The Inequality Paradox
Photo: Johnny Miller - UnequalScenes
In our increasingly connected world, international initiatives in the Global North often seek to empower and invest in innovations from the Global South to address challenges of inequality and poverty.
A striking example of this is South Africa and the UK, both of whom are bursting with pioneering innovations with transformative social potential, and with long histories of creativity, design and entrepreneurship.
Yet the truth must be acknowledged that the UK’s wealth is inextricably linked to the challenges faced by poor communities in South Africa. They are two sides of the same coin.
Why is it that South Africa is considered to be ‘developing’ and Britain ‘developed’? How did Britain achieve the relative wealth it experiences today, and where do the systemic challenges of inequality in South Africa come from?
South Africa offers a microcosm for the importance of historical recovery in understanding our contemporary world. Twenty five years after the transition to democracy, South Africa continues to confront the enduring legacy of segregation and exploitation built during 300 years of colonialism and 50 years of apartheid.
Contemporary South Africa is one of the most economically unequal countries globally, with 90% of South Africans earning only 35% of the total national income. This figure drops to a staggering 7% when a broader understanding of wealth is taken into consideration.
While there are nuanced discussions to be had about the increasing significance of class as a division across South African society, inequality continues to fall along stubbornly racial lines. Although land ownership statistics are contested, it is clear that white individuals, farmers and corporations still own the majority of land in South Africa, despite making up less than 10% of the national population. In the two years I spent living in South Africa, the geographical inheritance from apartheid was stark.
“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.”
The legacy of the 20th century system of Apartheid still weighs heavily on our global collective conscience. But our short historical memories often act to obscure Britain’s role in Southern Africa and forming the foundations of modern spatial inequalities.
Britain officially colonised South Africa for 160 years and fought various wars to gain back imperial control. British authorities were key players in the enactment of laws to dispossess African people from their land, creating a cheap labour force that formed the strategic basis for their model of extractive capital accumulation.
The economic prosperity acquired from the Empire built the British cities we walk around today. In this sense, cities like London and Bristol are constructed on the ideology of white supremacy and the calculated exclusion of indigenous South Africans from the wealth of their land.
Additionally, British laws began the cycle of the forcible removal of African people from cities into strictly controlled ‘locations’ outside towns, forming the administrative framework of apartheid segregation and the peripheral townships we still see today.
Cape Town: A tale of two cities. A collection of mansions in Hout Bay, overlooking Imizamo Yethu, a densely populated informal settlement that houses over 30,000 people.
The protagonists of this colonial project were the likes of Cecil Rhodes, still celebrated in both countries by statues and universities in his namesake. He believed in the cultural superiority of British people as the ‘finest race in the world’ and advocated for a ‘system of despotism in our relations with the barbarians of South Africa’ (Rhodes, 1887). Removing the physical and metaphorical shadow of Rhodes that casts a weight over black and mixed-heritage people in South Africa, represents a symbol of the decolonisation student movements across the country.
We cannot rewrite history and change the injustices of the past. But there is a historical amnesia cultivated in Britain regarding our history, that enables an illusion of moral superiority and detachment from racism. These are insights and connections that I made only due to the generosity of South Africans in their willingness to educate me, as well as the observations I made working with various different organisations and projects in the country.
A historical reckoning is needed to understand that the UK is implicated in present day global inequality and the persistent underdevelopment of whole regions. This acknowledgment should inform better ways to engage in international initiatives.
This understanding must form a fundamental part of the increasing energy directed towards the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK and around the world. The heightened traction of the movement, catalysed by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, has shed a timely light on the continuing racial inequality and systemic racism within the UK. We must also see BLM within a global context. It is critical to understand the way that history manifests as contemporary inequality.
These inequalities have been laid bare during the coronavirus pandemic. This crisis offers us a chance to step back and reflect on our local and global communities, and a chance to creatively imagine alternatives.
Collaboration between countries is essential to tackle complex, systemic problems in the modern world. We recognise that collective intelligence is a strength; the combined experiences and insights drawn from a diverse groups of people can be more effective than designing solutions in isolation to these challenges. In order to do so, a conscious confrontation with history is a prerequisite to carving a new, more equitable and empathetic world.
