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PostWysłany: Sob 19:24, 13 Paź 2007    Temat postu: RPA

Nie ma niczego gorszego niz ograniczony umyslowo bidok, ktory jak sie dorwie do waaadzy to uchwali takie prawa, ze stworzy sobie mozliwosc legalizowanego zlodziejstwa.
Tokyo Sexwale to byly terorysta, ktory walczyl o wolnosc i demokracje w RPA.
Po paru latach bycia w rzadzie skorzystal z ustawy zmuszajacej wszystkie byznesy do przekazania 25% byznesu czarnym.
Oto po 13 latach i kilkunastu odebranych buznesow moca uchwaly o ekonomicznym wyzwoleniu czarnych tak sobie obecnie zyje mezny bohater walk wyzwolenczych, odseperowany oczywiscie terytorialnie od murzynskiej reszty w imieniu ktorych walczyl o zniesienie apartheidu.








Tak mieszkaja ci ktorzy nie maja mozliwosci uczestniczenia w korupcji lub dobrac sie do dorobku bialego
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PostWysłany: Wto 17:24, 30 Paź 2007    Temat postu:

Mordercy wycieli 13-letniej cipke:

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PostWysłany: Czw 14:53, 08 Lis 2007    Temat postu:

Czarni za swoje porazki za swoj brak odpowiedzilanosci troski o innych zwala wine na wszystkich ale nie na siebi.
Apartheid odpowiedzialny za gwalty kobiet.
Czy kots w Polsce powiedzial ze za gwalty jest odpowiedzialna II wojna swiatowa. Zdarzaly sie gwalty, ale nie bylo ich pol miliona rocznie. To byl sporadyczny przypadek.
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PostWysłany: Śro 15:10, 14 Lis 2007    Temat postu: ekonomia rosnie a biedy coraz wiecej

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PostWysłany: Sob 19:41, 17 Lis 2007    Temat postu:

timss
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PostWysłany: Wto 14:31, 11 Gru 2007    Temat postu:

reading skills

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PostWysłany: Wto 22:59, 11 Gru 2007    Temat postu:

KZN teacher killers get two life sentences
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Mooiplaas calm after riots
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Man killed in fight about job status
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Body found in Siyabuswa
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PostWysłany: Wto 23:35, 11 Gru 2007    Temat postu:

'We need foreigners to teach South Africans'
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South Africa: Pandor Acts On Shock Reading Figures
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Annual reading test for young kids
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PostWysłany: Śro 9:29, 12 Gru 2007    Temat postu:

Commuters set train alight

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Birder stabbed in Paarl hide
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Granny forgives petrol killer
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PostWysłany: Śro 9:37, 12 Gru 2007    Temat postu:

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Cytat:
Structure of the Economy
South Africa Table of Contents
Gross Domestic Product
Historically, mining and agriculture contributed the most to national output. With government assistance during and after World War II, manufacturing grew to become the greatest contributor to overall gross domestic product, and overall economic growth in the 1960s rivaled that of Japan--averaging 5.9 percent per year in real terms (compared with the 4 percent annual average growth of the 1950s). During the 1970s, however, growth in both manufacturing and agriculture stagnated, and the services sector--especially the insurance industry, financial facilities, and transport services--became the fastest-growing economic sector (see table 5, Appendix).

The price of gold was allowed to float (relative to the rand) in the early 1970s, and by the end of the decade, high prices for gold and other export commodities sparked a brief economic recovery. Mining continued to be vital to the nation's economic future, because minerals, especially gold, dominated exports and influenced the growth of other major economic sectors, which relied on gold exports to bring in much-needed foreign exchange. Thus, even as the importance of gold in the GDP declined, it continued to affect the country's balance of payments. When gold prices (and export revenues) declined, local industries often were unable to obtain imports, such as machinery and other inputs necessary to maintain production; as a result, other exports also declined.

Economic growth slowed in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, not only because of declining gold revenues, but also because of rising prices for oil imports and increased international competition in other traditional export commodities. The first recession of this period occurred in 1976, following dramatic oil price hikes. Strong export growth based on higher gold prices helped the recovery from this recession, but the country was hit by a series of droughts in the 1980s, which seriously affected agricultural output. Further erratic changes in gold prices led to a series of booms and busts, reducing average annual GDP growth for the 1980s to only 1.5 percent.

Negligible growth in the 1980s led to an overall decline in living standards, as population growth far outpaced economic expansion. Per capita GDP declined by more than 10 percent during the decade, and for the average individual, real wealth in 1990 was no higher than it had been in 1970.

National economic stagnation continued in the early 1990s. GDP declined in 1991 and 1992, and registered only weak positive growth in 1993, according to the government's Central Statistical Service. Private consumption accounted for 57 percent of GDP in 1993, representing a minimal (0.4 percent) increase over 1992. Private consumption was constrained by high consumer indebtedness, however, and by concerns over violence and job security.

The recovery strengthened in 1994. In that year, GDP amounted to R432.8 billion (US$121.9 billion) representing 2.6 percent real growth over 1993 (see table 6, Appendix). Per capita GDP averaged about US$3,010, placing South Africa among the World Bank's (see Glossary) upper-middle-income developing countries. The recovery continued in 1995, and officials predicted GDP growth would exceed 4 percent in 1996 (see fig. 13; fig. 14).

National accounting procedures were adjusted in 1994 to incorporate the economies of the four former "independent" African homelands--Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei, and Venda. In addition, GDP measurements were adjusted upward by 5.6 percent to include a modest estimate of output in the informal sector, which had been omitted from national accounts until 1994. The informal sector constitutes a "parallel" economy, consisting primarily of unrecorded and untaxed wages, barter trade, and other unofficial receipts. For many rural families in South Africa, as in the rest of Africa, informal economic activity accounts for most of the household income.

South Africa's advanced industrial sector made it the twenty-fifth largest economy in the world, a giant among African countries in the 1990s. Per capita GDP, in 1994, compared with the rest of Africa, was topped only by the Seychelles, Réunion, and Gabon. With only about 7 percent of the population and 4 percent of the total land area of Africa, South Africa produced more than one-third of Africa's goods and services, and nearly 40 percent of its manufacturing output.

External Debt
Loan capital was readily available during the 1970s, and both the public and the private sectors borrowed heavily, often in the form of trade credits. Then in the early 1980s, foreign investments declined relative to the value of foreign loans needed to finance economic growth. As a result, equity capital dropped as a percentage of foreign debt from 60 percent in 1970 to less than 30 percent in 1984, while South Africa's loans grew from 40 percent to 70 percent of foreign debt. The government encouraged this trend by stepping in whenever foreign bankers hesitated to increase lending and stabilized indebtedness through gold swaps or by borrowing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF--see Glossary). As a result of these policies, South Africa's net indebtedness to the international banks increased sharply, and about two-thirds of its outstanding loans in 1984 had a maturity of one year or less. The banking sector was responsible for 44 percent of South Africa's foreign liabilities, and a further 16 percent had been incurred by the public sector. Only about 40 percent were private liabilities. Britain dominated foreign capital loans and investments, accounting for about 40 percent of foreign investment in 1985.

South Africa was hit with a major foreign debt crisis in 1985, when a group of banks, led by Chase Manhattan, withdrew substantial credit lines. The banks refused to roll over existing loans and called in many of the short-term loans. As a result, the value of the rand dropped precipitously, and the government temporarily closed its financial and foreign-exchange markets. Unable to meet debt obligations so suddenly, the government declared a standstill on repayments of approximately US$14 billion of South Africa's US$24 billion total external debt. Liabilities not included in the standstill were trade credits, loans from the IMF and central banks, and credits guaranteed by Paris Club (see Glossary) member governments. Publicly quoted issues of South African parastatals (state corporations) were also left out.

During the standstill, government officials met with representatives of creditor banks and drew up a rescheduling plan, which proposed extending the 1985 debt freeze until June 1987 and repaying 5 percent of the total outstanding by April 1987. An initial payment of US$420 million was made in mid-April 1986, but additional rescheduling agreements in 1987 and 1989 extended many of these loans. The 1989 agreement stipulated that the amount of debt remaining in those categories affected by the standstill, originally amounting to US$14 billion, would be reduced to roughly US$6 billion in four years.

A key problem in repaying its loans was the large, but undisclosed, portion of South Africa's debt that was denominated in hard nondollar currencies, but appreciated in dollar terms as the dollar weakened. South Africa nonetheless repaid between US$1.7 billion and US$1.9 billion of debt by 1990, and some foreign bankers were increasingly willing to refinance maturing South African credits. For example, US$300 million of US$900 million bearer bonds in deutsche marks and Swiss francs were rolled over or replaced in 1990.

There was almost no external borrowing by South Africa from 1985 to 1990, so even its slowed schedule of debt repayment made South Africa a net capital exporter during the late 1980s. South Africa reduced its total disclosed foreign debt to less than US$20 billion in early 1992, down from nearly US$24 billion in 1985, according to the South African Reserve Bank. Currency fluctuations brought South Africa's international debt back to US$25.8 billion at the end of 1993, including rand-denominated foreign debt, and that figure continued to increase in 1994.

The government repaid about US$500 million in foreign debt in February 1994. At that time, South Africa was considered an under-borrower by conventional financial criteria, with a foreign debt/export ratio of about 60 percent and a foreign debt/GDP ratio of 15.1 percent, according to South African Reserve Bank figures. Overall, South Africa posted a net capital inflow of more than R8 billion in the second half of 1994. Foreign borrowing increased in 1995, when gross foreign debt rose to nearly 22 percent of GDP.

Inflation
Historically, South Africa's inflation rate was tied closely to that of its major trading partners. In the 1960s, annual inflation averaged about 3 percent. In line with world trends, it rose above 10 percent in 1974 and fluctuated between 11 and 14 percent through the early 1980s. During the late 1980s, however, South Africa's inflation rates did not decline along with those of its Western trading partners. Inflation reached a high of 18.6 percent in 1986, forcing a depreciation of the rand, and it continued in double-digit amounts after that. The erratic price of oil--a crucial import bought on the black market because of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) sanctions--provided a consistent inflationary pressure.

Inflation continued to erode economic strength in the early 1990s, but declined to 9.1 percent in 1994. Inflation increased in early 1995 under pressure from new social spending, but declined to 8.7 percent by the end of the year. The lower rate of inflation resulted in part from a decline in food prices, the relative stability of the rand, and the lowering of import tariffs. Inflationary pressures persisted in the increase in credit purchases and strong labor demands.

Economic Distortions and Apartheid
National accounts in 1994 showed a sharp break with the past, as economic and legal data were reorganized to include citizens of all races and all jurisdictions, including former homelands. The interim constitution implemented in 1994 ended the use of racial categories to determine social and economic opportunity, but the economic system of the mid-1990s nonetheless continued to reflect some of the economic patterns that had developed during more than forty years of apartheid.

Creating the homelands and resettling people in them had drastically changed the country's population distribution and regional economic patterns in the 1970s and 1980s. Accounting for these anomalies caused confusion and obfuscation in economic data and analyses. Many homeland residents were barely able to support themselves, owing in part to the homelands' arid land, inferior roads and transportation, and overcrowding; some were therefore forced to travel great distances to work in "white" South Africa. Many of these workers were excluded from national accounts because they were not legal residents of South Africa.

It became increasingly clear in the 1980s that apartheid could not be implemented as decreed by law, and eventually many official and unofficial policies allowed some flexibility in its application. In 1986 the government called for "orderly urbanization," under which a limited numbers of blacks could live in officially "white" urban areas, as long as housing was available. Few black workers could afford to take advantage of this policy, however, and demographic trends did not change noticeably.

By the late 1980s, black poverty was so serious that the government began to take steps to alleviate some of the most dire impacts of apartheid. Government statistics then indicated that more than 16 million people were living below internationally determined minimum-subsistence levels. Using nutritional standards as an alternative measure, an estimated 2.3 million people were at severe risk from hunger and malnutrition. In 1988 the minister of national health and population development characterized the crisis as "worse than the Great Depression," and in response, the government initiated food programs and other social welfare initiatives.
More about the Economy of South Africa.
Source: U.S. Library of Congress
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Cytat:
Divisions in the White Community
South Africa Table of Contents
Increasing economic and political pressures caused splits in the white political parties. In 1968 Vorster had dismissed three conservatives from his cabinet. One of these, Albert Hertzog, a son of J.B.M. Hertzog, founded the Reconstituted National Party (Herstigte Nasionale Party--HNP). Hertzog and the HNP argued that no concessions should be made in pursuing the full implementation of apartheid, whereas Vorster and his allies argued that compromise was necessary. The split was commonly labeled a division between the verligtes (the enlightened) and the verkramptes (the narrow-minded), although the differences often seemed to be primarily tactical rather than ideological. The HNP contested elections in 1970 and in 1974 but without winning a single seat from Vorster. In 1978, however, the unfolding of a major national scandal brought about Vorster's downfall. An official investigation determined that Vorster, together with a small group of supporters including the head of the Security Police, General H.J. van den Bergh, had secretly and illegally used government funds to manipulate the news media in South Africa and to try to purchase newspapers overseas, including the Washington Star . Vorster resigned his position as prime minister for the largely ceremonial post of president; his preferred successor, Connie Mulder, was purged from the National Party, and P.W. Botha, minister of defence since 1966, became prime minister.

Botha, strongly supported by Afrikaner businessmen and by the armed forces leaders, initiated a self-styled program of reform. He tried to do away with aspects of "petty" apartheid that many had come to regard as unnecessarily offensive to blacks and to world opinion, such as the allocation of separate public facilities and the use of racially discriminatory signs to designate who could use the facilities. Hoping to develop a black middle class that would be impervious to the socialist message of the ANC, Botha also accepted in large part the recommendations of two government commissions appointed to investigate the way labor and pass laws were applied to Africans.

The Commission of Inquiry into Labour Legislation (Wiehahn Commission), established in the aftermath of the strike wave of the early 1970s, argued that blacks should be allowed to register trade unions and to have them recognized as part of the official conciliation process. The commission also recommended the elimination of statutory job reservation. Legislation incorporating these recommendations was passed in 1979 and resulted in a huge growth in African trade unionism in the early 1980s.

The Commission of Inquiry into Legislation Affecting the Utilisation of Manpower (Riekert Commission), accepting the fact that poverty in the homelands would continue to push tens of thousands of Africans into the cities, recommended in 1979 that instead of using the pass laws to punish Africans who were illegally entering urban areas, the government should prosecute employers and landlords if they gave jobs or housing to blacks who lacked documentary proof of their right to live in the cities. Botha accepted this recommendation, although it was not until eight years and more than 1 million arrests later that he introduced legislation abolishing the pass laws.

At the same time, Botha pursued harsh measures against those he deemed his enemies in order to ensure the maintenance of white power. The late 1970s and early 1980s were marked by numerous military interventions in the states bordering South Africa and by an extensive military and political campaign to eliminate SWAPO in Namibia. Within South Africa, vigorous police action and strict enforcement of security legislation resulted in hundreds of arrests and bannings and an effective end to the ANC's stepped-up campaign of sabotage in the 1970s. Botha also continued to support the homeland policy, arguing as his predecessors had done that Africans should exercise political rights only within what were deemed to be their own communities, which in the 1980s continued to be as small and fragmented as they had been in the 1950s.

Yet one issue loomed ever larger in the eyes of apartheid's architects, and that was the matter of demographics. Whereas whites had accounted for 21 percent of South Africa's population in 1936, by 1980 they constituted only 16 percent. Future projections estimated that by 2010 the white proportion would be less than 10 percent and falling, while the African population would make up 83 percent of the total and would be increasing. In light of these projections, Botha's government proposed in 1983 that political power in South Africa be shared among whites, coloureds, and Indians, with separate houses of parliament to be established for each racial group. This proposal caused angry opposition among a number of National Party members, sixteen of whom, including Andries Treurnicht, were expelled when they refused to sign a motion of confidence in Botha's leadership.

Treurnicht formed the Conservative Party of South Africa (CP), bringing together old enemies of Botha such as Connie Mulder and supporters of the verkrampte faction of the NP. Botha proceeded with his plans, calling for a referendum in which only white voters would be asked whether or not they approved of the prime minister's plans for constitutional change. Some liberal opponents of the government, such as Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, leader of the Progressive Federal Party (PFP), and Harry Oppenheimer, head of the Anglo American Corporation, denounced Botha's plans because they would permanently exclude Africans from having any political role in South Africa. Many other politicians and businessmen, English- and Afrikaans-speaking alike, argued that any change in apartheid would be an improvement. Most white voters agreed, and two-thirds of those who participated in the referendum voted "yes."


