Photo from Lailalalami. Photo: Jerome Delay/APFrom McClatchy News:
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — It's easy to look around this proud, polyglot city and think that the favorite slogan of the new South Africa — a "Rainbow Nation" of races striving together for prosperity — is becoming a reality.
Blacks and whites mingle in buzzing bars and restaurants, in state-of-the-art business parks and shopping malls and in tree-lined suburbs that recall Southern California more than southern Africa. A blossoming black middle class fills the boardrooms and back offices of a diverse economy that's the engine and envy of the continent.
In the 15 years since Nelson Mandela won the first democratic elections here, finally closing the book on four decades of white apartheid rule, a lot has gone right with South Africa. Yet days before a new election, a deep malaise has taken hold, a creeping fear that the next decade and a half won't be as good as the first was.
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My Comment: One of the world's worse HIV/Aids infection rates. Crime everywhere. Murderous violence against refugees from other failed states like Zimbabwe. Tribalism mixed in with corruption and violence against political opponents.
Sigh .... if I was living in South Africa, I would be laying the groundwork to get out.