Role Reversal in Soweto, South Africa
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Stumble ThisAn advert showing a reversal of roles between Blacks and Whites in Modern Day South Africa. Showing some of the problems blacks still face in South Africa. Thought provoking.
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blacks,whites,racism,discrimination,poverty Role Reversal in Soweto, South Africa
Comments  who voted for this video Farhad2000
- mauz15
- siftbot
x18 - demon_ix
who has this post bookmarked SpeveO
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soweto
It feels to me like it's promoting the idea that subversive racism is still the large cause of the many problems in South Africa, which is clearly not the case. The imagery is effective in communicating the largely unchanged landscape of the 'new' South Africa, but I never get the impression that it's trying to get its audience to question why the structures haven't changed. This kind of imagery is only going to further aggravate the prejudice that is alive and well in S.A. You have to be practical about Sabc 1's target audience as well. It's very much youth oriented, and imagery like this is not going to be put into the broader context that it deserves.
It's this kind of systemic oversimplification that has lead to issues like the current xenophobic violence and it's a scary indicator of things to come.
How about questioning the GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution) strategy that the government has employed since 1996 (Privatisation, Open markets, etc etc. Sound familiar?), or the negative influence the WTO and World Bank have had on South Africa's economic environment. How about discussing the fact that the new government has had to deal with around 343 billion rands worth of debt incurred by the previous apartheid government, and how this has effectively crippled their ability to implement substantial change, forcing the government to sell off many nationalised assets at one point to cover the payments. Add on top of that the loss of control of the South African reserve bank, corrupt and inept politicans, badly thought out black economic empowerment programs, rising unemployment, etc etc etc and it gets pretty complex and messy very quickly, and that's why simplifying it down to race is disengenuous and incredibly damaging.
My fear is that this xenophobic violence weve started seeing is the first expression of the economic climate that is developing in South Africa due to a cocktail of the broader worldwide economic crisis and the lackadaisical economic programs employed by the current goverment. And with imagery like this being promoted, I wouldn't be suprised if it spills into overt racial violence at some point.