Airdate: Reggie Yate’s Extreme South Africa

Tonight ABC2 premieres a new documentary series Reggie Yate’s Extreme South Africa in which UK presenter Reggie Yates lives in three South African communities for a week.

Twenty years since the first free elections and in the shadow of Nelson Mandela’s death, Reggie Yates gets up close and personal with three different communities in contemporary South Africa. By living amongst them for a week, what will he discover about the extremes of this misunderstood country in the 21st century?

In the first episode, Reggie spends a week in South Africa’s largest white squatter camp, Coronation Park, outside Johannesburg. South Africa has a white population of approximately 4.6 million and during apartheid the racist political system elevated them into a privileged position.

Today however, white youth charities claim that up to 400,000 of them now live below the poverty line, with many shacked up in small, makeshift camps, although these figures remain hotly disputed.

But behind the headlines lies an uncomfortable question: are young white South Africans now the ones being discriminated against by being on the wrong side of affirmative action? And if so, will black and white ever truly be equal in South Africa?

9:30pm Wednesday, 20 August ABC2