Billions of people all over the world experience socio-economic exclusion. This happens globally in both so-called developing and developed countries. This exclusion occurs with and on the continent of Africa more than with and on any other continent. And this phenomenon is present in post-apartheid South Africa as well.

Stephane Hessel and Edgar Morin (1) describe the global dimensions of exclusion and inequality. They state that globalization carries within it both the best and the worst that can come from human beings. At best, globalization paves the way for acknowledging, as never before, our global interdependence and our common fate, and it creates the possibility of a global homeland without negating the idea of individual homelands. At worst, globalization manifests itself as the uncontrolled, manipulative, and destructive power of science and technology; as a global economy whose goal of maximizing profit has led to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the destruction of the biosphere; as a tyranny of financial capitalism (especially in the early days of the 21st century) that knows no boundaries and that subjects countries and nations to its speculations; and as a propagator of xenophobia as well as racial, ethnic, and territorial exclusion.