The road to Gomorrah for the people left behind by 'growth'
As the president trumpets the ANC's economic doctrine, life can feel like a biblical punishment for those abandoned by a system that serves only a BEE elite
It is one of those sunny March mornings in 2021 when the sky is clear and the air is crisp, but not here. There is a stench from the heavily polluted Jukskei River nearby and sulphur and dioxide from paraffin-fired stoves. The atmosphere, like the stench, is constant. Through the smoke and haze, a jumble of disfiguring scrap tin, wooden planks and cardboard and plastic sheets in which whole families live, crowds the eye; it is the same on the embankments, where heaps of rubbish fester in stagnant pools. To the naked eye, the sprawl is a study in monotony. Endless squalor joins endless squalor in a parade of human deprivation and environmental ruin...
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