The colour line and equality

The lavish lifestyle of Grahamstown West

Grahamstown townships...known as the 'west'

 It has been proven that South Africa is the most unequal country in the world according to the Gini Coefficient. This inequality is evident in many parts of this country whereby in one area there are shacks and in few kilometres there are mansions with big swimming pools that can fit three shacks in it.

 This kind of segregation is also to the highest degree apparent in Grahamstown where there is a noteworthy distinction between Grahamstown east and west. Whilst Grahamstwon west people live in big houses with big swimming pools and lots of cash, people in the east poverty is rife to them. 

“Grahamstown is a small and contained town, there is a lot of opportunity for the university to make a difference in the lives of the townspeople,” said, Politics and International Studies lecturer, Corrie Knowles. 

An important indicator on the inequality is the unemployment rate amongst races. The unemployment rate for black South Africans is 41.2% which is among the worst in all of Africa. Whereas, the unemployment rate for white South Africans is 5.1% and is among the best in the developed world. This shows that the inequalities exist across race lines. An average black worker makes R12, 000 a year while a white worker averages R65 400 a year. Only 18% of black people have running water while 87% of white households do. About 95% of white families have a telephone and 46% own a computer for black households 31% have a phone and less than 2% have a computer. 

Head of History department at Rhodes University, Professor Maylam said: “The inequalities in South Africa are caused by the legacy of apartheid whereby the economy was built on cheap black labour.”

At Rhodes University you find that black labourers are disproportionately working in the kitchen, garden and as cleaners and housekeepers whilst white labourers are lecturers, heads of department and secretaries. 

“The reason for this is that Rhodes was founded on specific principles, these principles were thought by white men. However, we need to work hard to make sure that the current system is not perpetuated by those principles,” said Knowles.

Most black South Africans hoped for swift and progress towards equality for all when President Nelson Mandela took office in 1994. However, this was not the case. Many black people continue to live in poverty and their lives are no better now than they were in 1994. 

Speaking in the debate on the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in parliament in 1998 (then-deputy and now former) President Thabo Mbeki said “material conditions…have divided our country into two nations, the one black, the other white….the latter is relatively prosperous and has ready access to a developed economic, physical, educational, communication and other infrastructure...The second and larger, nation of South Africa is black and poor and lives under conditions of a grossly underdeveloped infrastructure.”

These disparities continue to play itself in Grahamstown, and in the whole country. The rich are getting richer everyday whilst the poor are getting even more poorer.