William Shoki is a staff writer for Africa Is a Country. He is based in Johannesburg.
A popular new South African book insists racism is primarily to blame for social polarization. But describing South African inequality as “the new apartheid” obscures the central role that class and capitalism play in reproducing hierarchies.
In South Africa, as in so many other capitalist countries, the education system is seen as a means of molding children into future workers. But education should be about building democratic citizens, not producing compliant workers for employers.
The South African house track “Jerusalema” has rocketed around the world, becoming a viral sensation. But it’s no common pop song — it speaks to a growing desire across Africa to remake and reimagine the world.
In South Africa, the political class is scapegoating immigrants to distract from their failure to root out the country’s massive inequality. But just like everywhere else, immigrants aren’t the problem — economic elites and their political handmaidens are.
A conspiracy theory rocketing around South African social media claims that the real Nelson Mandela died in 1985. It’s a desperate attempt to make sense of the rampant inequality still gripping the post-apartheid country — but only socialist politics, not conspiracy theories, can diagnose the problem and offer a just solution.