“We didn't like apartheid, but some things were better under apartheid than they are now.” - KZN Africans

“We didn't like apartheid, but some things were better under apartheid than they are now.” - KZN Africans

‘Some things were better under apartheid’

11:12 GMT, Saturday, 29 May 2010 12:12 UK | BBC

When apartheid was dismantled in South Africa, many expected the lives of its black population would improve but promises of land distribution and new homes have not been fulfilled, as Hugh Sykes discovered.

In a community of shacks on a hillside near Johannesburg, a man complained to me:

“We didn't like apartheid, but some things were better under apartheid than they are now.”

In a community of shacks on a hillside near Durban, a man complained to me:

“Life here under apartheid was bad, but now it is more bad.”

I felt slightly unsettled hearing this.

It seemed like questioning a sacred belief - that apartheid was an unmitigated, 100% evil system.

But there is less idolatry here now, as it dawns on most people that the new South Africa is still scarred by extreme poverty and high unemployment.

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