There are as many as 54 countries in Africa today, and the vast majority of African countries belong to the third world countries, especially sub-Saharan Africa, which has long been among the world's lowest in economic and political development. But when it comes to the great powers located on the African continent, the first country that comes to mind by many people is located in the southernmost part of Africa, that is, the Republic of South Africa, which has the reputation of a rainbow country.
South Africa is one of the few countries in Africa with a good economic base, ranking alongside Egypt and Nigeria as the top three economies in Africa. Although in recent years it has fallen short of the former two as Africa's third-largest economy in terms of GDP, given that South Africa's population is far less than that of Egypt and Negelia, South Africa is still the most economically powerful country on the continent if viewed in terms of overall economic strength. Nevertheless, according to World Bank data, South Africa, while having a high economic development, is also the country with the largest gap between rich and poor in the world. 10% of the country's population controls 80% of the country's land and wealth, and the excessive gap between rich and poor has also led to a worrying security situation in South Africa, and has once been close to the economic degradation of developed countries to the level of developing countries. In addition, looking back at the politics and history of South Africa in the last century, in addition to the unbalanced distribution of wealth, there have been many historical events in the country that are still remembered today. Examples include President Mandela, the father of the Nation, the infamous father of The Nation, the revolutionary President Mandela, who was once the only country in Africa to rule white, and the highly controversial stagnation of national development caused by black and white regime changes.
Located at the southernmost tip of Africa, the Republic of South Africa covers an area of more than 1.22 million square kilometers, ranking 24th in the world. It borders Swattini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Požana and Namibia from east to west. The eastern part of the country also has the only country in Africa, China, Laisotho. South Africa has a population of about 60.14 million, of which the proportion of white Indians and people of color in the territory is the highest in African countries, has the most modern infrastructure in Africa and the richest mineral resources in Africa and even the world, and is at the forefront of Africa in terms of scientific research, industry and manufacturing, and is listed as a BRICS country alongside Brazil, Russia, India and China.
South Africa is the only national administrative capital in the world with three capitals in Pretoria, with the legislative capital in Cape Town and the judicial capital in Bron Springs. The country's largest city, Johannesburg, is one of the few largest cities in Africa in addition to being the economic and cultural center of South Africa. Centuries ago, the Suez Canal in Egypt had not yet been opened due to the occupation of the Eurasian land trade route by the Ottoman Empire. South Africa, which holds the eurasian maritime trading post, is already home to Africa's diverse ethnicity and cultures.
In 1487, the Portuguese explorer Bartolome made his first landfall on the southernmost tip of Africa, which quickly became a land and sea crossing from Europe to Asia. As the Portuguese flourished in Africa, they were colonized by Portugal, the Netherlands, and the British in the centuries that followed, and a large number of white people from Europe set foot on this primitive land. The few white Boers in South Africa today are descendants of medieval Dutch and French immigrants. Since then, people of color have begun to develop in South Africa, and the local black natives have gradually degenerated from landlords to cheap labor, giving birth to South Africa's original racially unfair system.
By the mid-to-late 19th century, south Africa became the most mineral-rich region in the world with the discovery of astonishing diamond and gold deposits in Kimberley and Johannesburg. While accelerating economic growth and the number of immigrants, white rulers deepened the inequality between black and white races in South Africa by increasing their control over the indigenous population and plundering south Africa's important economic resources.
By the 20th century, the United States had become a new generation of global hegemons. Britain, which has dominated the world for hundreds of years, has established a new overseas territory, and its colonies have become independent, and South Africa, one of the colonies, established the South African Federation in 1910 and broke away from British colonization in 1934. Excellent geographical location and hundreds of years of trade history so that South Africa sits on a good trade base, the domestic mineral resources are proud of the world, gold and diamond reserves ranked first in the double world, but also under the British colonial has the best industrial and service base in Africa, making South Africa from independence has become the most powerful country in Africa's economy.
Nevertheless, South Africa, a predominantly black people, was unable to escape the political and economic control of the whites after independence. In 1948, coinciding with the end of World War II, the white-led Kuomintang won the general election, strengthened the apartheid system under European colonial rule, divided the domestic ethnic groups into four major races: white, colored, Indian and black, and formulated their own rights and restrictions for different races, so that white people, who accounted for only 20% of South Africa's population at that time, controlled other ethnic groups dominated by blacks in various fields and enjoyed a standard of living comparable to that of Western countries. Blacks are disadvantaged in terms of income, education, health care, housing, and other public services, earning less than 1/10 of whites, and only 2 percent of blacks have a high school degree.
Beginning in the 1960s, South Africa's apartheid policies became more and more stringent, with the largest expulsion campaign in recent history, driving more than 10 million blacks out of their homes to the Batustan region, which accounts for only 12% of South Africa's territory and called the home of blacks, and planning to gradually expel these areas from the South African government, even abolishing the political rights of non-whites, depriving blacks of South African citizenship, and restricting the human rights of blacks to the Batustan to which they belong. Among them, south African regions such as Chuanskay, Bobnavinda and Shiskai, which are part of Batustan, have become independent states in name during apartheid.
