National Agenda : Four Families, Four Colors--Hope and Fear in South Africa

Maimane. Van der Merwe. Desai. Rattan.

Four families. Four colors. Four visions of the future. And four windows on South Africa.

These are exciting and terrifying times to be a South African. Today looks little like yesterday. And tomorrow, everyone knows, will look nothing like today. The knowledge stirs powerful emotions in ordinary people--hope for some, dread for others, a mixture, perhaps, for most.

The optimists say these are the birth pains of democracy, of a Washington or a Westminster. The pessimists call them the beginning of anarchy, of a Beirut or a Belgrade.

Either way, South Africa’s future depends on the great sea of its people who lead lives far from the daily headlines, still laboring under the divisive labels created by the dying apartheid system--black, white, Colored and Indian.

Scott Kraft, Times correspondent, takes you into the homes of four of those families.

WHITES

* Average annual income (after taxes) per capita: $6,500

* Unemployment rate: 4%

* Government spending on education, per capita: $1,335,

INDIANS

* Average annual income (after taxes) per capita: $2,381

* Unemployment rate: 12.8%

* Government spending on education, per capita: $950

COLOREDS

* Average annual income (after taxes) per capita: $1,749

* Unemployment rate: 16.6%

* Government spending on education, per capita: $708

BLACKS

* Average annual income (after taxes) per capita -- $796

* Government spending on education, per capita: $332 a year

* Unemployment rate: 24.5%;

POPULATION BREAKDOWN White: 13%

Indian: 2.5%

Colored: 8.5%

Black: 75%

Sources: South African Bureau for Market Research; Central Statistical Services