|
South Africa is actually a very interesting topic. It was, at one point, one of the most developed countries in the world, with its own space program, advanced infrastructure, and a stable economy. It was in fact the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa that was able to sustain a modern economy post 1960.
What not that many know is that the original lands, first colonized by the Dutch in the 17th century (who later became the Afrikaaners) were almost inhabited. The sole purpose of the first settlement of the Cape of Good Hope was to establish a small colony that could be used by the crews of the ships on their way to and back from Java. With more expansion, these later encountered Hotentots. However, the influx of most of the African, Bantu population didn't happen until much later.
After the British take over of the Cape Town at the end of the 18th century, slavery was abolished. The Afrikaaners fled into the inlands to establish their own independent enclaves. The discovery of Gold in these later led to the Boer War, the Brits invaded, the Boers were outnumbered and defeated in a horrific fashion. As a consequence, many of the impoverished Boers fled their farms to the majority British, big cities. One of the reasons that Afrikaans became a second official language in South Africa in the 1920's was to give them more access to education and to integrate them into the society. This eventually worked out and around the time of the WW II the poverty of Boers was no longer a major issue.
Even before the official apartheid era (pre - 1948), there was a mandated separation, native Africans were given reserved areas, where Europeans were not allowed to purchase land. And given the very same rights as long as they settled and kept on their own turf. The original motivation behind segregation is claimed to be to protect the Europeans from direct competition with Africans, which should have contributed to elevating the African majority as well.
What is also not often cited, based on the hard data, the African population actually did experience a major increase in their living standards during the Apartheid era. There were major investments into education, medicine, infrastructure. There were also for example more women with professional qualifications than in any other country in Africa.
The disposable income of the Africans in SA (adjusted for inflation) almost doubled between 1960 - 1980, the average life expectancy raised from mid thirties to 60 years. This also brought, as a consequence - a massive increase in the African population. While at the end of the WW II the European population in SA was at approx. 22 pct., by the end of the century it was only 12 pct., today it's estimated at around 9 pct.
After the ANC took over in the early 90's the country spiraled into a steady decline, an explosion in violent crime (in 2015 estimated 49 murders a day, by the official count), corruption, incompetence and overspending. Resembling more the conditions in other African countries. While the European minority is supposed to still contribute about 50 pct. of all the government income, they are also frequent targets of violence and raising demands for "black ownership" (this term is used officially).
|