Cytat:
Education
South Africa Table of Contents
Schools in South Africa, as elsewhere, reflect society's political philosophy and goals. The earliest mission schools aimed to inculcate literacy and new social and religious values, and schools for European immigrants aimed to preserve the values of previous generations. In the twentieth century, the education system assumed economic importance as it prepared young Africans for low-wage labor and protected the privileged white minority from competition. From the 1950s to the mid-1990s, no other social institution reflected the government's racial philosophy of apartheid more clearly than the education system. Because the schools were required both to teach and to practice apartheid, they were especially vulnerable to the weaknesses of the system.

Many young people during the 1980s were committed to destroying the school system because of its identification with apartheid. Student strikes, vandalism, and violence seriously undermined the schools' ability to function. By the early 1990s, shortages of teachers, classrooms, and equipment had taken a further toll on education.

South Africa's industrial economy, with its strong reliance on capital-intensive development, provided relatively few prospects for employment for those who had only minimal educational credentials, or none at all. Nationwide literacy was less than 60 percent throughout the 1980s, and an estimated 500,000 unskilled and uneducated young people faced unemployment by the end of the decade, according to the respected Education Foundation. At the same time, job openings for highly skilled workers and managers far outpaced the number of qualified applicants. These problems were being addressed in the political reforms of the 1990s, but the legacies of apartheid--the insufficient education of the majority of the population and the backlog of deficiencies in the school system--promised to challenge future governments for decades, or perhaps generations.

Early Development
Many African societies placed strong emphasis on traditional forms of education well before the arrival of Europeans. Adults in Khoisan- and Bantu-speaking societies, for example, had extensive responsibilities for transmitting cultural values and skills within kinship-based groups and sometimes within larger organizations, villages, or districts. Education involved oral histories of the group, tales of heroism and treachery, and practice in the skills necessary for survival in a changing environment.

In many Nguni-speaking chiefdoms of southern Africa, highly regimented age-groups of young men acquired knowledge and skills vital to their survival and prestige under the instruction of respected military, religious, or political leaders. The socialization of women, although sometimes done within age-groups, was more often in small groups of siblings or cousins, and it emphasized domestic and agricultural skills necessary to the survival of the family. In all of these settings, the transmission of religious values was a vital element of education.

The socialization of African youth was sometimes interrupted by warfare or political upheaval. More serious disruptions occurred in the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century, when government policies drew large numbers of adult men away from their homes for long periods of employment in mines or urban industries. Women were heads of households for months or years at a time. And after apartheid became entrenched in the early 1950s, security forces sometimes removed entire villages from their land and relocated them to less desirable areas in the interest of white economic development.

The earliest European schools in South Africa were established in the Cape Colony in the late seventeenth century by Dutch Reformed Church elders committed to biblical instruction, which was necessary for church confirmation (see Early European Settlement, ch. 1). In rural areas, itinerant teachers (meesters ) taught basic literacy and math skills. British mission schools proliferated after 1799, when the first members of the London Missionary Society arrived in the Cape Colony.

Language soon became a sensitive issue in education. At least two dozen English-language schools operated in rural areas of the Cape Colony by 1827, but their presence rankled among devout Afrikaners, who considered the English language and curriculum irrelevant to rural life and Afrikaner values. Throughout the nineteenth century, Afrikaners resisted government policies aimed at the spread of the English language and British values, and many educated their children at home or in the churches.

After British colonial officials began encouraging families to emigrate from Britain to the Cape Colony in 1820, the Colonial Office screened applicants for immigration for background qualifications. They selected educated families, for the most part, to establish a British presence in the Cape Colony, and after their arrival, these parents placed a high priority on education. Throughout this time, most religious schools in the eastern Cape accepted Xhosa children who applied for admission, and in Natal many other Nguni-speaking groups sent their children to mission schools after the mid-nineteenth century. The government also financed teacher training classes for Africans as part of its pacification campaign throughout the nineteenth century.

By 1877 some 60 percent of school-age children in Natal were enrolled in school, as were 49 percent in the Cape Colony. In the Afrikaner republics, however, enrollments remained low--only 12 percent in the Orange Free State and 8 percent in the Transvaal--primarily the result of Afrikaner resistance to British education. Enrollments in these republics increased toward the end of the century, after the government agreed to the use of Afrikaans in the schools and to allow Afrikaner parents greater control over primary and secondary education.

By the late nineteenth century, three types of schools were receiving government assistance--ward schools, or small rural schools generally employing one teacher; district schools, providing primary-level education to several towns in an area; and a few secondary schools in larger cities. But during the last decades of that century, all four provinces virtually abolished African enrollment in government schools. African children attended mission schools, for the most part, and were taught by clergy or by lay teachers, sometimes with government assistance.

Higher education was generally reserved for those who could travel to Europe, but in 1829 the government established the multiracial South African College, which later became the University of Cape Town. Religious seminaries accepted a few African applicants as early as 1841. In 1852 British officials in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State acknowledged the right of Afrikaners to establish their own institutions of higher learning, and based on this understanding, Britain's incoming governor--Sir George Grey--allocated small sums of money to help fund Afrikaner institutions. The government established Grey College--later the University of the Orange Free State--in Bloemfontein in 1855 and placed it under the supervision of the Dutch Reformed Church. The Grey Institute was established in Port Elizabeth in 1856; Graaff-Reinet College was founded in 1860. The Christian College was founded at Potchefstroom in 1869 and was later incorporated into the University of South Africa and renamed Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education.

Following the British victory in the South African War, the new representative of the Crown, Sir Alfred Milner, brought thousands of teachers from Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to instill the English language and British cultural values, especially in the two former Afrikaner republics. To counter the British influence, a group of Afrikaner churches proposed an education program, Christian National Education, to serve as the core of the school curriculum. The government initially refused to fund schools adopting this program, but Jan C. Smuts, the Transvaal leader who later became prime minister, was strongly committed to reconciliation between Afrikaners and English speakers, and he favored local control over many aspects of education. Provincial autonomy in education was strengthened in the early twentieth century, and all four provincial governments used government funds primarily to educate whites.

The National Party (NP) was able to capitalize on the fear of racial integration in the schools to build its support. The NP's narrow election victory in 1948 gave Afrikaans new standing in the schools, and after that, all high-school graduates were required to be proficient in both Afrikaans and English. The NP government also reintroduced Christian National Education as the guiding philosophy of education.

Education under Apartheid
The Bantu Education Act
The Bantu Education Act (No. 47) of 1953 widened the gaps in educational opportunities for different racial groups. Two of the architects of Bantu education, Dr. W.M. Eiselen and Dr. Hendrik F. Verwoerd, had studied in Germany and had adopted many elements of National Socialist (Nazi) philosophy. The concept of racial "purity," in particular, provided a rationalization for keeping black education inferior. Verwoerd, then minister of native affairs, said black Africans "should be educated for their opportunities in life," and that there was no place for them "above the level of certain forms of labour." The government also tightened its control over religious high schools by eliminating almost all financial aid, forcing many churches to sell their schools to the government or close them entirely.

Christian National Education supported the NP program of apartheid by calling on educators to reinforce cultural diversity and to rely on "mother-tongue" instruction in the first years of primary school. This philosophy also espoused the idea that a person's social responsibilities and political opportunities are defined, in large part, by that person's ethnic identity. The government also gave strong management control to the school boards, who were elected by the parents in each district.

Official attitudes toward African education were paternalistic, based on trusteeship and segregation. Black education was not supposed to drain government resources away from white education. The number of schools for blacks increased during the 1960s, but their curriculum was designed to prepare children for menial jobs. Per-capita government spending on black education slipped to one-tenth of spending on whites in the 1970s. Black schools had inferior facilities, teachers, and textbooks.

Soweto and Its Aftermath
Tensions over language in education erupted into violence on June 16, 1976, when students took to the streets in the Johannesburg township of Soweto. Their action was prompted by the decision of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of the Bantu education system, to enforce a regulation requiring that one-half of all high-school classes must be taught in Afrikaans. A harsh police response resulted in the deaths of several children, some as young as eight or nine years old. In the violence that followed, more than 575 people died, at least 134 of them under the age of eighteen.

Youthful ANC supporters abandoned school in droves; some vowed to "make South Africa ungovernable" to protest against apartheid education. Others left the country for military training camps run by the ANC or other liberation armies, mostly in Angola, Tanzania, or Eastern Europe. "Liberation before education" became their battle cry.

The schools suffered further damage as a result of the unrest of 1976. Vandals and arsonists damaged or destroyed many schools and school property. Students who tried to attend school and their teachers were sometimes attacked, and administrators found it increasingly difficult to maintain normal school activities. Some teachers and administrators joined in the protests.

The National Policy for General Affairs Act (No. 76) of 1984 provided some improvements in black education but maintained the overall separation called for by the Bantu education system. This act gave the minister of national education authority to determine general policy for syllabuses, examinations, and certification qualifications in all institutions of formal and informal education. But responsibility for implementing these policies was divided among numerous government departments and offices, resulting in a bewildering array of educational authorities: For example, the Department of Education and Training was responsible for black education outside the homelands. Each of the three houses of parliament--for whites, coloureds, and Indians--had an education department for one racial group, and each of the ten homelands had its own education department. In addition, several other government departments managed specific aspects of education.

Education was compulsory for all racial groups, but at different ages, and the law was enforced differently. Whites were required to attend school between the ages of seven and sixteen. Black children were required to attend school from age seven until the equivalent of seventh grade or the age of sixteen, but this law was enforced only weakly, and not at all in areas where schools were unavailable. For Asians and coloured children, education was compulsory between the ages of seven and fifteen.

The discrepancies in education among racial groups were glaring. Teacher: pupil ratios in primary schools averaged 1:18 in white schools, 1:24 in Asian schools, 1:27 in coloured schools, and 1:39 in black schools. Moreover, whereas 96 percent of all teachers in white schools had teaching certificates, only 15 percent of teachers in black schools were certified. Secondary-school pass rates for black pupils in the nationwide, standardized high-school graduation exams were less than one-half the pass rate for whites.

As the government implemented the 1984 legislation, new violence flared up in response to the limited constitutional reforms that continued to exclude blacks (see Constitutional Change, ch. 4). Finally, the government began to signal its awareness that apartheid could not endure. By 1986 President P.W. Botha (1984-89) had stated that the concept of apartheid was "outdated," and behind-the-scenes negotiations had begun between government officials and imprisoned ANC leader Nelson Mandela. The gap between government spending on education for different racial groups slowly began to narrow, and penalties for defying apartheid rules in education began to ease.

The School System in the 1990s
Reorganizing education was one of the most daunting tasks the government faced as apartheid laws were being lifted in the 1990s. President Frederik W. (F.W.) de Klerk, in a speech to Parliament in January 1993, stressed the need for a nonracial school system, with enough flexibility to allow communities to preserve their religious and cultural values and their home language. De Klerk established the Education Co-ordination Service to manage education during the political transition of the 1990s, and he charged it with eliminating the bureaucratic duplication that had resulted from apartheid education.

In August 1993, de Klerk gathered together leading experts on education in the National Education and Training Forum to formulate a policy framework for restructuring education. Anticipating rising education costs, the government earmarked 23.5 percent of the national budget in fiscal year (FY--see Glossary) 1993-94 for education. It established new education offices and gave them specific responsibilities within the reorganization plan. When the new school year began in January 1995, all government-run primary and secondary schools were officially integrated, and the first stage of the transformation in education had begun almost without violence.

The new policies were difficult to implement, however, and many policy details remained to be worked out. Education was compulsory for all children between age seven and age sixteen, for example, but there had not been enough time or resources to provide adequate schools and teachers for the entire school-age population. The schools received government assistance for teachers' salaries only; they had to charge fees for equipment and supplies, but pupils who could not pay school fees could not be expelled from school.

In 1995 South Africa had a total of 20,780 primary and secondary schools. Of these, 20,303 belonged to the government, and 477 were private. In addition, 226 specialized schools were in operation for gifted pupils or students with special needs (see table 3, Appendix). More than 11 million pupils were enrolled, about 6.95 million in primary school and 4.12 million in secondary schools. The number of teachers in the regular primary and secondary schools was 344,083, of whom 226,900 were black. Of the white teachers, more than 60 percent were Afrikaners. Men teachers were paid substantially more than women; women's salaries averaged 83 percent of men's salaries for the same job with equal qualifications.

Higher Education
University-level education suffered under apartheid. When the NP came to power in 1948, there were ten government-subsidized institutions of higher learning--four with classes taught in English; four with classes taught in Afrikaans; one bilingual correspondence university; and the South African Native College at Fort Hare, in which most classes were taught in English but other languages were permitted. The four Afrikaans universities and one of the English-language universities (Rhodes University) admitted white students only. Students of all races attended the University of Cape Town, the University of the Witwatersrand, and the University of Natal, although some classes at these universities were segregated.

The Extension of University Education Act (No. 45) of 1959 prohibited established universities from accepting black students, except with the special permission of a cabinet minister. The government opened several new universities and colleges for black, coloured, and Indian students, and these students were allowed to attend a "white" university only if their "own" institutions became too overcrowded. The University of the North, established in 1959, for example, admitted students of Tsonga, Sotho, Venda, or Tswana descent only.

The 1959 law also gave the central government control over the South African Native College at Fort Hare (later the University of Fort Hare), and the government instituted a new policy of admitting Xhosa students only to that school. Several technikons (advanced-level technical schools) gave preference to students of one ethnic group. Overall, however, the 1959 legislation reduced opportunities for university education for blacks, and by 1978 only 20 percent of all university students in South Africa were black. During the 1980s, several university administrations, anticipating the dismal impact of the long-term racial biases in education, began admitting students from all racial groups.

As of the mid-1990s South Africa has twenty-one major universities, which are government-financed and open to students of all races. In addition, secondary-school graduates can attend one of fifteen technikons , 128 technical colleges, and seventy teacher-training colleges (which do not require high-school certificates for admission), or another in a wide array of teacher training institutions (see table 4, Appendix). Students in universities and teacher-training colleges numbered 362,000 in 1994, and the institutions themselves had 14,460 academic staff members. At technical colleges and technikons , students numbered 191,087, and teaching staff numbered 5,532.

Each university administration is headed by a government-appointed chancellor, the institution's senior authority; a vice chancellor; and a university council. The chancellor is often a civic leader or political figure whose primary function is to represent the university to the community. The university council, comprising members of the university and the community, names the vice chancellor or rector, who controls the administration of the institution. The vice chancellor generally holds office until age sixty-five.

The university senate manages academic and faculty affairs, under the vice chancellor's authority. Each university sets its own tuition costs and receives government funding based on student:faculty ratios and tuition receipts. The university academic year lasts thirty-six weeks; school terms and vacation periods are set by the university council. The government establishes general degree requirements, but the individual university's council and administration set specific requirements for each campus.

A variety of adult education opportunities are available. These include classes in basic literacy, in technical and vocational subjects, and in sports and leisure activities. Two universities, those of Cape Town and Witwatersrand, offer classes for instructors in adult education, and Witwatersrand has a course leading to a diploma for adult educators. Some of these programs are being reoriented in the 1990s to emphasize literacy training for the more than 8 million adults who cannot read.

Web countrystudies.us
Source: U.S. Library of Congress

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PostWysłany: Śro 10:03, 12 Gru 2007    Temat postu:

Photographers 'clubbed over the head'
Cytat:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=nw20071212081831898C872715
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PostWysłany: Śro 11:33, 12 Gru 2007    Temat postu:

Sports trip from hell for KZN kids
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PostWysłany: Czw 12:23, 13 Gru 2007    Temat postu:

Cytat:
Apartheid and overpopulation
For 45 years South African politics has been totally dominated by the issue of apartheid. Opponents of apartheid used every means possible to discredit and destroy the system, and that is perfectly understandable. As a result, however, apartheid has been blamed for many social ills that it had nothing to do with creating. For example, Barbara Klugman, an anthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, oversteps the facts when she attempts to prove that "overpopulation" in South Africa is a result of apartheid. To be fair, she does not argue that apartheid is entirely responsible; she believes some of the blame must be laid at the door of the developed nations of the world. She vigorously defends the people of Africa from the charge that poverty is the result of high birth rates. As noted earlier, this is one area where I agree with her.

