It's your right to think that. Objectively, there were several countries (including neighboring Botswana and early 1980s Zimbabwe) that had more democratic governments than South Africa had. If you want to think that they were still hellholes, that's your right. However, they were democracies.
I say the ONLY reason people like you went after South Africa was that the dominate tribe was white.
And I would say that it was because it was fundamentally undemocratic. With other countries, if the laws were respected, things would be much better. Constitutionally speaking, all citizens were equal under the law.
Back in the 80's no one cared what was happening in Zim, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Congo, Angola, Nigeria, Liberia or even the hole Kenya was becoming.
What? Some people didn't care. Those people probably thought that all African countries were hellholes.