South Africa: Still a long walk to freedom

One of the legacies of apartheid South Africa and the Bantustan system is the unequal distribution of resources between urban and rural areas, which has created a perpetual divide that even under our democratic dispensation is not being bridged. The ongoing lack of importance given to rural South Africa in the post-apartheid era, has created a rural backwater where poverty is entrenched and where people are simply abandoned and expected to fend for themselves in the face of what can best be described as state apathy.