Reply #8: no idea what the point of your post or link is. half of south africans live below the poverty line.

[Hannah Bell]

and not all south africans are black, and south africa is not the whole of africa either.

nothing you posted has anything to do with whether or not africa is being positioned as the next low-wage export platform.

as for your "black middle class," they're the ones who are going to run the low-wage production facilities.

The problem is that while solid economic policies have led to the rich getting richer, the poor have stayed the same or become even poorer. A new economic divide has supplanted the racial divide. Last year South Africa overtook Brazil as the country with the biggest gap between rich and poor.

Soweto, the township whose name became synonymous with the anti-apartheid struggle, encapsulates the changes. A place where once angry rock-throwing youths manned barricades, it now enjoys a somewhat trendy bohemian reputation. A five-minute walk from the squalid squatter camp is the Maponya Mall, named after the black entrepreneur Richard Maponya, who built it. Inside, the new black middle class hang out in trendy coffee bars and restaurants. These “black diamonds” are the most visible sign of progress.

“They are the new generation. They look down on us. We were just foot soldiers in the liberation struggle and have not really benefited, but that does not in itself mean it was not worth it,” Benjamin Mabala, an unemployed musician and tour guide, said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7022682.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7022682.ece