Name any problem that America has, and we have the same problem. Just a lot worse.
Our borders are ridiculously porous which has exacerbated the economic hatred of low- and no-skill foreign nationals, who are perceived to be stealing our jobs.
Even before C19, patients would be stacked two-to-a-bed in public hospitals; stories of people sharing beds with the recently deceased are not uncommon.
Xenophobia and racism are rife. Things like #NigeriaMustFall and #NigeriansMustGo regularly trend on our Twitter. When shits pops off every couple of years, and we have xenophobic riots, stores are looted, homes are burned, and any black African who looks like he's foreign, had best have evidence on hand that he is local - or he'll likely be necklaced.
Crime is so bad that even some residents of townships (informally called "squatter camps") miss the apartheid-era police who were brutal but at least effectively enforced the laws, allowing for some elements of the poorer economy to flourish, despite openly racist legislative restrictions. Our current police force is probably more brutal than the apartheid-era cops were, and largely to the same population (the poor and black) but they're no good at actually enforcing the law - so any informal economy that manages to survive, is generally brutal and authoritarian itself.
Think of a nationwide Chicago, but probably worse. Our murder rate is in the 30s (a hell of a lot higher in some areas) and 61.8% of South African children grow up without a father. Gangsterism and criminality in the Cape Flats are so bad, that the army were brought in last year to patrol and help curb its rise - didn't work.
Pockets of suburbia are kept alive and relatively safe by private security, neighborhood watch networks, gates, and electrified fencing.
Our affirmative action policies are unnecessarily invasive and counter-productive. Termed Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE), they essentially stipulate that businesses of a certain size must meet a set of criteria in order to be eligible for government tenders (these eligibility criteria also extend to said business' entire local supply chain) basically it's a hiring scorecard, in which the following are worth more points (ordered according to their weight):
- Black
- Non-white
- Female
- Disabled
If you're a single black mother with one leg, you're at the top of someone's hiring list.
This has obviously led to the degradation of public services and any faith in them. We have a private version of any essential public service we're allowed to.
I would rather die alone at home than set foot in a public hospital - and even at a private hospital, I would much rather be seen to by a white male doctor with all of his limbs attached, because then I am guaranteed that he earned his position based purely on his ability (and he had to overcome a lot to get there).
If one of my neighbours is being burgled, I don't call the cops, I call my armed response company. If I am burgled, I prefer to call no one; I have a plan for disposing of my attackers without ever involving the cops, because I have so little faith in our law enforcement that I would rather get my own hands very, very dirty than ever involve the police.
Utilities are state-owned, so affirmative action has purged our energy provider of a great many worthwhile engineers - thus, we have "load-shedding"; controlled blackouts that put strain on the power grid and lead to unscheduled blackouts. Our most reliable power stations are, of course, apartheid-era.
Given the aforementioned xenophobia, we actually have
worse relations with many African countries than did apartheid South Africa; our population is desperate and out of control, and is earning a reputation for thuggish-ness and savagery.
Crime is often unnecessarily brutal, with people being tortured and murdered when burgled, run over with their own cars when hijacked, etc.
An interesting side note is that the most violent and dangerous period in South African history were the 4 years between 1990, when it was finally decided that apartheid would be abolished, and 1994, when we held our first elections. This was the period during which the revolutionaries massacred one another as they vied for eventual elected control of the nation. This factional infighting continues today, and fractures the ANC - we saw that fuck our country up when Zuma usurped the ANC leadership in, I think 2007 - taking the presidency from Thabo Mbeki through party machinations, rather than an actual vote. The problem with having to always prove the validity of your revolutionary credentials, is that it means you are always at risk of being strong-armed by your faction's more fanatical elements.
Sorry, that's all a bit of an undirected ramble. Not sure if you had any specifics you wanted discussed. Lol.