To Klugman, the overpopulation issue is one of colonial exploitation and apartheid. Third World countries are poor because First World countries are rich. There is no mutually beneficial trade in her analysis. Trade is exploitation. She says:

the relative wealth of the First World derives directly from its use of Third World resources and Third World markets on terms of trade which have always been advantageous to the First World. It is incorrect to see the wealth of the First World, and the poverty of the Third World, as simple facts which bear no relation to each other. Klugman, in Going Green, p. 76.Note
Lord Bauer has debunked this myth quite thoroughly. He points out that the countries of the developed world were wealthy compared to so-called Third World nations long before they ever had contact with each other. First World wealth did not depend on Third World resources in the past, nor does it do so today. Various studies have shown that colonialism tended to be economically unprofitable for the colonial powers and that they spent more money on the colonies than they earned from them. In fact, contrary to Klugman's theory, the more trade Third World countries have with First World nations, the wealthier they become. If First World wealth is created by taking advantage of Third World nations, then those Third World nations with the least amount of international trade should be the wealthiest: Hong Kong and Singapore should be sinking into poverty whereas Zimbabwe and Cuba should be economic miracles. In the real world, of course, the facts are completely the reverse. Those Third World countries that have high economic growth and prosperity are also those countries that have the greatest amount of trade with the First World.

Klugman is a fervent critic of apartheid and it is a fairly safe bet that she supported trade sanctions against South Africa. Yet, according to her own theory, sanctions should have increased South Africa's wealth. If the First World exploits its Third World trading partners, then the greater the trade South Africa had with the First World the less capable the South African government would have been of implementing apartheid.

Like others on the left, Klugman sees overpopulation as a problem of resource distribution, not of resource production. Typically, the solution they offer is to confiscate the wealth of the First World and redistribute it, not to promote economic policies that would enable Third World countries to become prosperous and self-sufficient. According to their analysis, the crisis in Ethiopia should not be laid at the door of the Ethiopian Marxists who destroyed that nation: the real criminals are the wealthy people in North America and Europe who consume too much. The fact that Africa was once able to feed itself (under the evil colonialists whom Klugman despises) is irrelevant: the poverty/overpopulation problem is not caused by some people having too little, but by others having too much.

Klugman writes: "The argument that the poor of the Third World use proportionately more of the world's resources, while contributing less to the world's GDP, compounds the victim-blaming syndrome. People in the First World consume more resources than those in the Third World." Ibid.Note But that is not the point. The problem that Third World nations face is not how much they consume, but the fact that they are not able to produce a surplus. The First World is wealthy because it produces more than it consumes, thus allowing the accumulation of capital and other resources. The Third World is poor because it produces barely enough to survive, and sometimes not even that. What the wealthy and the poor consume relative to each other is unimportant. What is crucial is what each produces relative to what they, themselves, consume. What role did apartheid play in causing "overpopulation" in South Africa, according to Klugman? She simply asserts that apartheid laws "upset the balance between population and resources, and hence between population and the environment. Not only has it created massive inequalities in the use of resources, but it has also resulted in a high population growth rate." Ibid, p. 71.Note Does this argument make sense? If high population growth rates are caused by apartheid, then why are there high population growth rates in the rest of Africa where there is no apartheid? Why did England experience a soaring population growth rate during the industrial revolution? Why have there been high growth rates in virtually every poverty-stricken nation in the world when they first began to develop economically? The coloureds in South Africa were surely victims of apartheid as well, yet their population growth rate is almost identical to that of South African whites.

Klugman errs in equating high population density with overpopulation. Early in her essay she shows that countries with high population densities are not necessarily overpopulated. But then she says, "There is overcrowding because people have been forced into the `homelands' instead of being allowed to remain on the land on which they were born or move to urban areas." Ibid, p. 73.Note Now, of course, overpopulation and population density are not the same thing. Most African poverty is found in the less densely populated rural areas, not in areas of high population density like Hillbrow in Johannesburg. Africans continue to flood into Hillbrow because they have a better chance of improving their living standards. As I have pointed out earlier, high population density has certain economic advantages and that is true in South Africa as well. Apartheid, in fact, attempted to prevent blacks from moving from the less populated rural areas to the more densely populated cities.

Finally, Klugman attempts to debunk the claim that high population growth rates in South Africa are the result of lower mortality rates: "The other misconception held by the overpopulation theorists is that the population growth rate among Africans is high because the mortality rate has dropped through access to modern medicine." Ibid, p. 74.Note The way Klugman attempts to disprove this theory is to point out that black South Africans don't have the same access to medicine as do white South Africans. Again, she misses the point. What is relevant here is how much access black Africans have to medicine today compared to 20 years ago or 100 years ago. While black South Africans do not have the same access to medical care as whites, they have more access today than they did a hundred years ago, and mortality rates have declined. The average life expectancy in Africa for blacks has increased dramatically over the last 50 years. Africans today have more access to modern medicine than at any time in history, and as a result they are living longer. Since birth rates in Africa have remained steady, the increase in population density should be expected.

In her attempt to blame apartheid for overpopulation and poverty, Klugman distorts reality. "It is not population numbers that threaten South Africa, but the lack of access to resources on the one hand and the overconsumption of resources on the other. It is not the poor themselves who have caused their poverty, by having many children, but the practice of discrimination." Ibid, p. 77.Note

The causes of poverty are complex. Certainly discrimination alone is not sufficient to cause poverty, as the Jews and the Chinese have proved the world over. Moreover, the high population growth rates South Africa is experiencing are not at all unique--they have been experienced all over the world by many different societies, including all the nations currently deemed to be First World.

More importantly, the solution to these problems requires more than the dismantling of apartheid. A more equitable "distribution" of resources (i.e. socialist redistributive policies) is not the way to solve South Africa's, or the world's, remaining "overpopulation" problem. As we have seen, everywhere socialism has been tried, the problem grew worse because food production and resource recovery suffered severely. To solve its problems, South Africa must deregulate its heavily regulated economy and increase its trade with the First World. Instead of simply redistributing the relatively little wealth that already exists, South Africa needs a growing economy that creates new wealth. The only method yet discovered to do that is through the forces of a relatively free market with private property.
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PostWysłany: Pon 19:56, 07 Sty 2008    Temat postu:

Prezydent ANC i byc moze przyszly prezydent RPA wzial sobie czwarta zone.

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PostWysłany: Pią 11:04, 11 Sty 2008    Temat postu:

The World Cup Rugby champs will from now on be coached by a SPIES GOOIER Peter de Villiers.

This marks the decline of arsezanian rugby in a big way.

My predictions:

1. At least 12 of the 15 players will be black in 8 months.
2. All the white star players will go play contract rugby abroad.
3. arsezania will never win a world cup ever again.
4. In two years time, we will never win a match against any of the top 5 countries.
5. This decline will be blamed on the whites and apartheid again.


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PostWysłany: Wto 16:40, 22 Sty 2008    Temat postu:

Nie dowierzalam. Mowi ze za ANC zyje jej sie gorzej.
A przed ANC przeciez biali byli.

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Ostatnio zmieniony przez palmela dnia Pon 21:26, 10 Lis 2008, w całości zmieniany 2 razy
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PostWysłany: Pon 7:11, 28 Sty 2008    Temat postu:

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PostWysłany: Pon 13:59, 28 Sty 2008    Temat postu:

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PostWysłany: Pią 10:47, 01 Lut 2008    Temat postu:

Transkei 'roads collapsing'
11/01/2008 07:28 - (SA)
Cape Town - The infrastructure of the Transkei is collapsing, United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa has told President Thabo Mbeki in an open letter.

"When Transkeians supported change... they had a legitimate expectation that misery will, for the first time, be a thing of the past," he said in the letter, which he made public on Thursday.

"But alas that little infrastructure they had is now collapsing with no one trying to reconstruct it." Holomisa said he was writing to Mbeki in the hope that the president would raise the issue at a policy lekgotla planned by the African National Congress's national executive committee, which Cabinet ministers will also attend.
He said in the past three years service delivery had been drastically affected by infighting over succession in the ANC.

It was no coincidence that the Eastern Cape, one of the poorest provinces, had returned about R1.4bn unspent to the Treasury.
Holomisa said the N2 from Kei Bridge to Umzimkulu was "full of potholes", while roads leading to the Wild Coast, a tourism hub, were worse.
"You do not need to be a qualified engineer to confirm this view," he said.
"For example you can take a drive through towns like Butterworth (Gcuwa) and Mthatha and their suburbs where you are not welcomed by potholes but by ditches."
The same could be said about the electrification of the area, fresh water supply and the state of disrepair of health facilities.
"It is ... hoped that this will not only end up in files, but appropriate steps will be taken and a report back is made," Holomisa said.


Ostatnio zmieniony przez palmela dnia Pią 10:50, 01 Lut 2008, w całości zmieniany 1 raz
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PostWysłany: Pią 11:56, 01 Lut 2008    Temat postu:






Farmer severely assaulted
27/01/2008 10:50 - (SA)
Johannesburg - A farmer was severely assaulted in Rocklands, Port Elizabeth on Saturday night, police said on Sunday.

Police spokespers Johan Rheeder said seven men had attacked the farmer at Plot 7, Rocklands.

"They took his firearms and he was heavily assaulted. He was taken to hospital," Rheeder said.

The seven robbers initially used the farmer's vehicle to flee but hit a tree.
It is not known how they fled. The victim was alone at the time of the attack.
No arrests have been made, Rheeder said.

Cytat:

Man 'raped daughter's friend'
31/01/2008 18:19 - (SA)
Durban - A KwaMsane man was arrested for allegedly raping his daughter's ten-year-old friend, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Thursday.
Captain Jabulani Mdletshe said the incident took place at the Mapheleni Reserve in KwaMsane on Wednesday.
"The girl went to visit her friend and was ordered by her friend's father to come into the house," said Mdletshe.
She found that her friend was not at home and she was then raped, Mdletshe said. The matter was reported to police and the man was arrested on Wednesday afternoon.
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Cytat:
Damp squib strike runs riot
February 01 2008 at 07:57AM
Police used rubber bullets and pepper spray to control hundreds of agitated municipal workers who threw bottles and destroyed council property during Thursday's march to Cape Town's Civic Centre.
The SA Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu) said at least 12 of its members were injured and taken to hospital for treatment.
Two members, including senior union leader Leon Johannes, were arrested. Last night they were still being charged.
Almost 1 000 Samwu members turned over rubbish bins as they marched through the city centre to hand over a memorandum of grievances to Mayor Helen Zille.
But the city says Samwu will pick up the bill for cleaning up the mess and for any damage caused. "We will also be identifying individuals who have intimidated fellow staff members or broken other laws, and will take disciplinary steps against them," said city spokesperson Charles Cooper.

Meanwhile, Samwu said it was "disgusted and appalled" that its members were shot "at close range with plastic-coated steel bullets".

What started as a peaceful procession from Keizersgracht to the Civic Centre soon turned ugly as protesters turned over rubbish bins and threw litter in the streets. Some marchers started from Cape Town station, where rubbish bins were knocked over.

The march was part of Samwu's indefinite strike action against the City of Cape Town's staff placement and restructuring process, which it says is unilateral and illegal.

'There will be no peace in the city until Samwu's needs are met' Hertzog Boulevard was strewn with litter, upturned municipal bins and pieces of paper as the mass of protesters made their way towards the Civic Centre. Protesters tore up pieces of paper and threw bags containing rotting food on to the roads. In the midday sun, the smell of refuse was overwhelming.
They waved placards saying "Down with the racist Zille regime" and "No to Zille baasskap".Security was tight at the Civic Centre. The main doors to the building had been locked since early on Thursday morning. Only people who could prove they were there on official council business, were allowed to go in.
Outside, a barbed wire barricade prevented strikers from getting too close to the building, where curious council workers had gathered on the top steps to watch the proceedings.
Many of the strikers were spotted drinking beer and other types of alcohol while Samwu representatives spoke to the crowd.

Samwu organisers had their hands full trying to control unruly protesters who wanted to clamber on top of the main truck. Some strikers were clearly intoxicated, falling over themselves as they tried to provoke police.

Andre Adams, of Samwu, said the union was "relatively happy" with the turnout. He said more would have turned up if there had not been intimidation from the council. Workers had been warned that they risked losing wages or being suspended if they took part, he said.

But the city said there were incidents of non-striking staff being intimidated at several depots. Sport and recreation staff at the Kraaifontein depot were forced to take part in the strike, while staff were relocated from the Nyanga Housing office after they were harassed by strikers.

Cosatu's Tony Erhenreich said other unions would join the Samwu strikers in their protest. "Helen Zille must know that there will be no peace in the city until Samwu's needs are met." He said the DA-led administration was trying to reduce the levels of service with its staff restructuring.

The strikers demanded to hand over their grievances to Zille, but were informed by her head of security that she was at a lekgotla.

When the city's executive director, Mike Marsden, appeared to collect the document, the strikers became even more agitated and threw plastic containers and paper at him.

Samwu organisers tried to calm the crowd, saying that they would return again when Zille was available.

Adams said further action would be decided at a meeting next week.

The strikers continued their rampage as they returned to Keizersgracht Street. Some started throwing bottles at police and at council workers watching the protest from the Civic Centre's steps. A policeman warned: "One more bottle and we shoot."




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PostWysłany: Pon 18:04, 18 Lut 2008    Temat postu:

temik or two steps
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PostWysłany: Wto 9:00, 26 Lut 2008    Temat postu:

Cytat:
South Africa - A Wounded Nation
Sunday Herald – via africancrisis.co.za February 9, 2008

AFTER bathing in the warm, fuzzy glow of the Mandela years, South Africans today are deeply demoralised people. The lights are going out in homes, mines, factories and shopping malls as the national power authority, Eskom - suffering from mismanagement, lack of foresight, a failure to maintain power stations and a flight of skilled engineers to other countries - implements rolling power cuts that plunge towns and cities into daily chaos.

Major industrial projects are on hold. The only healthy enterprise now worth being involved in is the sale of small diesel generators to powerless households but even this business has run out of supplies and spare parts from China.

The currency, the rand, has entered freefall. Crime, much of it gratuitously violent, is rampant, and the national police chief faces trial for corruption and defeating the ends of justice as a result of his alleged deals with a local mafia kingpin and dealer in hard drugs.

Newly elected African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma, the state president-in-waiting, narrowly escaped being jailed for raping an HIV-positive woman last year, and faces trial later this year for soliciting and accepting bribes in connection with South Africa's shady multi-billion-pound arms deal with British, German and French weapons manufacturers.

One local newspaper columnist suggests that Zuma has done for South Africa's international image what Borat has done for Kazakhstan. ANC leaders in 2008 still speak in the spiritually dead jargon they learned in exile in pre-1989 Moscow, East Berlin and Sofia while promiscuously embracing capitalist icons - Mercedes 4x4s, Hugo Boss suits, Bruno Magli shoes and Louis Vuitton bags which they swing, packed with money passed to them under countless tables - as they wing their way to their houses in the south of France.

It all adds up to a hydra-headed crisis of huge proportions - a perfect storm as the Rainbow Nation slides off the end of the rainbow and descends in the direction of the massed ranks of failed African states. Eskom has warned foreign investors with millions to sink into big industrial and mining projects: we don't want you here until at least 2013, when new power stations will be built.

In the first month of this year, the rand fell 12% against the world's major currencies and foreign investors sold off more than £600 million worth of South African stocks, the biggest sell-off for more than seven years.

"There will be further outflows this month, because there won't be any news that will convince investors the local growth picture is going to change for the better," said Rudi van der Merwe, a fund manager at South Africa's Standard Bank.

Commenting on the massive power cuts, Trevor Gaunt, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Cape Town, who warned the government eight years ago of the impending crisis, said: "The damage is huge, and now South Africa looks just like the rest of Africa. Maybe it will take 20 years to recover."

The power cuts have hit the country's platinum, gold, manganese and high-quality export coal mines particularly hard, with no production on some days and only 40% to 60% on others.

"The shutdown of the mining industry is an extraordinary, unprecedented event," said Anton Eberhard, a leading energy expert and professor of business studies at the University of Cape Town.

"That's a powerful message, massively damaging to South Africa's reputation for new investment. Our country was built on the mines."

To examine how the country, widely hailed as Africa's last best chance, arrived at this parlous state, the particular troubles engulfing the Scorpions (the popular name of the National Prosecuting Authority) offers a useful starting point.

The elite unit, modelled on America's FBI and operating in close co-operation with Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO), is one of the big successes of post-apartheid South Africa. An independent institution, separate from the slipshod South African Police Service, the Scorpions enjoy massive public support.

The unit's edict is to focus on people "who commit and profit from organised crime", and it has been hugely successful in carrying out its mandate. It has pursued and pinned down thousands of high-profile and complex networks of national and international corporate and public fraudsters.

Drug kingpins, smugglers and racketeers have felt the Scorpions' sting. A major gang that smuggle platinum, South Africa's biggest foreign exchange earner, to a corrupt English smelting plant has been bust as the result of a huge joint operation between the SFO and the Scorpions. But the Scorpions, whose top men were trained by Scotland Yard, have been too successful for their own good.