But the tide of history will always be born, and the chosen one will break the shackles. Nelson Mandela was born in a black tribe in South Africa, his father was a senior assistant to the black chieftain, after the introduction of the apartheid system, he gave up the tribal power at his fingertips, chose to help all the black people flying south to fight for racial equality, led the African National Assembly to rebel against the white government, and was sentenced to life imprisonment by the South African authorities in 1962, but awakened the determination of Black compatriots in South Africa and even the world to desire equal rights, and also made the racial issues in South Africa gradually attract global attention.
Under the harsh apartheid system, although some countries began to boycott the South African government and business to oppose the apartheid system in South Africa, South Africa experienced a remarkable economic miracle before and after the implementation of apartheid, and the domestic economy achieved a rapid growth rate of up to 40 years, and in the 1960s, it was comparable to Japan, which was the fastest economic development in the world at that time, and was known as the African economic giant, and it was the only country in Africa that successfully developed nuclear weapons. It was not until the 1980s, when the boycott of South Africa expanded to an international scale, that the South African economy was truly affected, ushering in the subsequent lifting of apartheid and regime change.
In 1990, under the multiple pressures of international sanctions, economic setbacks, and domestic anti-racial discrimination, government authorities made a number of historic decisions in the same year to improve South Africa's relations with the world, including announcing the lifting of the ban on opposition organizations, the destruction of its own nuclear weapons synonymous West Africa, which is now Namibia, and taking the first step towards independence from South Africa and the release of Mandela, who had been imprisoned for 27 years.
In 1993, then-white President De Clark negotiated a transition to Mandela's policies. In April 1994, the first race-neutral elections were held, and the ANC led by Mandela won an overwhelming majority, and Mandela was elected South Africa's first black president. Since then, the black and white regime in South Africa has changed, and the ANC led by the main ethnic group has been in power until now.
After Mr. Mandela took office, in addition to a soft landing to promote racial reconciliation, a series of economic revitalization bills to help the black community were introduced. For example, blacks have a compulsory shareholding in white companies, any company organization must hire 1/4 of black employees, and bank loans must retain half of the share to black enterprises, etc. At the same time, while improving the employment prospects of black people, they have no time to take care of black people who have previously lacked education-level management experience due to racial segregation, it is difficult to be qualified for intellectual-intensive positions in the early stage of employment, and a large number of white people flee for fear of retaliation, South Africa, including some highly educated talents who support the South African economy. As a result, South Africa's major economic sectors are facing recession and the country's governance is chaotic. The large number of poor people who have regained their freedom as a result of the lifting of quarantine has indirectly exacerbated south Africa's crime rate.
With the onslaught of AIDS in the country, South Africa's human development index faced a decline at the end of the 20th century, and it also retreated from a high-income country to a developing country at the economic level. Today, through a comprehensive comparison of Gini coefficients and other factors, South Africa is the most unequal country in the world today, ranking first out of 164 countries or regions participating in the statistics. Many blamed south Africa's economic situation on the black regime that came to power. But if you look back at South Africa's economic take-off in the 1970s, it was largely due to the country's developed labor-intensive industries and rich mineral resources. Coinciding with the collapse and malaise of gold prices in the 1980s, South Africa's main foreign exchange-earning channels and pillar industries were hit hard before regime change. Coupled with the international community's harsh economic sanctions on South Africa and the oil embargo, South Africa, which is extremely dependent on Western capital economically, has a downward trend in the pre-liberation turmoil.
Moreover, although it has been nearly 30 years since the end of apartheid, the remnants of apartheid remain a key factor in the inequality of South African society today, despite the enormous impact of racial distribution on education and the labour market. For example, the problems of gender and uneven land distribution that still exist in the country have led to the gap between rich and poor in South Africa has not been improved. The data shows that the average income of women in South Africa is 30% lower than that of their equivalent men.
In terms of agricultural land, although the proportion of white South Africans is now declining, up to 70% of the land still belongs to the white class, and black people as the dominant ethnic group still cannot fully dominate South Africa's huge natural resources and wealth. During Mandela's administration, the economic blockade in South Africa was lifted and foreign investment was reintroduced. On the social front, 70 per cent of black communities had access to electricity and electricity, and black children's school enrolment increased from 10 per cent to 100 per cent. The establishment of public health services for the enjoyment of all South Africans has laid an important foundation for the country's economic recovery over the next decade from reduced dependence on minerals. Most importantly, the regime change in South Africa explained to the oppressed peoples of the world what racial equality is.
Although in the eyes of some people, South Africa, which is ruled by blacks, is far less developed in the country than in the white era of the 20th century. Today, white South Africans still account for several times the income and wealth of blacks. However, if there is a certain contradiction between racial equality and the development of the national economy from a social point of view, the precipitation of science and technology education also requires the accumulation of time. And Mandela's efforts to lead South Africa to freedom made the great transformation of South Africa's political system come to fruition in a peaceful way, leaving South Africa, while experiencing the most serious ethnic issues in Africa and the world, but also one of the few countries in Africa that has never staged a coup. Compared with a group of war-torn and corrupt African countries, Mandela did not covet power after completing national reconciliation. As Mandela commented on himself, I hope that my tombstone will be buried here, and the people who have done their duty have neither made South Africa a sea of blood nor let the affirmative action movement fail. I had nothing else to ask for.