Poverty Trap

Jerome Delay / AP

Caught in the Middle
Fleeing a May 20 riot in Johannesburg

In the apartheid era, political violence in South Africa was invariably seen in black and white. But in the wave of anti-immigrant carnage that swept the country in late May, all 62 of those killed were black. So were the tens of thousands who lost their homes. And the mobs that beat, raped, robbed and burned victims alive. The hatred and violence that has shaken a country that optimistically proclaims itself the Rainbow Nation was not about racism — it was a symptom of globalization.

One of the defining phenomena of our age is...

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