By Clare Byrne Sep 2, 2010, 18:02 GMT
Johannesburg - Ambulances turned away from hospitals, patients abandoned, schools vandalized by teachers - less than two months after being lauded for a successful World Cup, South Africa is again roiled by deep divisions.
For the past two weeks, South Africans have watched in horror as around 1 million striking public sector workers, representing 2 per cent of the population, hold the young and the sick hostage for better pay.
Hundreds of schools across the country have been closed since public servants walked off the job on August 18.
Worse, dozens of hospitals have been almost closed down and several patients lives lost as nurses refuse to scrub up before getting an 8.6-per-cent pay rise.
A few weeks ago, a very different South Africa was on show as the country pulled out all the stops to host 200,000 visitors at Africa's first World Cup.
The warm welcome extended by locals and a virtual no-show by criminals contributed to an image makeover for a country that had become synonymous with crime and political uncertainty.
'What we saw was just how united and racially healed South Africa really is,' one British commentator enthused.
But in focusing solely on the state of race relations, many missed the bigger picture.
While the World Cup showed South Africa to be comfortable in its rainbow colours, it also diverted attentions from the roiling class divisions that were bottled for a month to spare the country's blushes. But those were always certain to explode.
They were in evidence in the run-up to the World Cup as slum dwellers around the country erupted in ever-more-frequent riots over their living conditions and workers kept beating the strike drum.
Now that the world's cameras have left, the centrist ruling African National Congress and longtime allies in the labour movement and Communist Party are going at it hammer and tongs.
During apartheid they united in their bid to end racist rule. But 16 years into democracy they represent divergent interests.
The low-paid workers that constitute the bulk of union members feel betrayed by the ANC's slide into corruption and personal enrichment.
The bitterness of the strike reflects that sense of alienation.
Some striking nurses have shrugged off the fate of their patients, saying 'they must die' - a sign the famous spirit of 'ubuntu' (shared humanity) for which South Africans pride themselves is being eroded.
Non-striking nurses and teachers have also been threatened and even beaten.
'Even during the time of war, people don't tamper with hospitals, this is unacceptable,' Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi lamented.
But if the World Cup showed anything it's that most South Africans care deeply about their country and also believe firmly in their country's exceptionalism.
Since the tournament, several campaigns have begun tapping into that patriotism to spur citizens into civic activism.
One such movement, Lead SA, which was launched by The Star newspaper and 702 private radio station in early August with a call for South Africans to lead more moral lives, has organized more than 2,500 volunteers to help out in strike-hit hospitals.
'I think it's the first time where civil society has mobilized in this way,' Yusuf Abramjee, head of news at Primedia Broadcasting, owner of 702 radio, told the German Press Agency dpa.
'Our philosophy is to turn every day into a World Cup day.'
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