BOOK: In Better Choices: Ensuring South Africa’s Future
South Africa’s economy is not growing, unemployment is horribly high, crime is rampant … These are among the serious issues the nation faces. In Better Choices: Ensuring South Africa’s Future, edited by Greg Mills, Mcebisi Jonas, Haroon Bhorat and Ray Hartley (Picador), the book’s various writers cover issues – and the likely solutions – ranging from policy, labour, crime and taxes to Eskom, Transnet, agriculture and tourism. In this excerpt, Gareth Newham, head of the Justice and Violence-Prevention Programme at the Institute of Security Studies, considers the roots of South Africa’s extraordinary levels of violence. Co-editor Mills appears at the Franschhoek Literary Festival on 14 May at 11:30 to talk to Michela Wrong about poverty in Africa and why aid fails.
