To be fair no one is saying that SA is peaceful and prosperous. For example Google News is showing me now "Vigilante killings" when I type South Africa, there are a lot of stories about the violence and corruption going on there. A few months earlier there were stories about the water supply collapsing. I think it's common knowledge that SA is dysfunctional. Yes this is a moral conundrum, the Apartheid should have ended but the situation didn't really get better for many people in SA. It's a bit like the U.S withdrawal from Afghanistan maybe; it should have happened but no it's probably not gonna improve things for the average Joe there.

It will take (a lot of) time. After apartheid the new ANC ruling party took over, but it is rife with corruption and as a result most state owned entities are being (or have already been) run into the ground.

The leadership have enriched themselves, whereas the poorest segment of the population remain as poor as they were 30 years ago.

Tribalism is still playing a large factor in the country and there are no visible great leaders ahead. All the politicians are still playing the let's blame apartheid card to score points with the people on the ground, but they have very little actual plans in place to make things better.

The upper class taxpayer base is emigrating and unemployment is growing, which is driving crime and general unrest. Add in the corruption and government is struggling to finance anything worthwhile, so as a result they have to keep inventing new taxation, which again drives emigration.

They also have a racist sub-faction that loudly calls for "revenge" genocides.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMuXcUKtzaA

It was much worse in the late 80's/early 90's, and we didn't go down an even worse route then.

South Africa being a shithole does not excuse Apartheid.

In fact I see more continuity than change, there is still a wealthy elite running the country the only difference is that now some of them are black.