The ANC government never anticipated the crack crimebusters would take their constitutional independence seriously and investigate the top ranks of the former liberation movement itself.

The Scorpions have probed into, and successfully prosecuted, ANC MPs who falsified their parliamentary expenses. They secured a jail sentence for the ANC's chief whip, who took bribes from the German weapons manufacturer that sold frigates and submarines to the South African Defence Force. They sent to jail for 15 years a businessman who paid hundreds of bribes to then state vice-president Jacob Zuma in connection with the arms deal. Zuma was found by the judge to have a corrupt relationship with the businessman, and now the Scorpions have charged Zuma himself with fraud, corruption, tax evasion, racketeering and defeating the ends of justice. His trial will begin in August.

The Scorpions last month charged Jackie Selebi, the national police chief, a close friend of state president Thabo Mbeki, with corruption and defeating the ends of justice. Commissioner Selebi, who infamously called a white police sergeant a "f***ing chimpanzee" when she failed to recognise him during an unannounced visit to her Pretoria station, has stepped down pending his trial.

But now both wings of the venomously divided ANC - ANC-Mbeki and ANC-Zuma - want the Scorpions crushed, ideally by June this year. The message this will send to the outside world is that South Africa's rulers want only certain categories of crime investigated, while leaving government ministers and other politicians free to stuff their already heavily lined pockets.

No good reason for emasculating the Scorpions has been put forward. "That's because there isn't one," said Peter Bruce, editor of the influential Business Day, South Africa's equivalent of, and part-owned by, The Financial Times, in his weekly column.

"The Scorpions are being killed off because they investigate too much corruption that involves ANC leaders. It is as simple and ugly as that," he added.
The demise of the Scorpions can only exacerbate South Africa's out-of-control crime situation, ranked for its scale and violence only behind Colombia. Everyone has friends and acquaintances who have had guns held to their heads by gangsters, who also blow up ATM machines and hijack security trucks, sawing off their roofs to get at the cash.

In the past few days my next-door neighbour, John Matshikiza, a distinguished actor who trained at the Royal Shakespeare Company and is the son of the composer of the South African musical King Kong, had been violently attacked, and friends visiting from Zimbabwe had their car stolen outside my front window in broad daylight.

My friends flew home to Zimbabwe without their car and the tinned food supplies they had bought to help withstand their country's dire political and food crisis and 27,000% inflation. Matshikiza, a former member of the Glasgow Citizens Theatre company, was held up by three gunmen as he drove his car into his garage late at night. He gave them his car keys, wallet, cellphone and luxury watch and begged them not to harm his partner, who was inside the house.

As one gunman drove the car away, the other two beat Matshikiza unconscious with broken bottles, and now his head is so comprehensively stitched that it looks like a map of the London Underground.

These assaults were personal, but mild compared with much commonplace crime.

Last week, for example, 18-year-old Razelle Botha, who passed all her A-levels with marks of more than 90% and was about to train as a doctor, returned home with her father, Professor Willem Botha, founder of the geophysics department at the University of Pretoria, from buying pizzas for the family. Inside the house, armed gunmen confronted them. They shot Professor Botha in the leg and pumped bullets into Razelle.

One severed her spine. Now she is fighting for her life and will never walk again, and may never become a doctor. The gunmen stole a laptop computer and a camera.

Feeding the perfect storm are the two centres of ANC power in the country at the moment. On the one hand, there is the ANC in parliament, led by President Mbeki, who last Friday gave a state-of-the-nation address and apologised to the country for the power crisis.

Mbeki made only the briefest of mentions of the national Aids crisis, with more than six million people HIV-positive. He did not address the Scorpions crisis. The collapsing public hospital system, under his eccentric health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, an alcoholic who recently jumped the public queue for a liver transplant, received no attention. And the name Jacob Zuma did not pass his lips.

Last December Mbeki and Zuma stood against each other for the leadership of the ANC at the party's five-yearly electoral congress. Mbeki, who cannot stand again as state president beyond next year's parliamentary and presidential elections, hoped to remain the power behind the throne of a new state president of his choosing.

Zuma, a Zulu populist with some 20 children by various wives and mistresses, hoped to prove that last year's rape case, and the trial he faces this year for corruption and other charges, were part of a plot by Mbeki to use state institutions to discredit him. Mbeki assumed that the notion of Zuma assuming next year the mantle worn by Nelson Mandela as South Africa's first black state president would be so appalling to delegates, a deeply sad and precipitous decline, that his own re-election as ANC leader was a shoo-in.

But Mbeki completely miscalculated his own unpopularity - his perceived arrogance, failure to solve health and crime problems, his failure to deliver to the poor - and he lost. Now Zuma insists that he is the leader of the country and ANC MPs in parliament must take its orders from him, while Mbeki soldiers on until next year as state president, ordering MPs to toe his line.

Greatly understated, it is a mess. Its scale will be dramatically illustrated if South Africa's hosting of the 2010 World Cup is withdrawn by Fifa, the world football body.

Already South African premier league football evening games are being played after midnight because power for floodlights cannot be guaranteed before that time. Justice Malala, one of the country's top newspaper columnists, has called on Fifa to end the agony quickly.

"I don't want South Africa to host the football World Cup because there is no culture of responsibility in this country," he wrote in Johannesburg's bestselling Sunday Times.

"The most outrageous behaviour and incompetence is glossed over. No-one is fired. I have had enough of this nonsense, of keeping quiet and ignoring the fact that the train is about to run us over.

"It is increasingly clear that our leaders are incapable of making a success of it. Scrap the thing and give it to Australia, Germany or whoever will spare us the ignominy of watching things fall apart here - football tourists being held up and shot, the lights going out, while our politicians tell us everything is all right."
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April 01, 2008 Est 1999 Scotland's award-winning independent newspaper HOMENewsInternationalOpinion & DebateSportBusinessArtsLifeCars+ Wounded Nation
The lights are literally and figuratively going out all over South Africa as crime, corruption and mismanagement push the rainbow country towards becoming another failed african state. By Fred Bridgland in Johannesburg
Comment | Read Comments (154)
AFTER BATHING in the warm, fuzzy glow of the Mandela years, South Africans today are deeply demoralised people. The lights are going out in homes, mines, factories and shopping malls as the national power authority, Eskom - suffering from mismanagement, lack of foresight, a failure to maintain power stations and a flight of skilled engineers to other countries - implements rolling power cuts that plunge towns and cities into daily chaos.

Major industrial projects are on hold. The only healthy enterprise now worth being involved in is the sale of small diesel generators to powerless households but even this business has run out of supplies and spare parts from China.

The currency, the rand, has entered freefall. Crime, much of it gratuitously violent, is rampant, and the national police chief faces trial for corruption and defeating the ends of justice as a result of his alleged deals with a local mafia kingpin and dealer in hard drugs.

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Newly elected African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma, the state president-in-waiting, narrowly escaped being jailed for raping an HIV-positive woman last year, and faces trial later this year for soliciting and accepting bribes in connection with South Africa's shady multi-billion-pound arms deal with British, German and French weapons manufacturers.

One local newspaper columnist suggests that Zuma has done for South Africa's international image what Borat has done for Kazakhstan. ANC leaders in 2008 still speak in the spiritually dead jargon they learned in exile in pre-1989 Moscow, East Berlin and Sofia while promiscuously embracing capitalist icons - Mercedes 4x4s, Hugo Boss suits, Bruno Magli shoes and Louis Vuitton bags which they swing, packed with money passed to them under countless tables - as they wing their way to their houses in the south of France.

It all adds up to a hydra-headed crisis of huge proportions - a perfect storm as the Rainbow Nation slides off the end of the rainbow and descends in the direction of the massed ranks of failed African states. Eskom has warned foreign investors with millions to sink into big industrial and mining projects: we don't want you here until at least 2013, when new power stations will be built.

In the first month of this year, the rand fell 12% against the world's major currencies and foreign investors sold off more than £600 million worth of South African stocks, the biggest sell-off for more than seven years.

"There will be further outflows this month, because there won't be any news that will convince investors the local growth picture is going to change for the better," said Rudi van der Merwe, a fund manager at South Africa's Standard Bank.

Commenting on the massive power cuts, Trevor Gaunt, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Cape Town, who warned the government eight years ago of the impending crisis, said: "The damage is huge, and now South Africa looks just like the rest of Africa. Maybe it will take 20 years to recover."

The power cuts have hit the country's platinum, gold, manganese and high-quality export coal mines particularly hard, with no production on some days and only 40% to 60% on others.

"The shutdown of the mining industry is an extraordinary, unprecedented event," said Anton Eberhard, a leading energy expert and professor of business studies at the University of Cape Town.

"That's a powerful message, massively damaging to South Africa's reputation for new investment. Our country was built on the mines."

To examine how the country, widely hailed as Africa's last best chance, arrived at this parlous state, the particular troubles engulfing the Scorpions (the popular name of the National Prosecuting Authority) offers a useful starting point.

The elite unit, modelled on America's FBI and operating in close co-operation with Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO), is one of the big successes of post-apartheid South Africa. An independent institution, separate from the slipshod South African Police Service, the Scorpions enjoy massive public support.

The unit's edict is to focus on people "who commit and profit from organised crime", and it has been hugely successful in carrying out its mandate. It has pursued and pinned down thousands of high-profile and complex networks of national and international corporate and public fraudsters.

Drug kingpins, smugglers and racketeers have felt the Scorpions' sting. A major gang that smuggle platinum, South Africa's biggest foreign exchange earner, to a corrupt English smelting plant has been bust as the result of a huge joint operation between the SFO and the Scorpions. But the Scorpions, whose top men were trained by Scotland Yard, have been too successful for their own good.

The ANC government never anticipated the crack crimebusters would take their constitutional independence seriously and investigate the top ranks of the former liberation movement itself.

The Scorpions have probed into, and successfully prosecuted, ANC MPs who falsified their parliamentary expenses. They secured a jail sentence for the ANC's chief whip, who took bribes from the German weapons manufacturer that sold frigates and submarines to the South African Defence Force. They sent to jail for 15 years a businessman who paid hundreds of bribes to then state vice-president Jacob Zuma in connection with the arms deal. Zuma was found by the judge to have a corrupt relationship with the businessman, and now the Scorpions have charged Zuma himself with fraud, corruption, tax evasion, racketeering and defeating the ends of justice. His trial will begin in August.

The Scorpions last month charged Jackie Selebi, the national police chief, a close friend of state president Thabo Mbeki, with corruption and defeating the ends of justice. Commissioner Selebi, who infamously called a white police sergeant a "f***ing chimpanzee" when she failed to recognise him during an unannounced visit to her Pretoria station, has stepped down pending his trial.

But now both wings of the venomously divided ANC - ANC-Mbeki and ANC-Zuma - want the Scorpions crushed, ideally by June this year. The message this will send to the outside world is that South Africa's rulers want only certain categories of crime investigated, while leaving government ministers and other politicians free to stuff their already heavily lined pockets.

No good reason for emasculating the Scorpions has been put forward. "That's because there isn't one," said Peter Bruce, editor of the influential Business Day, South Africa's equivalent of, and part-owned by, The Financial Times, in his weekly column.

"The Scorpions are being killed off because they investigate too much corruption that involves ANC leaders. It is as simple and ugly as that," he added.

The demise of the Scorpions can only exacerbate South Africa's out-of-control crime situation, ranked for its scale and violence only behind Colombia. Everyone has friends and acquaintances who have had guns held to their heads by gangsters, who also blow up ATM machines and hijack security trucks, sawing off their roofs to get at the cash.

In the past few days my next-door neighbour, John Matshikiza, a distinguished actor who trained at the Royal Shakespeare Company and is the son of the composer of the South African musical King Kong, had been violently attacked, and friends visiting from Zimbabwe had their car stolen outside my front window in broad daylight.

My friends flew home to Zimbabwe without their car and the tinned food supplies they had bought to help withstand their country's dire political and food crisis and 27,000% inflation. Matshikiza, a former member of the Glasgow Citizens Theatre company, was held up by three gunmen as he drove his car into his garage late at night. He gave them his car keys, wallet, cellphone and luxury watch and begged them not to harm his partner, who was inside the house.

As one gunman drove the car away, the other two beat Matshikiza unconscious with broken bottles, and now his head is so comprehensively stitched that it looks like a map of the London Underground.

These assaults were personal, but mild compared with much commonplace crime.

Last week, for example, 18-year-old Razelle Botha, who passed all her A-levels with marks of more than 90% and was about to train as a doctor, returned home with her father, Professor Willem Botha, founder of the geophysics department at the University of Pretoria, from buying pizzas for the family. Inside the house, armed gunmen confronted them. They shot Professor Botha in the leg and pumped bullets into Razelle.

One severed her spine. Now she is fighting for her life and will never walk again, and may never become a doctor. The gunmen stole a laptop computer and a camera.

Feeding the perfect storm are the two centres of ANC power in the country at the moment. On the one hand, there is the ANC in parliament, led by President Mbeki, who last Friday gave a state-of-the-nation address and apologised to the country for the power crisis.

Mbeki made only the briefest of mentions of the national Aids crisis, with more than six million people HIV-positive. He did not address the Scorpions crisis. The collapsing public hospital system, under his eccentric health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, an alcoholic who recently jumped the public queue for a liver transplant, received no attention. And the name Jacob Zuma did not pass his lips.

Last December Mbeki and Zuma stood against each other for the leadership of the ANC at the party's five-yearly electoral congress. Mbeki, who cannot stand again as state president beyond next year's parliamentary and presidential elections, hoped to remain the power behind the throne of a new state president of his choosing.

Zuma, a Zulu populist with some 20 children by various wives and mistresses, hoped to prove that last year's rape case, and the trial he faces this year for corruption and other charges, were part of a plot by Mbeki to use state institutions to discredit him. Mbeki assumed that the notion of Zuma assuming next year the mantle worn by Nelson Mandela as South Africa's first black state president would be so appalling to delegates, a deeply sad and precipitous decline, that his own re-election as ANC leader was a shoo-in.

But Mbeki completely miscalculated his own unpopularity - his perceived arrogance, failure to solve health and crime problems, his failure to deliver to the poor - and he lost. Now Zuma insists that he is the leader of the country and ANC MPs in parliament must take its orders from him, while Mbeki soldiers on until next year as state president, ordering MPs to toe his line.

Greatly understated, it is a mess. Its scale will be dramatically illustrated if South Africa's hosting of the 2010 World Cup is withdrawn by Fifa, the world football body.

Already South African premier league football evening games are being played after midnight because power for floodlights cannot be guaranteed before that time. Justice Malala, one of the country's top newspaper columnists, has called on Fifa to end the agony quickly.

"I don't want South Africa to host the football World Cup because there is no culture of responsibility in this country," he wrote in Johannesburg's bestselling Sunday Times.

"The most outrageous behaviour and incompetence is glossed over. No-one is fired. I have had enough of this nonsense, of keeping quiet and ignoring the fact that the train is about to run us over.

"It is increasingly clear that our leaders are incapable of making a success of it. Scrap the thing and give it to Australia, Germany or whoever will spare us the ignominy of watching things fall apart here - football tourists being held up and shot, the lights going out, while our politicians tell us everything is all right."


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Posted by: wintermute, St Andrews on 12:02am Sun 10 Feb 08
[link widoczny dla zalogowanych] cks.blogspot.com
[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]
cks.blogspot.comQuote | Report this postPosted by: Wullie on 3:21am Sun 10 Feb 08
Sadly it would appear that South Africa may be going the way of Rhodesia and all of the other failed African states. But that is the way of African politics and African culture. Relative democracy and stable societies are unfortunately hard to find in the African continent despite that continent's natural wealth.
Sadly it would appear that South Africa may be going the way of Rhodesia and all of the other failed African states.

