SOUTH AFRICA LAND OF INEQUALITY: After 25 years of democracy, South Africa continues to struggle with the legacy of apartheid.

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

One morning last July, Stefan Smit, a white farmer in South Africa's wine-making region, woke up to find that overnight his vineyard had essentially been invaded. In a matter of hours, impoverished residents of a nearby black township had showed up on his land, cleared weeds, and put up 40 shacks to live in.

"We see that land, we must take that land," said Zola Ndlasi, 44, the man who led the takeover, as he walked among the new shacks. By the end of August, nearly a thousand shacks spread across Smit's property.

And with that, Smit's farm, about 30 miles east of Cape Town, became yet another battleground in a bitter political fight that continues to split this nation. The key question: Who owns South Africa's land?

White South Africans, who account for only 8 percent of the population, control much of the country's economy a generation after the end of apartheid. Many of their black neighbors are still struggling to acquire a tiny patch of earth on which to build a shack. Blacks make up more than 80 percent of South Africa's 58 million people.

A quarter-century after a historic election transformed South Africa from white rule to a true democracy, the nation has made enormous strides in some areas but still faces huge challenges in others.

"The political empowerment of black South Africans has been a huge achievement," says Vanda Felbab-Brown, a South Africa expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. "But land and wealth is still concentrated disproportionately in the hands of the white minority."

For much of the 20th century, black South Africans lived under apartheid, a government-imposed system of rigid racial segregation, with roots going back to Dutch and British colonization in the 17th century (see Key Dates, p. 10). Black South Africans couldn't socialize with whites, have a voice in government, or even travel outside designated areas without government permission. (People of mixed race, known as "coloreds," faced their own restrictions.) Secret police spied on black activists, and arrests, beatings, and even murders of dissidents were commonplace.

The End of Apartheid

In 1964, Nelson Mandela, a leader of the African National Congress (A.N.C.), a group fighting apartheid, was accused of trying to overthrow the government; his activism earned him a life sentence in prison (see "Nelson Mandela: South Africa's Founding Father," p. 11).

After decades of international pressure, things changed in 1990. The government freed Mandela after he'd spent 27 years behind bars and began negotiations toward black majority rule. Apartheid officially ended in 1991, and three years later, all South Africans elected a new government. Some feared a racial bloodbath when white rule ended, with blacks taking revenge for past injustices. Instead, South Africans heeded Mandela's call to move forward: In 1994, rather than turning to violence, they stood in line to vote, with nearly 90 percent of those eligible casting ballots in the country's first truly democratic election. Mandela was elected president.

Twenty-five years later, South Africa has a lot to brag about. It boasts the continent's second-largest economy (after Nigeria) and has an abundance of natural resources that it exports--including diamonds, gold, and platinum--and a modern infrastructure in much of the country. Considered the superpower of Africa, South Africa regularly sends troops on peacekeeping missions elsewhere on the continent.

Perhaps its most important achievement, experts say, is its political progress.

"South Africa is a functional constitutional democracy with a vibrant political opposition, an independent judiciary, and a highly active civil society," says John Campbell, a South Africa expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.

Economic Failures

But there have been many disappointments too. The country's unemployment rate is above 27 percent, and it's even higher for young South Africans: Almost 40 percent of 15- to 34-year-olds don't have jobs.

Although poverty has declined since the end of apartheid, inequality has only risen, according to a recent report by the World Bank and the South African government.

The country's economic problems have disproportionately affected black South Africans: More than 60 percent of blacks live in poverty, according to Statistics South Africa, compared with just 1 percent of white South Africans.

Linked to South Africa's economic problems is its failure to make significant progress on many social issues since the end of apartheid--education in particular.

"The quality of primary education available to blacks is very poor and not significantly better than it was under apartheid," Campbell says.

The shoddy condition of many schools for black children flashed suddenly into view last year when two students drowned in pit toilets at their school. Pit toilets are holes in the ground where waste collects, covered by a platform that's often crumbling or filthy or both. There are nearly 4,000 schools in South Africa where pit toilets are the only option for students to relieve themselves, government statistics show.

In addition to a lack of resources, the other challenge to improving South Africa's education...