But troubles abound. The government faces wide dissatisfaction with its offer of a year's average wage to those harmed by apartheid who testified before its Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And the challenges of South Africa's affirmative action policy for the black community are formidable as the government attempts to overcome white dominance of the economy by guaranteeing black ownership "stakes" - particularly in mining and energy.
             Second, crime - especially violent crime - has translated into the most active growth sector of the economy, i.e., the security industry. Truckloads of pistol-packing security employees (they are often outgunned by the criminals when the confront them) rush through Johannesburg's streets to the most recent robbery. Scarcely a person or family, black or white, is without some traumatic encounter with criminals.
             And as migration from the neighboring black African states expands, so does the unemployment rate. With workers streaming across South Africa's borders in search of improved economic and social conditions - a problem exaggerated by Zimbabwe's decline -the unemployment rate is generally estimated to be 30 percent to 40 percent. These dynamics render the country's fast growth rate ephemeral to the lives of most black South Africans.
             Moreover, though the predominantly black middle class has doubled in size since 1994, the growing disparity between rich and poor is most troubling. Indeed, the economic gap between successful blacks and the have-nots has widened more than the inequality between rich and poor whites. The huge black township metropolis of Soweto seems as desperately squalid as always and the endless highway-lining shantytowns still greet Cape Town's visitors as soon as they depart from its international airport.
             The most ominous development is that of HIV/AIDS virus. It is estimated that 20 percent of the black South African population is infected. For inexplicable reasons, the...