But that is the way of African politics and African culture. Relative democracy and stable societies are unfortunately hard to find in the African continent despite that continent's natural wealth.Quote | Report this postPosted by: C MacAoidh, South Africa on 4:54am Sun 10 Feb 08
It must be a bit worrying for someone sitting in Scotland reading this article. But just think of this poor guy who spent 20 years in Glasgow, 20 years in Rhodesia, 24 years in South Africa and now wondering, "Where to next". The really sad thing is that the article is accurate!
It must be a bit worrying for someone sitting in Scotland reading this article. But just think of this poor guy who spent 20 years in Glasgow, 20 years in Rhodesia, 24 years in South Africa and now wondering, "Where to next". The really sad thing is that the article is accurate!Quote | Report this postPosted by: Brian J Deller, Marbella Spain on 5:57am Sun 10 Feb 08
As someone who "escaped" South Africa in 1999, after optimistically staying on for 5 yrs.(living there for 25 yrs) after the ANC came to power, and then realising that the new SA is another Zimbabwe in the making, I now wonder who the real racists are. Those who know Africa and were in power with plans to develop it correctly for the benefit of everybody, even if it took 100 yrs. or those who patronisingly called its successful white government racist and condemned yet another African country to abject poverty. My money is on the latter. As with Zim. many blacks will pine for the days of Apartheid when they could afford to live, were not constantly in danger of being murdered, robbed or raped by criminals including those in the ANC, and when the SA Rand was worth something. Shame on all those who are now proven to be the racists who were wrong: unless, of course to kill and impoverish blacks was your plan all along.
As someone who "escaped" South Africa in 1999, after optimistically staying on for 5 yrs.(living there for 25 yrs) after the ANC came to power, and then realising that the new SA is another Zimbabwe in the making, I now wonder who the real racists are. Those who know Africa and were in power with plans to develop it correctly for the benefit of everybody, even if it took 100 yrs. or those who patronisingly called its successful white government racist and condemned yet another African country to abject poverty. My money is on the latter. As with Zim. many blacks will pine for the days of Apartheid when they could afford to live, were not constantly in danger of being murdered, robbed or raped by criminals including those in the ANC, and when the SA Rand was worth something. Shame on all those who are now proven to be the racists who were wrong: unless, of course to kill and impoverish blacks was your plan all along.Quote | Report this postPosted by: john, Hong Kong on 6:05am Sun 10 Feb 08
An all to familiar picture of post colonial Africa.Every country that gained independance has regressed in real terms.The answer though is maybe not to judge these states by European standards.
An all to familiar picture of post colonial Africa.Every country that gained independance has regressed in real terms.The answer though is maybe not to judge these states by European standards.Quote | Report this postPosted by: Marvin Caldwell-Barr, Kempton Park, South Africa on 7:04am Sun 10 Feb 08
This ANC government has put the country on the slippery slope, gravity has taken over and there's only one way to go: straight down to the bottom. Sadly, it seems to be inevitable in Africa. And a lot of people are saying, "We told you so."
This ANC government has put the country on the slippery slope, gravity has taken over and there's only one way to go: straight down to the bottom. Sadly, it seems to be inevitable in Africa. And a lot of people are saying, "We told you so."Quote | Report this postPosted by: I'm no really here on 12:26pm Sun 10 Feb 08
What's the difference between South Africa and the Titanic? The Titanic sank with it's light still on. The Rand has lost R2 against the pound in the week following the Government's declared Emergency Crisis. If you are coming over for the World Cup in 2010, there is no point now in asking you to switch off the lights when you leave. No longer South Africa - more like South Zimbabwe.
What's the difference between South Africa and the Titanic? The Titanic sank with it's light still on.

The Rand has lost R2 against the pound in the week following the Government's declared Emergency Crisis.

If you are coming over for the World Cup in 2010, there is no point now in asking you to switch off the lights when you leave. No longer South Africa - more like South Zimbabwe.Quote | Report this postPosted by: Scamp on 1:18pm Sun 10 Feb 08
There's no doubt in my own mind that the decolonisation of Africa happened probably 100 years too early. Even Kenya which was held up as an example of African democracy has slipped back into what is effectively tribal warfare. The fault lies I'm afraid with the USA and the PC brigade. The USA insisted on the UK giving up its African and other colonies after WW2 because it was intent on destroying our global influence. The PC brigade simply took the naive view that it was entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. Still, too late now. The damage is done and only if and when some genuinely democratic African leaders that don't suffer from a chip on their should rise up out of this mess and take charge can I see there being any real improvement.
There's no doubt in my own mind that the decolonisation of Africa happened probably 100 years too early. Even Kenya which was held up as an example of African democracy has slipped back into what is effectively tribal warfare.

The fault lies I'm afraid with the USA and the PC brigade. The USA insisted on the UK giving up its African and other colonies after WW2 because it was intent on destroying our global influence. The PC brigade simply took the naive view that it was entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Still, too late now. The damage is done and only if and when some genuinely democratic African leaders that don't suffer from a chip on their should rise up out of this mess and take charge can I see there being any real improvement. Quote | Report this postPosted by: Lobeydosser, Woodlands Road on 2:00pm Sun 10 Feb 08
When the 'white flight' starts (if it has not started already), will we, as Scots, be ready and willing to receive them and use their knowledge, skills and experience for our benefit?
When the 'white flight' starts (if it has not started already), will we, as Scots, be ready and willing to receive them and use their knowledge, skills and experience for our benefit?Quote | Report this postPosted by: Walton, Glasgow on 2:22pm Sun 10 Feb 08
As a white South African living Scotland, it's always interesting to observe reports of my country's immanent demise in the papers. It's also really sad how all the racists and Afro-pessimists crawl out of their holes, rubbing their greasy paws with glee at yet more evidence of African failure. I am surprised that Bridgland's one-sided, simplistic and factually inaccurate article even got published. He simply parrots the views of South Africa's white opposition party, and ignores the perspectives of the Black majority. It is true that there is a lot seriously wrong with South Africa - one of the reasons I am in temporary exile. I am also appalled at the South African government, which has delivered so much less than we hoped for. Yet I visit South Africa regularly (I was there when Zuma beat Mbeki to become ANC president), and the reality is far more complex and nuanced than this article suggests. Despite serious problems, the country is far from a lot cause. Despite everything, the country today is infinitely better than it was under apartheid, and it is still a work in progress. To suggest that South Africa is heading the way of Zimbabwe and other failed African states is an ignorance and superficiality of analysis that is astounding in an international correspondent - Bridgland doesn't deserve to write for newspapers if he can't come up with better than his pessimistic tales of woe. I have more faith in South Africa's future than in Britain's. It's the UK that really frightens me, with it's addiction to war, overblown sense of importance and the intrusive surveillance of all it's citizens.
As a white South African living Scotland, it's always interesting to observe reports of my country's immanent demise in the papers.

It's also really sad how all the racists and Afro-pessimists crawl out of their holes, rubbing their greasy paws with glee at yet more evidence of African failure.

I am surprised that Bridgland's one-sided, simplistic and factually inaccurate article even got published. He simply parrots the views of South Africa's white opposition party, and ignores the perspectives of the Black majority.

It is true that there is a lot seriously wrong with South Africa - one of the reasons I am in temporary exile. I am also appalled at the South African government, which has delivered so much less than we hoped for.

Yet I visit South Africa regularly (I was there when Zuma beat Mbeki to become ANC president), and the reality is far more complex and nuanced than this article suggests. Despite serious problems, the country is far from a lot cause.

Despite everything, the country today is infinitely better than it was under apartheid, and it is still a work in progress.

To suggest that South Africa is heading the way of Zimbabwe and other failed African states is an ignorance and superficiality of analysis that is astounding in an international correspondent - Bridgland doesn't deserve to write for newspapers if he can't come up with better than his pessimistic tales of woe.

I have more faith in South Africa's future than in Britain's. It's the UK that really frightens me, with it's addiction to war, overblown sense of importance and the intrusive surveillance of all it's citizens.Quote | Report this postPosted by: James, Cape Town on 3:29pm Sun 10 Feb 08
Thank you Walton. I couldn't agree more. This article as well a many of the comments are ludicrously inaccurate. What I would suggest to them is to stay where you are. We'll enjoy all the wonderful things SA has to offer quite well without you!
Thank you Walton. I couldn't agree more. This article as well a many of the comments are ludicrously inaccurate.

What I would suggest to them is to stay where you are. We'll enjoy all the wonderful things SA has to offer quite well without you!Quote | Report this postPosted by: ally on 4:16pm Sun 10 Feb 08
If Walton feels that Britain really frightens him,what is he doing here? Nobody is forcing him to stay.
If Walton feels that Britain really frightens him,what is he doing here? Nobody is forcing him to stay.Quote | Report this postPosted by: Graham, Johannesburg on 7:14pm Sun 10 Feb 08
I'm Ex pat Uk living here since 1980.That article basically sums up the whole situation.I've tried to be positive in my attitude so far but am so fed up now that i'm considering moving back to europe.There is so much inaptitude here in all levels of service delivery.This Eskom story is the icing on the cake.Its ridiculous.
I'm Ex pat Uk living here since 1980.That article basically sums up the whole situation.I've tried to be positive in my attitude so far but am so fed up now that i'm considering moving back to europe.There is so much inaptitude here in all levels of service delivery.This Eskom story is the icing on the cake.Its ridiculous. Quote | Report this postPosted by: Amir Mizroch, Israel on 9:32pm Sun 10 Feb 08
This is what I'm hearing from a few people in the JHB Jewish community. [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] .com/2008/02/08/crie s-from-the-beloved-c ountry-part-ii/
This is what I'm hearing from a few people in the JHB Jewish community.

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]
.com/2008/02/08/crie
s-from-the-beloved-c
ountry-part-ii/Quote | Report this postPosted by: Oscar, durban on 7:27am Mon 11 Feb 08
Thanks Walton of Glasgow. This article is written by one of the pessimists. People who cant take problems and turn them into chalenges. There really is nothin impossible. We'l hv no recession, we'l hv Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth. May some of those who think we'r going Zim's way do what is noble and offer good suggestions on the available platforms. Else, SA is democratic and they hv all the rights to either stay or leave. However I am on the side of staying and solving this together with us. Not always fleeing away from challenges in cowardice.
Thanks Walton of Glasgow. This article is written by one of the pessimists. People who cant take problems and turn them into chalenges. There really is nothin impossible. We'l hv no recession, we'l hv Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth. May some of those who think we'r going Zim's way do what is noble and offer good suggestions on the available platforms. Else, SA is democratic and they hv all the rights to either stay or leave. However I am on the side of staying and solving this together with us. Not always fleeing away from challenges in cowardice.Quote | Report this postPosted by: oscar, durban on 7:43am Mon 11 Feb 08
Cytat:
[bold]Oscar[/bold] wrote: Thanks Walton of Glasgow. This article is written by one of the pessimists. People who cant take problems and turn them into chalenges. There really is nothin impossible. We'l hv no recession, we'l hv Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth. May some of those who think we'r going Zim's way do what is noble and offer good suggestions on the available platforms. Else, SA is democratic and they hv all the rights to either stay or leave. However I am on the side of staying and solving this together with us. Not always fleeing away from challenges in cowardice.
Not:'we'l hv Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth'. But: 'we'l hv NO Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth' Thank you.
Oscar wrote:
Thanks Walton of Glasgow. This article is written by one of the pessimists. People who cant take problems and turn them into chalenges. There really is nothin impossible. We'l hv no recession, we'l hv Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth. May some of those who think we'r going Zim's way do what is noble and offer good suggestions on the available platforms. Else, SA is democratic and they hv all the rights to either stay or leave. However I am on the side of staying and solving this together with us. Not always fleeing away from challenges in cowardice.
Not:'we'l hv Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth'.

But: 'we'l hv NO Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth'
Thank you.
Quote | Report this postPosted by: Kieran, Kingston, Jamaica on 4:37pm Mon 11 Feb 08
"Our country was built on the mines." Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but the mining industry was built on the backs of poorly paid, overworked and mistreated black workers. Bridgeland, please keep in mind that some newspaper readers are intelligent, well informed people. If you are unaware that the problems in SA are far more complex than your article suggests, and that the cause of these problems will not be remedied by parodying European models of governance, you should perhaps consider another line of work. In all seriousness, I would love to read a report on what positive activities you have seen or been involved with. I am a Scott living in Jamaica, and understand the frustration of living in a country wracked by violence, poverty, corruption, power-cuts, inflation.... I think it's time we all look a little further, and dig a little deeper to find solutions. I am happy that Walton is living in Glasgow, and free to criticize British society, it should be criticized, the UK and the US is currently wreaking havoc on the globe with it's warfare and destruction, at the expense of it's taxpayers. It is true the economies of the UK and the US are addicted to war, and have been for a very long time.
"Our country was built on the mines."

Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but the mining industry was built on the backs of poorly paid, overworked and mistreated black workers.

Bridgeland, please keep in mind that some newspaper readers are intelligent, well informed people. If you are unaware that the problems in SA are far more complex than your article suggests, and that the cause of these problems will not be remedied by parodying European models of governance, you should perhaps consider another line of work. In all seriousness, I would love to read a report on what positive activities you have seen or been involved with.
I am a Scott living in Jamaica, and understand the frustration of living in a country wracked by violence, poverty, corruption, power-cuts, inflation.... I think it's time we all look a little further, and dig a little deeper to find solutions.
I am happy that Walton is living in Glasgow, and free to criticize British society, it should be criticized, the UK and the US is currently wreaking havoc on the globe with it's warfare and destruction, at the expense of it's taxpayers. It is true the economies of the UK and the US are addicted to war, and have been for a very long time.
Quote | Report this postPosted by: Kieran, Kingston, Jamaica on 4:42pm Mon 11 Feb 08
here was a rather positive letter from the Jamaica Gleaner on Sunday. [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] leaner.com/gleaner/2 0080210/letters/lett ers1.html LETTER OF THE DAY - 'Spiritual solution will rescue us from present catastrophe' published: Sunday | February 10, 2008 The Editor, Sir: The Bahá'í community of Jamaica, along with all well-thinking Jamaicans, is greatly concerned about the appalling, wanton disregard for human life. Many suggestions presented to deal with crime and violence address the issue from a material perspective. The need for sincere spiritual interactions to give balance cannot be ignored; both go hand in hand. Guns barking, dead bodies, hold-ups, and so on, are all manifestations of violence, but its origin takes place in the mind, the thought process. Therefore, the mind must be purified of such malicious thoughts for the preservation of human life and dignity. We bring to mind the words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, son of Baha'u'llah, the prophet-founder of the Bahá'í faith, who said: "There is nothing so heartbreaking and terrible as an outburst of human savagery! I charge you all that each one of you concentrate all the thoughts of your heart on love and unity. When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love. Thoughts of war bring destruction to all harmony, well-being, restfulness and content. Thoughts of love are constructive of brotherhood, peace, friendship, and happiness." Love for the sake of God 'Abdu'l-Bahá encouraged us to love all persons for the sake of God, and not for themselves. "You will never become angry or impatient if you love them for the sake of God. Humanity is not perfect. There are imperfections in every human being, and you will always become unhappy if you look toward the people themselves. But if you look towards God, you will love them and be kind to them, for the world of God is the world of perfection and complete mercy." This way of living and thinking is a challenge which requires much practice, but it is the spiritual solution that will rescue us from our present catastrophe. We take this opportunity to offer to your readers a prayer and a wish that with God's help, we as a people may rise up with nobility and love our neighbours as we love ourselves. Prayer for Mankind "O Thou kind Lord! Thou hast created all humanity from the same stock. Thou hast decreed that all shall belong to the same household. In Thy holy presence they are all Thy servants, and all mankind are sheltered beneath Thy tabernacle; all have gathered together at Thy table of bounty; all are illumined through the light of Thy providence. O God! Thou art kind to all. Thou hast provided for all, dost shelter all, conferrest life upon all. Thou hast endowed each and all with talents and faculties, and all are submerged in the ocean of Thy mercy. O Thou kind Lord! Unite all. Let the religions agree and make the nations one, so that they may see each other as one family and the whole Earth as one home. May they all live together in perfect harmony. O God! Raise aloft the banner of the oneness of mankind. O God! Establish the most great peace. Cement Thou, O God, the hearts together. O Thou kind Father, God! Gladden our hearts through the fragrance of Thy love. Brighten our eyes through the light of Thy guidance. Delight our ears with the melody of Thy word, and shelter us all in the stronghold of Thy providence. Thou art the mighty and powerful, Thou art the forgiving and Thou art the one who overlooketh the shortcomings of all mankind." - 'Abdu'l-Bahá With best regards, NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY of The Bahá'ís of JAMAICA
here was a rather positive letter from the Jamaica Gleaner on Sunday.

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]
leaner.com/gleaner/2
0080210/letters/lett
ers1.html


LETTER OF THE DAY - 'Spiritual solution will rescue us from present catastrophe'
published: Sunday | February 10, 2008

The Editor, Sir:

The Bahá'í community of Jamaica, along with all well-thinking Jamaicans, is greatly concerned about the appalling, wanton disregard for human life.

Many suggestions presented to deal with crime and violence address the issue from a material perspective. The need for sincere spiritual interactions to give balance cannot be ignored; both go hand in hand.

Guns barking, dead bodies, hold-ups, and so on, are all manifestations of violence, but its origin takes place in the mind, the thought process.

