Funny, I was saying this about the USofA just the other day
Despite the proud, self-congratulatory mood, the country and its leaders face some daunting challenges. Among them: a growing economic divide between haves and have-nots, which often mirrors the still-separated lives of many whites and blacks, an "unemployment rate as high as 42 percent, ... high levels of violent crime and HIV/AIDS that affects one in nine of the population." (Xinhua) "The struggle to eradicate poverty has been and will continue to be a central part of the national effort to build the new South Africa," Mbeki said in his inaugural speech this week. "Endemic and widespread poverty continues to disfigure the face of our country. It will always be impossible for us to say that we have fully restored the dignity of all our people as long as this situation persists." (Xinhua)
Chain-smoking former President F. W. de Klerk, "the man who ended more than 300 years of white rule in South Africa when he handed over power to Nelson Mandela a decade ago," is now, at 68, one of the nation's elder statesmen. De Klerk, who says he is concerned about economic and political inequities, blamed poverty for the country's crime wave and told a reporter, "If we win the war against poverty, the risk of retreat from democracy diminishes, and South Africa can become a First World country." (Telegraph)
Alluding to the ANC's dominance in the government, though, he warned that "[t]he results [of the recent elections] show that our democracy is not very healthy, with too much power in the hands of one party. What we need is a realignment ... to move away from predominantly racially based and ethnically based politics toward values-based and values-driven politics. Only then will we be able to say we have truly become what we set ourselves as the goal in our constitution: a nonracial, multiparty democracy." (Telegraph)
