JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Perhaps nowhere in today's South Africa is the country's inequality on more dramatic display than in the neighboring Johannesburg suburbs of Sandton and Alexandra.
With its gleaming high-rises and lush estates, Sandton is known as Africa's richest square mile. Alexandra, a onetime home to Nelson Mandela, is a squalid, cramped and crime-infested black township. Many of its residents stream into Sandton every day on a bridge over a highway to work in upscale shops or homes.
Unemployment in the country of 56 million people soars past 25%. There are tire-burning protests almost every day over the lack of basic services like working toilets in mostly black neighborhoods. Whites still hold much of the wealth and private levers of power, while blacks trim their lawns and clean their homes.
"The air in Sandton is so fresh, you could swear they have air-cons outside," Manana said, referring to the air-conditioned high-rises in the wealthy enclave."When you come back to Alex, yo! A most disgusting smell! A sewer that's overflowing, rats all over the road." It's cutting criticism by someone who oversaw the end of a system that chilled much of the world by segregating its people by the color of their skin. Current President Cyril Ramaphosa, a Mandela protege, doesn't shy away from the critique.
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