Hey look, it’s Bantry Bay – lekker, right?

Nothing wrong with Bantry Bay, but this time around it features in the latest TIME Magazine cover story, titled “What South Africa Can Teach Us As Worldwide Inequality Grows“.

Sadly, we’re a lesson in what not to do, but the cover will be a source of pride for photographer Johnny Miller. We have featured his work in the past – here and here – and now he’s landed the prestigious cover shot.

Yeah – we are “the world’s most unequal country”. That’s according to the World Bank, who last year estimated that the top 10% owned 70% of the nation’s assets in 2015.

To the cover:

Here’s TIME with the story behind the cover story:

 Photographer Johnny Miller has successfully achieved a method of visualizing inequality—by using a drone to spotlight from above how rich and poor can inhabit spaces that are right next to each other, but so different.

Miller’s drone work from South Africa proved to be the perfect fit for Aryn Baker’s cover story, providing a shockingly honest look at inequality in a way that is not visible from the ground…

Miller calls his visualization of inequality “Unequal Scenes,” and the project has expanded beyond South Africa, featuring bird’s-eye scenes of inequality from Baltimore, Mumbai [above], Mexico City, Nairobi and more.

So, what lessons can the world learn from a country 25 years into a democracy? As previously mentioned, we’re not covering ourselves in glory.

In the feature TIME story, this bit cuts to the core:

For the past several decades, inequality has been on the rise in developed and developing countries alike. But in an age of widening divides between rich and poor, South Africa stands out because of its squandered hopes. Mandela’s rainbow nation was supposed to show the world how a new, equitable society could be built out of the ashes of repression and racism. But by some measures, inequality in the country today is worse than it was under apartheid.

Though a new black middle class is slowly developing, and a small black elite has accrued massive wealth, few black South Africans have seen substantial change in their material lives. Meanwhile, today’s white minority, some 9% of the population, lives off the benefits accumulated under apartheid’s unequal policies. Their relative wealth keeps them insulated from government failures triggered by the economics of segregation…

The source of the inequality that plagues South Africa is multifaceted. Unemployment, poor education programs and a collapsing public health system all play a role. But the largest dividing line is land, where the legacy of apartheid meets the failures and broken promises of the current government. It’s manifested most plainly in the lack of affordable housing, particularly in urban areas. The number of decaying slums like Imizamo Yethu [above] has gone from 300 in 1994 to 2,700 today.

It really doesn’t make for easy reading, but I would recommend getting stuck into the full article.

For those who aren’t keen, here’s the jarring ending:

It’s been 25 years, says [“Reclaim the City” group founding member Elizabeth] Gqoboka, but she can’t shake the persistent feeling that she isn’t welcome in the city. She is tired of the fact that whenever she walks down a residential street in Cape Town, people assume she is there either to clean houses or to steal from them.

“It’s like we are good enough to take care of white people’s children, but we aren’t good enough to live next door to them,” she says. That will change only when people see her for what she is: a resident.

Yip – on the money.

Maybe we can all learn a little lesson or two from that TIME cover story, hey?

[sources:time&time]