Moeletsi Mbeki recently wrote a column for City Press about the three main drivers behind black anger – the fact that white people were allowed to retain their wealth after apartheid ended, the rise of the black super rich and government policies and structures that continue to disadvantage the poor.

Mbeki describes the black elite: “They are the beneficiaries of the ANC government’s get-rich-quick schemes – black economic empowerment and affirmative action in public sector employment – developed to benefit its leaders, their families and favoured insiders.”

The author of Architects of Poverty: Why Africa’s Capitalism needs Changing and editor of Advocates for Change: How to Overcome Africa’s Challenges provides an acute analysis of the growing anger in South Africa among all its citizens that are now, more than ever, divided by economics:

The most important dynamic in South Africa today is the emergence and rapid growth of social differentiation among blacks, and the incorporation of the black political elite into the top echelons of the economic and social system inherited in 1994.

However, this dynamic also drives the growing conflicts between the haves and the have-nots in the country. The have-nots remain largely the ordinary black workers who remain poor, as they have for centuries, but the haves today represent the truly nonracial, nonsexist, democratic aspect of South Africa.

Where will this dynamic of the haves versus the have-nots lead South Africa to? The short answer is: it’s too early to tell.

• Complete article: City Press

Book details

• Advocates for Change: How to Overcome Africa’s Challenges edited by Moeletsi Mbeki
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  EAN: 9781770101203
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• Architects of Poverty: Why Africa’s Capitalism needs Changing by Moeletsi Mbeki
  EAN: 9781770101616
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