Therefore, the mind must be purified of such malicious thoughts for the preservation of human life and dignity. We bring to mind the words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, son of Baha'u'llah, the prophet-founder of the Bahá'í faith, who said: "There is nothing so heartbreaking and terrible as an outburst of human savagery! I charge you all that each one of you concentrate all the thoughts of your heart on love and unity. When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love. Thoughts of war bring destruction to all harmony, well-being, restfulness and content. Thoughts of love are constructive of brotherhood, peace, friendship, and happiness."

Love for the sake of God

'Abdu'l-Bahá encouraged us to love all persons for the sake of God, and not for themselves. "You will never become angry or impatient if you love them for the sake of God. Humanity is not perfect. There are imperfections in every human being, and you will always become unhappy if you look toward the people themselves. But if you look towards God, you will love them and be kind to them, for the world of God is the world of perfection and complete mercy."

This way of living and thinking is a challenge which requires much practice, but it is the spiritual solution that will rescue us from our present catastrophe. We take this opportunity to offer to your readers a prayer and a wish that with God's help, we as a people may rise up with nobility and love our neighbours as we love ourselves.

Prayer for Mankind

"O Thou kind Lord! Thou hast created all humanity from the same stock. Thou hast decreed that all shall belong to the same household. In Thy holy presence they are all Thy servants, and all mankind are sheltered beneath Thy tabernacle; all have gathered together at Thy table of bounty; all are illumined through the light of Thy providence.

O God! Thou art kind to all. Thou hast provided for all, dost shelter all, conferrest life upon all. Thou hast endowed each and all with talents and faculties, and all are submerged in the ocean of Thy mercy.

O Thou kind Lord! Unite all. Let the religions agree and make the nations one, so that they may see each other as one family and the whole Earth as one home. May they all live together in perfect harmony.

O God! Raise aloft the banner of the oneness of mankind.

O God! Establish the most great peace.

Cement Thou, O God, the hearts together.

O Thou kind Father, God! Gladden our hearts through the fragrance of Thy love. Brighten our eyes through the light of Thy guidance. Delight our ears with the melody of Thy word, and shelter us all in the stronghold of Thy providence.

Thou art the mighty and powerful, Thou art the forgiving and Thou art the one who overlooketh the shortcomings of all mankind."

- 'Abdu'l-Bahá

With best regards,

NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY

of The Bahá'ís of JAMAICAQuote | Report this postPosted by: NONIMOUS, South Africa on 5:52am Tue 12 Feb 08
This article was written by someone who is probably headless and probably not a South Africa. South Africa is doing fine. Things are not as bad as they have been written on this article
This article was written by someone who is probably headless and probably not a South Africa. South Africa is doing fine. Things are not as bad as they have been written on this articleQuote | Report this postPosted by: NONIMOUS, South Africa on 5:55am Tue 12 Feb 08
Poeple are so against Zuma, can anyone point a leader on this earth even in the bible who didnt do a mistake? From Goerge Bush to Robert Mugabe who is perfect?
Poeple are so against Zuma, can anyone point a leader on this earth even in the bible who didnt do a mistake? From Goerge Bush to Robert Mugabe who is perfect?Quote | Report this postPosted by: Matthew on 6:27am Tue 12 Feb 08
The article is of course pessimistic...as are investors. The current situation in SA probably can be fixed but not in nearly enough time to repair the damage done to the confidence of foreign investors. Money makes the world go round unfortunately and SA has a serious struggle ahead. Who in their right mind would want to invest money in a country so poorly governed?!
The article is of course pessimistic...as are investors. The current situation in SA probably can be fixed but not in nearly enough time to repair the damage done to the confidence of foreign investors. Money makes the world go round unfortunately and SA has a serious struggle ahead. Who in their right mind would want to invest money in a country so poorly governed?! Quote | Report this postPosted by: John, South Africa on 10:21am Tue 12 Feb 08
I want a country in this world that thus not have a share of it's own problems, people governing each democratic state are elected into power by the citizens of that country,I know of whites who will vote for th ANC in 2009,proving that the majority of South Africans are confident that what is going on in SA at present are not problems but challenges that can be solved if we stand together .those who leave SA to pursue a specific job opportunity or adventure, or simply to go and experience life in a different culture. To them I say, good luck and godspeed!! . those who leave the country with bitterness and hate, and somehow finds pleasure in bad mouthing SA in every possible way. To them, I say good riddance!!!
I want a country in this world that thus not have a share of it's own problems, people governing each democratic state are elected into power by the citizens of that country,I know of whites who will vote for th ANC in 2009,proving that the majority of South Africans are confident that what is going on in SA at present are not problems but challenges that can be solved if we stand together .those who leave SA to pursue a specific job opportunity or adventure, or simply to go and experience life in a different culture. To them I say, good luck and godspeed!! . those who leave the country with bitterness and hate, and somehow finds pleasure in bad mouthing SA in every possible way. To them, I say good riddance!!! Quote | Report this postPosted by: Bheka Nkonyane on 2:18pm Tue 12 Feb 08
Sounds like a real hell-hole! Unfortunately some of the things in the article are true for example high levels of violent crime, others are not as true, like rampant bribery and houses in France. According to Transparency International, only 3% of the South Africans surveyed paid a bribe in 2007. We also continue to have an independent Judiciary and prosecution authority. Which is why people like Selebi(Police Commissioner) and Zuma face charges. Power failures or "load shedding" are horrible, but California, Australia and others have had those and survived. Yes things are rough, but a sensible, balanced approach is what we need, at home and abroad.
Sounds like a real hell-hole!

Unfortunately some of the things in the article are true for example high levels of violent crime, others are not as true, like rampant bribery and houses in France. According to Transparency International, only 3% of the South Africans surveyed paid a bribe in 2007.

We also continue to have an independent Judiciary and prosecution authority. Which is why people like Selebi(Police Commissioner) and Zuma face charges.

Power failures or "load shedding" are horrible, but California, Australia and others have had those and survived.

Yes things are rough, but a sensible, balanced approach is what we need, at home and abroad.Quote | Report this postPosted by: Jake, London on 3:22pm Tue 12 Feb 08
This problem is not going to end unless, as mean as it may sound, they get over what has happened and want to make a change for themselves. SA and Zim 2 of the most beautiful countries in the world will fall together. Its such a sad thing to write and it may seem that there is no hope but until people like NOMINOUS take their heads out their a** and look around any chance of change will be dimineshed. Mugabe is sick and no one should compare him to bush as that is really kind of a disgusting thing when you see what is going on there, yes people make mistakes but there really is no comparison. I just hope that the governments can get over themselves and ask for help, or the people of south africa and Zim make the right decision and show us that they will not just follow a leader over race but will take the only continent that has not yet become a super power and put it in the position that they can start to achieve this. Some say not to judge these states by european standards but when the people are suffering and dont have a voice to speak out then maybe the world and the countries in africa need to re-evaluate. I just want to say that I love SA with real love. The people are amazing and the potential is infinite. Instead of just complaining so people here dont have a go, ill list some suggestions for the country to make. 1) Stop affirmative action, and start more training schemes if someone is qualified to do the job then they can have it. SA is already a late bloomer, we all know what happened and we all feel horrible what went on, but to wait a few more years to train people and let the success of the country that was there before thrive again you will see more positive results. 2) A rewards Scheme for children in school. In the UK we have a scheme where children are given a government allowance/ reward for the days they turn up at school. This can be adjusted to fit SA. 3) Sort out the political scheme. Have 2 leaders at once, just to start out with, one black and one white things will even out much faster. Or a mixed political party. 4) Start implementing the idea of the Rainbow Nation. IT CANT JUST BE A PHRASE!!!!! it is probably the most over used term with no meaning or evidence that it is there. 5) Violence..... This has to be the one thing that is controlled as quickly as possible. Neighborhood watch/ security patrols/ more police/ BRING IN THE ARMY. With the violence, people will leave the country then there is no hope for a new start. Its not going to be a quick thing to achieve this change but really if some of these things were implemented there will be a positive change. But the first thing that has to be done is to find the voice of the people, cause if they are happy and want to be left alone then there is nothing anyone can do and they will ROTT away.
This problem is not going to end unless, as mean as it may sound, they get over what has happened and want to make a change for themselves.
SA and Zim 2 of the most beautiful countries in the world will fall together. Its such a sad thing to write and it may seem that there is no hope but until people like NOMINOUS take their heads out their a** and look around any chance of change will be dimineshed. Mugabe is sick and no one should compare him to bush as that is really kind of a disgusting thing when you see what is going on there, yes people make mistakes but there really is no comparison. I just hope that the governments can get over themselves and ask for help, or the people of south africa and Zim make the right decision and show us that they will not just follow a leader over race but will take the only continent that has not yet become a super power and put it in the position that they can start to achieve this.

Some say not to judge these states by european standards but when the people are suffering and dont have a voice to speak out then maybe the world and the countries in africa need to re-evaluate.

I just want to say that I love SA with real love. The people are amazing and the potential is infinite. Instead of just complaining so people here dont have a go, ill list some suggestions for the country to make.

1) Stop affirmative action, and start more training schemes if someone is qualified to do the job then they can have it. SA is already a late bloomer, we all know what happened and we all feel horrible what went on, but to wait a few more years to train people and let the success of the country that was there before thrive again you will see more positive results.

2) A rewards Scheme for children in school. In the UK we have a scheme where children are given a government allowance/ reward for the days they turn up at school. This can be adjusted to fit SA.

3) Sort out the political scheme. Have 2 leaders at once, just to start out with, one black and one white things will even out much faster. Or a mixed political party.


4) Start implementing the idea of the Rainbow Nation. IT CANT JUST BE A PHRASE!!!!! it is probably the most over used term with no meaning or evidence that it is there.

5) Violence..... This has to be the one thing that is controlled as quickly as possible. Neighborhood watch/ security patrols/ more police/ BRING IN THE ARMY. With the violence, people will leave the country then there is no hope for a new start.

Its not going to be a quick thing to achieve this change but really if some of these things were implemented there will be a positive change.
But the first thing that has to be done is to find the voice of the people, cause if they are happy and want to be left alone then there is nothing anyone can do and they will ROTT away.

Quote | Report this postPosted by: Candice, South Africa on 11:10am Wed 13 Feb 08
As a South African, it is always interesting to see how other countries perceive the situation here. I myself, do not feel too affected by the political situation in the country- YET. But what I can say is that I am really tired of the crime here- violent crime. I have been hi-jacked, smash & grabbed and held up in an armed robbery by 5 armed men who beat my brother. Am I expected to accept this- and put a smile on my face? I absolutely refuse to pretend that I am happy with my life here. I am only 24 years old and want to know what more can go wrong. I feel that people who complain about people being "pessimistic" have luckily not had anything happen to them- YET. In this country its a matter of when and not if. When I immigrate from this country- I will not take the negative with me and put the country down- because perhaps one day- if things got better I would come back. But right now its not looking like it will- unless things change drastically.
As a South African, it is always interesting to see how other countries perceive the situation here.

I myself, do not feel too affected by the political situation in the country- YET. But what I can say is that I am really tired of the crime here- violent crime. I have been hi-jacked, smash & grabbed and held up in an armed robbery by 5 armed men who beat my brother.

Am I expected to accept this- and put a smile on my face? I absolutely refuse to pretend that I am happy with my life here. I am only 24 years old and want to know what more can go wrong. I feel that people who complain about people being "pessimistic" have luckily not had anything happen to them- YET. In this country its a matter of when and not if.

When I immigrate from this country- I will not take the negative with me and put the country down- because perhaps one day- if things got better I would come back. But right now its not looking like it will- unless things change drastically. Quote | Report this postPosted by: Chris, South Africa on 1:55pm Wed 13 Feb 08
Cytat:
[bold]Wullie[/bold] wrote: Sadly it would appear that South Africa may be going the way of Rhodesia and all of the other failed African states. But that is the way of African politics and African culture. Relative democracy and stable societies are unfortunately hard to find in the African continent despite that continent\'s natural wealth.
[italic]"But that is the way of African politics and African culture."[/italic] I take offense to this statement, not because South Africa is doing well ([bold]it is not[/bold] ) but because the author of this post generalize everything about South African politics, its people, and its culture. The author of this piece of text attempts to mould every citizen in South Africa to the same mould. Black and whites alike. I have a good recollection of how things were before the whites were forced to leave the country, as I am planning to do now. Anyways - I am going to use this opportunity to perform some [italic]"gal braak"[/italic] - this is an expression we use in Afrikaans that indicates our profound unhappiness with someone or something. In essence, this means bringing up the bitter content from your stomach. Nice thought for a Wednesday afternoon. Stop reading here if strong political content bothers you. Otherwise, continue to read and see another picture. Here goes. Everyone had this HUGE thing about Apartheid and how bad it was, and how bad the country was doing under the Apartheid regime, however, I believe that a lot of things at that time were better than they are now! Yes, there were crime, there were corruption, and there were injustices, but much less than now. Lots of people say that "we just don't know about all the crimes that took place then" - to those I have just a small piece of food-for-thought: With the political situation currently the way it is, don't you think the post-Apartheid government has investigated EVERY Apartheid leader and prominent person they could - to create a sense of justice to the world? Yes, they did. Some attempts were successful (and some were even justified), but some were a blatant misconstruction of what really happened, or searching for injustice where there simply weren't any. Think about that and weep. One of the major reasons (no, not the only one) the economy suffered during Apartheid was because the hypocrites all over the world who blamed everything on Apartheid and instated sanctions against South Africa, making trade illegal. Americans have killed the native Indians like they were the pests of the world, but they want to have the "moral high ground" because of how the whites treated (treats) the blacks? Don't throw stones if you live in a glass house! [bold]Ever heard of Reversed Apartheid?[/bold] This is exactly what is happening in South Africa at this moment in time. White men can barely get jobs nowadays. White men compete with total idiots for jobs, but don't get it, because the other candidate is black. Not better qualified; BLACK! Rediculous! I studied at a prominent University in South Africa from 2002 to 2005. In those years I worked full time, studied part time, got my B. Sc. degree as well as my B. Sc. Honours degree in the same field of study, both in a period of four years, and in this same period, another person (coincidentally, a black person) who studied full time could not even finish two years of his studies. Now - before you blame me for generalizing that black people are stupid, let me just state for the record that I know of some white people who are not much more intelligent than the dirt under my shoes, but the reason I am stating this is because it is required information for the next point I want to accentuate (and elaborate on the same topic from the main article): mismanagement. This student didn't pass the first year prerequisite for a second year subject, [italic]yet he was allowed to continue into the second year[/italic]? What the heck is that about? He asked me a trivial question once in the computer rooms at the university. For someone studying IT, finding the smallest item in an array is a very easy question - especially in your "second" year. Within 30 seconds or so, I wrote the small piece of program for him that sorted the array for him, and told him to do the rest (all he had to do now was to figure out whether I sorted it from large to small or from small to large, and then select either the first item or the last one...). Contrary to my statement above, I am not the least bit bothered that he couldn't do it, because maybe IT is not his strong suit. Maybe he's a good singer, or a handy machinist, or even a future award-winning economist-to-be, but [bold]the fact that he was allowed to continue to the second year subjects without passing the first year prerequisites[/bold], because "the previously disadvantaged black people" have to get the same opportunities that us whities had. Go figure. Incompetence breeds incompetence. This is the type of black person that will compete with me for a job in our wonderful New South Africa. Our wonderful, collapsing Rainbow Nation with a National Anthem that is written in more languages than I care about. Who will get it? Odds are stacked in his favour, because he is previously disadvantaged. Poor thing. Now - to those hypocrites who felt Apartheid was all evil and totally wrong [italic](and not partially right and partially wrong)[/italic] will finally realise that Apartheid was not always all *that* bad. Yes, I agree some things were WELL over the top, such as "no blacks allowed in town after 9pm" or such rules - but to blame the Apartheid for everything going wrong? Come on, grow up and smell the coffee! It is almost 2 decades after Apartheid ended - how long are they still going to blame it all on Apartheid? A while ago, I was walking past a construction site where one white man and two black men were working on some sort of roofing project. I knew the white man, so I stopped to chat a bit. The white person looked at me, saw the Coke in my hand, and in an overly familiar tone, said he was thirsty. Okay, so I had a spare can of Coke with me. Only one, mind you, so I gave it to him (since he asked and all - not took it by force...). Shame, having to work outside in this heat! Immediately his black friend started accusing me of being guilty of Apartheid and what-have-you and being a racist and such. Nice. Very nice. No good deed goes unpunished. I did not have three cokes with me. The white man asked first, so he got it. Simple as that. What do you think I did? I took the Coke from the white person, opened it, and started drinking it in front of them while I stayed another while to talk with the white man. A bit harsh? Maybe. But because of that attitude, none of them had any thirst relief. People are so quick to blame Apartheid for everything. But it is our white forefathers who broke away from the English rule in the early 1800s that made this country what it is today. We built the cities, we advanced the technology. Now, "misinformed everyone" says it is "because the blacks did not have the same opportunities than the whites to make this difference..." and to that I say "What a load of crock!" Look at other African countries. Even those that were without caucasian rule in the last century: VIOLENCE, CRIME, CORRUPTION, MISMANAGEMENT, POLITICAL FAVOURITISM. The WORKS! Some indiginous tribes in Southern Africa, such as te Bushmen, mostly refuse to "westernize". While this is admirable for their tribal values and core beliefs, it also indicates that they will ALWAYS be a predominantly primitive folk. About cancelling the 2010 World Cup Soccer? Great idea. They will probably cut our electricity to provide for the soccer stadiums and surrounding areas, preventing us folks who can't be at every single game to miss out on the action. So - take it away, folks, I am not going to see any of it anyways, so why would I care? I am proud to be a white South African, but no longer proud of my beautiful country, and I am hoping that ALL whites who share the same frustrations as I do, will follow my example of leaving this wretched place and let the Africans suffer all on their own. On the other hand, if you don't share my points of views, and want to call me a racist and an irrational idiot in a public forum, be my guest, post your comment in answer to mine (that is if my comment is not to hot for the Herald to handle, and it does not get deleted) :-)
Wullie wrote:
Sadly it would appear that South Africa may be going the way of Rhodesia and all of the other failed African states. But that is the way of African politics and African culture. Relative democracy and stable societies are unfortunately hard to find in the African continent despite that continent\'s natural wealth.
"But that is the way of African politics and African culture."

