Soweto

They pronounce it “Sowetu.” It’s the South West Township outside of Johannesburg. Back in the day, the European settlers found a whole lot of gold near here. The problem: native people were living on top of it, and the racist government wanted them out of the way. So, they made it illegal for black people to live there, built new homes in townships, rounded up the native South Africans and put them in this collection of ghettos.

The white rulers kept the blacks under control with a series of increasingly severe laws that restricted movement, access to education, and jobs. Critics and protesters were handled in the harshest ways: tortured, imprisoned and killed. Sometimes hundreds of school children were gunned down from military tanks to quell any dissent. This was life in Soweto. This was life under apartheid.

Apartheid finally ended in 1991, but racism is still a driving force here. Soweto is the most famous township today, the recipient of numerous grants, capital infusions and attention from tourists. Nelson Mandela, the figurehead of South African freedom, lived there. Desmond Tutu, the pacifist bishop who helped mount peaceful resistance, lived there. And today, unlike many parts of South Africa, there is even a functional internal economy with black-owned businesses that support local needs.

This township is over 1.4 million people and growing. Some of them have nice houses. Many live in steel shacks. We overlook one slum as children walk home from school. Eighty thousand people pack into a small gully between a stream and the highways. We can see the whole shantytown beneath us, scarcely larger than a city park in Palo Alto, but holding a larger population than our whole city. A single-room tin house may hold thirteen people. Rocks hold down its roof to combat windstorms. Tarps cover holes to slow the leaks, but we see an old man sweeping water out his front door after today’s rain.

Watch out for wires. Bare wires snake precariously from the base of a street lamp into the village. They used to be laying in the grass, but too many children were dying from stepping on them. So townspeople suspend them in the air now, held up by sticks or trees to bring city power to light the few lamps that people have in this village. Unlike the electric fences that merely hurt intruders of the affluent homes down the road, these electric fences will kill you if you touch them.

Despite the poor conditions of the village, the children look clean and healthy as they walk home from school in their matching uniforms. Our guide Thabo warns us, “I can tell you something — none of these kids will make it. They will advance in school, but the pass-rate is now 30%; they can get only 30% on their end of year exams and still pass on to the next grade. Most of these kids will never learn to read and write.” Although the World Factbook claims that 93% of the population can read, our guide tells us that many kids actually finish high school unable to read and write. It seems even their president can’t read simple numbers put in front of him – so what must this mean for the poorest of the poor?

Thabo worries most for the girls. Many of them are lured by the appeal of “Blessers” or “sugar daddies” who are easily found online on “dating” sites like BlesserFinder. A fifty year-old blesser will offer a scantily clad fifteen year old the chance for an iPhone and fancy clothes to be his “girlfriend.” He will pay her for a year, or two, or three, until he is done with her. She may get pregnant, she may not. But someday she will be on her own to find a new blesser, or she may end up standing on the street like Thabo’s friend did working for a Nigerian pimp. Why do some South Africans carry 3 or 4 cell phones? Mistresses. One for each woman. It’s easier to keep them separate that way.

Unemployment is over 50% for youth here. People know president Zuma is corrupt. They know he steals all the money. They know the police will “make a plan” with you they pull you over (i.e. extortion) rather than give you a ticket. But what can the people do? Their choices are grim: they can vote for the ANC again, who ended apartheid but has horrible corruption, or vote for the DA who are associated with apartheid. It is no choice, and people vote largely for the ANC. Things are not getting better.

This seems like a pattern in poorer countries: there is not enough money to go around, so the people in power (i.e. the ones with guns) steal it. Government corruption means not enough money for education. So, kids don’t learn enough, and the nation ends up with an uneducated workforce. People are not educated, so corruption tends not to improve; people’ votes are bought by crooks! Furthermore, foreign investments are slim and when companies do invest, profits flow out of the country to the foreigners, keeping the country poor.

I hope things turn around for South Africa, but after two days diving into current affairs in Johannesburg, I worry. While racism is clearly less severe than in the 1980’s, it is still prevalent, and the majority political party seems deeply damaging. And the locals don’t seem to be supporting each other. Black entrepreneurs are few and far between because locals are deeply jealous of each others’ successes. So, Chinese and Indian immigrants tend to fill the entrepreneurial vacuum, with South Africans working for them. The result: money continues to flow out of the country. What’s not stolen by the government is earned (and taken offshore) by enterprising immigrants.

When will things improve here? I don’t know. Despite abundant natural and human resources, it seems that people here are not set up to capitalize on them to make things better for themselves.