hands of a mostly white elite dominated by big business, the “mining energy complex.” Economist Sampie Terrablanche tells that story of an imposed neoliberalism lobbied for by multinationals, international financial institutions and foreign governments like the U.S. and U.K. in his book, “Lost in Transformation.” Full story...

Related posts:
  1. South Africa is an angry nation on the brink, warns Mandela's wife...
  2. South Africa video exposes rot in police system...
  3. South African police face inquiry over death of man 'dragged behind van'
  4. No end in sight for police brutality in South Africa...
  5. South Africa 'in the grip of increasing lawlessness'
  6. Mine "bloodbath" shocks post-apartheid S.Africa...
  7. At least 18 killed as S. African police open fire on thousands of striking miners

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