I take offense to this statement, not because South Africa is doing well (it is not ) but because the author of this post generalize everything about South African politics, its people, and its culture. The author of this piece of text attempts to mould every citizen in South Africa to the same mould. Black and whites alike. I have a good recollection of how things were before the whites were forced to leave the country, as I am planning to do now.

Anyways - I am going to use this opportunity to perform some "gal braak" - this is an expression we use in Afrikaans that indicates our profound unhappiness with someone or something. In essence, this means bringing up the bitter content from your stomach. Nice thought for a Wednesday afternoon. Stop reading here if strong political content bothers you. Otherwise, continue to read and see another picture. Here goes.

Everyone had this HUGE thing about Apartheid and how bad it was, and how bad the country was doing under the Apartheid regime, however, I believe that a lot of things at that time were better than they are now! Yes, there were crime, there were corruption, and there were injustices, but much less than now. Lots of people say that "we just don't know about all the crimes that took place then" - to those I have just a small piece of food-for-thought: With the political situation currently the way it is, don't you think the post-Apartheid government has investigated EVERY Apartheid leader and prominent person they could - to create a sense of justice to the world? Yes, they did. Some attempts were successful (and some were even justified), but some were a blatant misconstruction of what really happened, or searching for injustice where there simply weren't any. Think about that and weep.

One of the major reasons (no, not the only one) the economy suffered during Apartheid was because the hypocrites all over the world who blamed everything on Apartheid and instated sanctions against South Africa, making trade illegal. Americans have killed the native Indians like they were the pests of the world, but they want to have the "moral high ground" because of how the whites treated (treats) the blacks? Don't throw stones if you live in a glass house!

Ever heard of Reversed Apartheid? This is exactly what is happening in South Africa at this moment in time. White men can barely get jobs nowadays. White men compete with total idiots for jobs, but don't get it, because the other candidate is black. Not better qualified; BLACK! Rediculous!

I studied at a prominent University in South Africa from 2002 to 2005. In those years I worked full time, studied part time, got my B. Sc. degree as well as my B. Sc. Honours degree in the same field of study, both in a period of four years, and in this same period, another person (coincidentally, a black person) who studied full time could not even finish two years of his studies. Now - before you blame me for generalizing that black people are stupid, let me just state for the record that I know of some white people who are not much more intelligent than the dirt under my shoes, but the reason I am stating this is because it is required information for the next point I want to accentuate (and elaborate on the same topic from the main article): mismanagement.

This student didn't pass the first year prerequisite for a second year subject, yet he was allowed to continue into the second year? What the heck is that about? He asked me a trivial question once in the computer rooms at the university. For someone studying IT, finding the smallest item in an array is a very easy question - especially in your "second" year. Within 30 seconds or so, I wrote the small piece of program for him that sorted the array for him, and told him to do the rest (all he had to do now was to figure out whether I sorted it from large to small or from small to large, and then select either the first item or the last one...).

Contrary to my statement above, I am not the least bit bothered that he couldn't do it, because maybe IT is not his strong suit. Maybe he's a good singer, or a handy machinist, or even a future award-winning economist-to-be, but the fact that he was allowed to continue to the second year subjects without passing the first year prerequisites, because "the previously disadvantaged black people" have to get the same opportunities that us whities had. Go figure. Incompetence breeds incompetence. This is the type of black person that will compete with me for a job in our wonderful New South Africa. Our wonderful, collapsing Rainbow Nation with a National Anthem that is written in more languages than I care about. Who will get it? Odds are stacked in his favour, because he is previously disadvantaged. Poor thing.

Now - to those hypocrites who felt Apartheid was all evil and totally wrong (and not partially right and partially wrong) will finally realise that Apartheid was not always all *that* bad. Yes, I agree some things were WELL over the top, such as "no blacks allowed in town after 9pm" or such rules - but to blame the Apartheid for everything going wrong? Come on, grow up and smell the coffee! It is almost 2 decades after Apartheid ended - how long are they still going to blame it all on Apartheid?

A while ago, I was walking past a construction site where
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April 01, 2008 Est 1999 Scotland's award-winning independent newspaper HOMENewsInternationalOpinion & DebateSportBusinessArtsLifeCars+ Wounded Nation
The lights are literally and figuratively going out all over South Africa as crime, corruption and mismanagement push the rainbow country towards becoming another failed african state. By Fred Bridgland in Johannesburg
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AFTER BATHING in the warm, fuzzy glow of the Mandela years, South Africans today are deeply demoralised people. The lights are going out in homes, mines, factories and shopping malls as the national power authority, Eskom - suffering from mismanagement, lack of foresight, a failure to maintain power stations and a flight of skilled engineers to other countries - implements rolling power cuts that plunge towns and cities into daily chaos.

Major industrial projects are on hold. The only healthy enterprise now worth being involved in is the sale of small diesel generators to powerless households but even this business has run out of supplies and spare parts from China.

The currency, the rand, has entered freefall. Crime, much of it gratuitously violent, is rampant, and the national police chief faces trial for corruption and defeating the ends of justice as a result of his alleged deals with a local mafia kingpin and dealer in hard drugs.

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Newly elected African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma, the state president-in-waiting, narrowly escaped being jailed for raping an HIV-positive woman last year, and faces trial later this year for soliciting and accepting bribes in connection with South Africa's shady multi-billion-pound arms deal with British, German and French weapons manufacturers.

One local newspaper columnist suggests that Zuma has done for South Africa's international image what Borat has done for Kazakhstan. ANC leaders in 2008 still speak in the spiritually dead jargon they learned in exile in pre-1989 Moscow, East Berlin and Sofia while promiscuously embracing capitalist icons - Mercedes 4x4s, Hugo Boss suits, Bruno Magli shoes and Louis Vuitton bags which they swing, packed with money passed to them under countless tables - as they wing their way to their houses in the south of France.

It all adds up to a hydra-headed crisis of huge proportions - a perfect storm as the Rainbow Nation slides off the end of the rainbow and descends in the direction of the massed ranks of failed African states. Eskom has warned foreign investors with millions to sink into big industrial and mining projects: we don't want you here until at least 2013, when new power stations will be built.

In the first month of this year, the rand fell 12% against the world's major currencies and foreign investors sold off more than £600 million worth of South African stocks, the biggest sell-off for more than seven years.

"There will be further outflows this month, because there won't be any news that will convince investors the local growth picture is going to change for the better," said Rudi van der Merwe, a fund manager at South Africa's Standard Bank.

Commenting on the massive power cuts, Trevor Gaunt, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Cape Town, who warned the government eight years ago of the impending crisis, said: "The damage is huge, and now South Africa looks just like the rest of Africa. Maybe it will take 20 years to recover."

The power cuts have hit the country's platinum, gold, manganese and high-quality export coal mines particularly hard, with no production on some days and only 40% to 60% on others.

"The shutdown of the mining industry is an extraordinary, unprecedented event," said Anton Eberhard, a leading energy expert and professor of business studies at the University of Cape Town.

"That's a powerful message, massively damaging to South Africa's reputation for new investment. Our country was built on the mines."

To examine how the country, widely hailed as Africa's last best chance, arrived at this parlous state, the particular troubles engulfing the Scorpions (the popular name of the National Prosecuting Authority) offers a useful starting point.

The elite unit, modelled on America's FBI and operating in close co-operation with Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO), is one of the big successes of post-apartheid South Africa. An independent institution, separate from the slipshod South African Police Service, the Scorpions enjoy massive public support.

The unit's edict is to focus on people "who commit and profit from organised crime", and it has been hugely successful in carrying out its mandate. It has pursued and pinned down thousands of high-profile and complex networks of national and international corporate and public fraudsters.

Drug kingpins, smugglers and racketeers have felt the Scorpions' sting. A major gang that smuggle platinum, South Africa's biggest foreign exchange earner, to a corrupt English smelting plant has been bust as the result of a huge joint operation between the SFO and the Scorpions. But the Scorpions, whose top men were trained by Scotland Yard, have been too successful for their own good.

The ANC government never anticipated the crack crimebusters would take their constitutional independence seriously and investigate the top ranks of the former liberation movement itself.

The Scorpions have probed into, and successfully prosecuted, ANC MPs who falsified their parliamentary expenses. They secured a jail sentence for the ANC's chief whip, who took bribes from the German weapons manufacturer that sold frigates and submarines to the South African Defence Force. They sent to jail for 15 years a businessman who paid hundreds of bribes to then state vice-president Jacob Zuma in connection with the arms deal. Zuma was found by the judge to have a corrupt relationship with the businessman, and now the Scorpions have charged Zuma himself with fraud, corruption, tax evasion, racketeering and defeating the ends of justice. His trial will begin in August.

The Scorpions last month charged Jackie Selebi, the national police chief, a close friend of state president Thabo Mbeki, with corruption and defeating the ends of justice. Commissioner Selebi, who infamously called a white police sergeant a "f***ing chimpanzee" when she failed to recognise him during an unannounced visit to her Pretoria station, has stepped down pending his trial.

But now both wings of the venomously divided ANC - ANC-Mbeki and ANC-Zuma - want the Scorpions crushed, ideally by June this year. The message this will send to the outside world is that South Africa's rulers want only certain categories of crime investigated, while leaving government ministers and other politicians free to stuff their already heavily lined pockets.

No good reason for emasculating the Scorpions has been put forward. "That's because there isn't one," said Peter Bruce, editor of the influential Business Day, South Africa's equivalent of, and part-owned by, The Financial Times, in his weekly column.

"The Scorpions are being killed off because they investigate too much corruption that involves ANC leaders. It is as simple and ugly as that," he added.

The demise of the Scorpions can only exacerbate South Africa's out-of-control crime situation, ranked for its scale and violence only behind Colombia. Everyone has friends and acquaintances who have had guns held to their heads by gangsters, who also blow up ATM machines and hijack security trucks, sawing off their roofs to get at the cash.

In the past few days my next-door neighbour, John Matshikiza, a distinguished actor who trained at the Royal Shakespeare Company and is the son of the composer of the South African musical King Kong, had been violently attacked, and friends visiting from Zimbabwe had their car stolen outside my front window in broad daylight.

My friends flew home to Zimbabwe without their car and the tinned food supplies they had bought to help withstand their country's dire political and food crisis and 27,000% inflation. Matshikiza, a former member of the Glasgow Citizens Theatre company, was held up by three gunmen as he drove his car into his garage late at night. He gave them his car keys, wallet, cellphone and luxury watch and begged them not to harm his partner, who was inside the house.

As one gunman drove the car away, the other two beat Matshikiza unconscious with broken bottles, and now his head is so comprehensively stitched that it looks like a map of the London Underground.

These assaults were personal, but mild compared with much commonplace crime.

Last week, for example, 18-year-old Razelle Botha, who passed all her A-levels with marks of more than 90% and was about to train as a doctor, returned home with her father, Professor Willem Botha, founder of the geophysics department at the University of Pretoria, from buying pizzas for the family. Inside the house, armed gunmen confronted them. They shot Professor Botha in the leg and pumped bullets into Razelle.

One severed her spine. Now she is fighting for her life and will never walk again, and may never become a doctor. The gunmen stole a laptop computer and a camera.

Feeding the perfect storm are the two centres of ANC power in the country at the moment. On the one hand, there is the ANC in parliament, led by President Mbeki, who last Friday gave a state-of-the-nation address and apologised to the country for the power crisis.

Mbeki made only the briefest of mentions of the national Aids crisis, with more than six million people HIV-positive. He did not address the Scorpions crisis. The collapsing public hospital system, under his eccentric health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, an alcoholic who recently jumped the public queue for a liver transplant, received no attention. And the name Jacob Zuma did not pass his lips.

Last December Mbeki and Zuma stood against each other for the leadership of the ANC at the party's five-yearly electoral congress. Mbeki, who cannot stand again as state president beyond next year's parliamentary and presidential elections, hoped to remain the power behind the throne of a new state president of his choosing.

Zuma, a Zulu populist with some 20 children by various wives and mistresses, hoped to prove that last year's rape case, and the trial he faces this year for corruption and other charges, were part of a plot by Mbeki to use state institutions to discredit him. Mbeki assumed that the notion of Zuma assuming next year the mantle worn by Nelson Mandela as South Africa's first black state president would be so appalling to delegates, a deeply sad and precipitous decline, that his own re-election as ANC leader was a shoo-in.

But Mbeki completely miscalculated his own unpopularity - his perceived arrogance, failure to solve health and crime problems, his failure to deliver to the poor - and he lost. Now Zuma insists that he is the leader of the country and ANC MPs in parliament must take its orders from him, while Mbeki soldiers on until next year as state president, ordering MPs to toe his line.

Greatly understated, it is a mess. Its scale will be dramatically illustrated if South Africa's hosting of the 2010 World Cup is withdrawn by Fifa, the world football body.

Already South African premier league football evening games are being played after midnight because power for floodlights cannot be guaranteed before that time. Justice Malala, one of the country's top newspaper columnists, has called on Fifa to end the agony quickly.

"I don't want South Africa to host the football World Cup because there is no culture of responsibility in this country," he wrote in Johannesburg's bestselling Sunday Times.

"The most outrageous behaviour and incompetence is glossed over. No-one is fired. I have had enough of this nonsense, of keeping quiet and ignoring the fact that the train is about to run us over.

"It is increasingly clear that our leaders are incapable of making a success of it. Scrap the thing and give it to Australia, Germany or whoever will spare us the ignominy of watching things fall apart here - football tourists being held up and shot, the lights going out, while our politicians tell us everything is all right."


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Posted by: wintermute, St Andrews on 12:02am Sun 10 Feb 08
[link widoczny dla zalogowanych] cks.blogspot.com
[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]
cks.blogspot.comQuote | Report this postPosted by: Wullie on 3:21am Sun 10 Feb 08
Sadly it would appear that South Africa may be going the way of Rhodesia and all of the other failed African states. But that is the way of African politics and African culture. Relative democracy and stable societies are unfortunately hard to find in the African continent despite that continent's natural wealth.
Sadly it would appear that South Africa may be going the way of Rhodesia and all of the other failed African states.

But that is the way of African politics and African culture. Relative democracy and stable societies are unfortunately hard to find in the African continent despite that continent's natural wealth.Quote | Report this postPosted by: C MacAoidh, South Africa on 4:54am Sun 10 Feb 08
It must be a bit worrying for someone sitting in Scotland reading this article. But just think of this poor guy who spent 20 years in Glasgow, 20 years in Rhodesia, 24 years in South Africa and now wondering, "Where to next". The really sad thing is that the article is accurate!
It must be a bit worrying for someone sitting in Scotland reading this article. But just think of this poor guy who spent 20 years in Glasgow, 20 years in Rhodesia, 24 years in South Africa and now wondering, "Where to next". The really sad thing is that the article is accurate!Quote | Report this postPosted by: Brian J Deller, Marbella Spain on 5:57am Sun 10 Feb 08
As someone who "escaped" South Africa in 1999, after optimistically staying on for 5 yrs.(living there for 25 yrs) after the ANC came to power, and then realising that the new SA is another Zimbabwe in the making, I now wonder who the real racists are. Those who know Africa and were in power with plans to develop it correctly for the benefit of everybody, even if it took 100 yrs. or those who patronisingly called its successful white government racist and condemned yet another African country to abject poverty. My money is on the latter. As with Zim. many blacks will pine for the days of Apartheid when they could afford to live, were not constantly in danger of being murdered, robbed or raped by criminals including those in the ANC, and when the SA Rand was worth something. Shame on all those who are now proven to be the racists who were wrong: unless, of course to kill and impoverish blacks was your plan all along.
As someone who "escaped" South Africa in 1999, after optimistically staying on for 5 yrs.(living there for 25 yrs) after the ANC came to power, and then realising that the new SA is another Zimbabwe in the making, I now wonder who the real racists are. Those who know Africa and were in power with plans to develop it correctly for the benefit of everybody, even if it took 100 yrs. or those who patronisingly called its successful white government racist and condemned yet another African country to abject poverty. My money is on the latter. As with Zim. many blacks will pine for the days of Apartheid when they could afford to live, were not constantly in danger of being murdered, robbed or raped by criminals including those in the ANC, and when the SA Rand was worth something. Shame on all those who are now proven to be the racists who were wrong: unless, of course to kill and impoverish blacks was your plan all along.Quote | Report this postPosted by: john, Hong Kong on 6:05am Sun 10 Feb 08
An all to familiar picture of post colonial Africa.Every country that gained independance has regressed in real terms.The answer though is maybe not to judge these states by European standards.
An all to familiar picture of post colonial Africa.Every country that gained independance has regressed in real terms.The answer though is maybe not to judge these states by European standards.Quote | Report this postPosted by: Marvin Caldwell-Barr, Kempton Park, South Africa on 7:04am Sun 10 Feb 08
This ANC government has put the country on the slippery slope, gravity has taken over and there's only one way to go: straight down to the bottom. Sadly, it seems to be inevitable in Africa. And a lot of people are saying, "We told you so."
This ANC government has put the country on the slippery slope, gravity has taken over and there's only one way to go: straight down to the bottom. Sadly, it seems to be inevitable in Africa. And a lot of people are saying, "We told you so."Quote | Report this postPosted by: I'm no really here on 12:26pm Sun 10 Feb 08
What's the difference between South Africa and the Titanic? The Titanic sank with it's light still on. The Rand has lost R2 against the pound in the week following the Government's declared Emergency Crisis. If you are coming over for the World Cup in 2010, there is no point now in asking you to switch off the lights when you leave. No longer South Africa - more like South Zimbabwe.
What's the difference between South Africa and the Titanic? The Titanic sank with it's light still on.

The Rand has lost R2 against the pound in the week following the Government's declared Emergency Crisis.

If you are coming over for the World Cup in 2010, there is no point now in asking you to switch off the lights when you leave. No longer South Africa - more like South Zimbabwe.Quote | Report this postPosted by: Scamp on 1:18pm Sun 10 Feb 08
There's no doubt in my own mind that the decolonisation of Africa happened probably 100 years too early. Even Kenya which was held up as an example of African democracy has slipped back into what is effectively tribal warfare. The fault lies I'm afraid with the USA and the PC brigade. The USA insisted on the UK giving up its African and other colonies after WW2 because it was intent on destroying our global influence. The PC brigade simply took the naive view that it was entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. Still, too late now. The damage is done and only if and when some genuinely democratic African leaders that don't suffer from a chip on their should rise up out of this mess and take charge can I see there being any real improvement.
There's no doubt in my own mind that the decolonisation of Africa happened probably 100 years too early. Even Kenya which was held up as an example of African democracy has slipped back into what is effectively tribal warfare.

The fault lies I'm afraid with the USA and the PC brigade. The USA insisted on the UK giving up its African and other colonies after WW2 because it was intent on destroying our global influence. The PC brigade simply took the naive view that it was entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Still, too late now. The damage is done and only if and when some genuinely democratic African leaders that don't suffer from a chip on their should rise up out of this mess and take charge can I see there being any real improvement. Quote | Report this postPosted by: Lobeydosser, Woodlands Road on 2:00pm Sun 10 Feb 08
When the 'white flight' starts (if it has not started already), will we, as Scots, be ready and willing to receive them and use their knowledge, skills and experience for our benefit?
When the 'white flight' starts (if it has not started already), will we, as Scots, be ready and willing to receive them and use their knowledge, skills and experience for our benefit?Quote | Report this postPosted by: Walton, Glasgow on 2:22pm Sun 10 Feb 08
As a white South African living Scotland, it's always interesting to observe reports of my country's immanent demise in the papers. It's also really sad how all the racists and Afro-pessimists crawl out of their holes, rubbing their greasy paws with glee at yet more evidence of African failure. I am surprised that Bridgland's one-sided, simplistic and factually inaccurate article even got published. He simply parrots the views of South Africa's white opposition party, and ignores the perspectives of the Black majority. It is true that there is a lot seriously wrong with South Africa - one of the reasons I am in temporary exile. I am also appalled at the South African government, which has delivered so much less than we hoped for. Yet I visit South Africa regularly (I was there when Zuma beat Mbeki to become ANC president), and the reality is far more complex and nuanced than this article suggests. Despite serious problems, the country is far from a lot cause. Despite everything, the country today is infinitely better than it was under apartheid, and it is still a work in progress. To suggest that South Africa is heading the way of Zimbabwe and other failed African states is an ignorance and superficiality of analysis that is astounding in an international correspondent - Bridgland doesn't deserve to write for newspapers if he can't come up with better than his pessimistic tales of woe. I have more faith in South Africa's future than in Britain's. It's the UK that really frightens me, with it's addiction to war, overblown sense of importance and the intrusive surveillance of all it's citizens.
As a white South African living Scotland, it's always interesting to observe reports of my country's immanent demise in the papers.

It's also really sad how all the racists and Afro-pessimists crawl out of their holes, rubbing their greasy paws with glee at yet more evidence of African failure.

I am surprised that Bridgland's one-sided, simplistic and factually inaccurate article even got published. He simply parrots the views of South Africa's white opposition party, and ignores the perspectives of the Black majority.

It is true that there is a lot seriously wrong with South Africa - one of the reasons I am in temporary exile. I am also appalled at the South African government, which has delivered so much less than we hoped for.

Yet I visit South Africa regularly (I was there when Zuma beat Mbeki to become ANC president), and the reality is far more complex and nuanced than this article suggests. Despite serious problems, the country is far from a lot cause.

Despite everything, the country today is infinitely better than it was under apartheid, and it is still a work in progress.

To suggest that South Africa is heading the way of Zimbabwe and other failed African states is an ignorance and superficiality of analysis that is astounding in an international correspondent - Bridgland doesn't deserve to write for newspapers if he can't come up with better than his pessimistic tales of woe.

I have more faith in South Africa's future than in Britain's. It's the UK that really frightens me, with it's addiction to war, overblown sense of importance and the intrusive surveillance of all it's citizens.Quote | Report this postPosted by: James, Cape Town on 3:29pm Sun 10 Feb 08
Thank you Walton. I couldn't agree more. This article as well a many of the comments are ludicrously inaccurate. What I would suggest to them is to stay where you are. We'll enjoy all the wonderful things SA has to offer quite well without you!
Thank you Walton. I couldn't agree more. This article as well a many of the comments are ludicrously inaccurate.

What I would suggest to them is to stay where you are. We'll enjoy all the wonderful things SA has to offer quite well without you!Quote | Report this postPosted by: ally on 4:16pm Sun 10 Feb 08
If Walton feels that Britain really frightens him,what is he doing here? Nobody is forcing him to stay.
If Walton feels that Britain really frightens him,what is he doing here? Nobody is forcing him to stay.Quote | Report this postPosted by: Graham, Johannesburg on 7:14pm Sun 10 Feb 08
I'm Ex pat Uk living here since 1980.That article basically sums up the whole situation.I've tried to be positive in my attitude so far but am so fed up now that i'm considering moving back to europe.There is so much inaptitude here in all levels of service delivery.This Eskom story is the icing on the cake.Its ridiculous.
I'm Ex pat Uk living here since 1980.That article basically sums up the whole situation.I've tried to be positive in my attitude so far but am so fed up now that i'm considering moving back to europe.There is so much inaptitude here in all levels of service delivery.This Eskom story is the icing on the cake.Its ridiculous. Quote | Report this postPosted by: Amir Mizroch, Israel on 9:32pm Sun 10 Feb 08
This is what I'm hearing from a few people in the JHB Jewish community. [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] .com/2008/02/08/crie s-from-the-beloved-c ountry-part-ii/
This is what I'm hearing from a few people in the JHB Jewish community.

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]
.com/2008/02/08/crie
s-from-the-beloved-c
ountry-part-ii/Quote | Report this postPosted by: Oscar, durban on 7:27am Mon 11 Feb 08
Thanks Walton of Glasgow. This article is written by one of the pessimists. People who cant take problems and turn them into chalenges. There really is nothin impossible. We'l hv no recession, we'l hv Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth. May some of those who think we'r going Zim's way do what is noble and offer good suggestions on the available platforms. Else, SA is democratic and they hv all the rights to either stay or leave. However I am on the side of staying and solving this together with us. Not always fleeing away from challenges in cowardice.
Thanks Walton of Glasgow. This article is written by one of the pessimists. People who cant take problems and turn them into chalenges. There really is nothin impossible. We'l hv no recession, we'l hv Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth. May some of those who think we'r going Zim's way do what is noble and offer good suggestions on the available platforms. Else, SA is democratic and they hv all the rights to either stay or leave. However I am on the side of staying and solving this together with us. Not always fleeing away from challenges in cowardice.Quote | Report this postPosted by: oscar, durban on 7:43am Mon 11 Feb 08
Cytat:
[bold]Oscar[/bold] wrote: Thanks Walton of Glasgow. This article is written by one of the pessimists. People who cant take problems and turn them into chalenges. There really is nothin impossible. We'l hv no recession, we'l hv Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth. May some of those who think we'r going Zim's way do what is noble and offer good suggestions on the available platforms. Else, SA is democratic and they hv all the rights to either stay or leave. However I am on the side of staying and solving this together with us. Not always fleeing away from challenges in cowardice.
Not:'we'l hv Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth'. But: 'we'l hv NO Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth' Thank you.
Oscar wrote:
Thanks Walton of Glasgow. This article is written by one of the pessimists. People who cant take problems and turn them into chalenges. There really is nothin impossible. We'l hv no recession, we'l hv Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth. May some of those who think we'r going Zim's way do what is noble and offer good suggestions on the available platforms. Else, SA is democratic and they hv all the rights to either stay or leave. However I am on the side of staying and solving this together with us. Not always fleeing away from challenges in cowardice.
Not:'we'l hv Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth'.

But: 'we'l hv NO Zim in SA and SA my land shall remain a land of hope and success in Africa of our birth'
Thank you.
Quote | Report this postPosted by: Kieran, Kingston, Jamaica on 4:37pm Mon 11 Feb 08
"Our country was built on the mines." Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but the mining industry was built on the backs of poorly paid, overworked and mistreated black workers. Bridgeland, please keep in mind that some newspaper readers are intelligent, well informed people. If you are unaware that the problems in SA are far more complex than your article suggests, and that the cause of these problems will not be remedied by parodying European models of governance, you should perhaps consider another line of work. In all seriousness, I would love to read a report on what positive activities you have seen or been involved with. I am a Scott living in Jamaica, and understand the frustration of living in a country wracked by violence, poverty, corruption, power-cuts, inflation.... I think it's time we all look a little further, and dig a little deeper to find solutions. I am happy that Walton is living in Glasgow, and free to criticize British society, it should be criticized, the UK and the US is currently wreaking havoc on the globe with it's warfare and destruction, at the expense of it's taxpayers. It is true the economies of the UK and the US are addicted to war, and have been for a very long time.
"Our country was built on the mines."

Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but the mining industry was built on the backs of poorly paid, overworked and mistreated black workers.

Bridgeland, please keep in mind that some newspaper readers are intelligent, well informed people. If you are unaware that the problems in SA are far more complex than your article suggests, and that the cause of these problems will not be remedied by parodying European models of governance, you should perhaps consider another line of work. In all seriousness, I would love to read a report on what positive activities you have seen or been involved with.
I am a Scott living in Jamaica, and understand the frustration of living in a country wracked by violence, poverty, corruption, power-cuts, inflation.... I think it's time we all look a little further, and dig a little deeper to find solutions.
I am happy that Walton is living in Glasgow, and free to criticize British society, it should be criticized, the UK and the US is currently wreaking havoc on the globe with it's warfare and destruction, at the expense of it's taxpayers. It is true the economies of the UK and the US are addicted to war, and have been for a very long time.
Quote | Report this postPosted by: Kieran, Kingston, Jamaica on 4:42pm Mon 11 Feb 08
here was a rather positive letter from the Jamaica Gleaner on Sunday. [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] leaner.com/gleaner/2 0080210/letters/lett ers1.html LETTER OF THE DAY - 'Spiritual solution will rescue us from present catastrophe' published: Sunday | February 10, 2008 The Editor, Sir: The Bahá'í community of Jamaica, along with all well-thinking Jamaicans, is greatly concerned about the appalling, wanton disregard for human life. Many suggestions presented to deal with crime and violence address the issue from a material perspective. The need for sincere spiritual interactions to give balance cannot be ignored; both go hand in hand. Guns barking, dead bodies, hold-ups, and so on, are all manifestations of violence, but its origin takes place in the mind, the thought process. Therefore, the mind must be purified of such malicious thoughts for the preservation of human life and dignity. We bring to mind the words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, son of Baha'u'llah, the prophet-founder of the Bahá'í faith, who said: "There is nothing so heartbreaking and terrible as an outburst of human savagery! I charge you all that each one of you concentrate all the thoughts of your heart on love and unity. When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love. Thoughts of war bring destruction to all harmony, well-being, restfulness and content. Thoughts of love are constructive of brotherhood, peace, friendship, and happiness." Love for the sake of God 'Abdu'l-Bahá encouraged us to love all persons for the sake of God, and not for themselves. "You will never become angry or impatient if you love them for the sake of God. Humanity is not perfect. There are imperfections in every human being, and you will always become unhappy if you look toward the people themselves. But if you look towards God, you will love them and be kind to them, for the world of God is the world of perfection and complete mercy." This way of living and thinking is a challenge which requires much practice, but it is the spiritual solution that will rescue us from our present catastrophe. We take this opportunity to offer to your readers a prayer and a wish that with God's help, we as a people may rise up with nobility and love our neighbours as we love ourselves. Prayer for Mankind "O Thou kind Lord! Thou hast created all humanity from the same stock. Thou hast decreed that all shall belong to the same household. In Thy holy presence they are all Thy servants, and all mankind are sheltered beneath Thy tabernacle; all have gathered together at Thy table of bounty; all are illumined through the light of Thy providence. O God! Thou art kind to all. Thou hast provided for all, dost shelter all, conferrest life upon all. Thou hast endowed each and all with talents and faculties, and all are submerged in the ocean of Thy mercy. O Thou kind Lord! Unite all. Let the religions agree and make the nations one, so that they may see each other as one family and the whole Earth as one home. May they all live together in perfect harmony. O God! Raise aloft the banner of the oneness of mankind. O God! Establish the most great peace. Cement Thou, O God, the hearts together. O Thou kind Father, God! Gladden our hearts through the fragrance of Thy love. Brighten our eyes through the light of Thy guidance. Delight our ears with the melody of Thy word, and shelter us all in the stronghold of Thy providence. Thou art the mighty and powerful, Thou art the forgiving and Thou art the one who overlooketh the shortcomings of all mankind." - 'Abdu'l-Bahá With best regards, NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY of The Bahá'ís of JAMAICA
here was a rather positive letter from the Jamaica Gleaner on Sunday.

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]
leaner.com/gleaner/2
0080210/letters/lett
ers1.html


LETTER OF THE DAY - 'Spiritual solution will rescue us from present catastrophe'
published: Sunday | February 10, 2008

The Editor, Sir:

The Bahá'í community of Jamaica, along with all well-thinking Jamaicans, is greatly concerned about the appalling, wanton disregard for human life.

Many suggestions presented to deal with crime and violence address the issue from a material perspective. The need for sincere spiritual interactions to give balance cannot be ignored; both go hand in hand.

Guns barking, dead bodies, hold-ups, and so on, are all manifestations of violence, but its origin takes place in the mind, the thought process.

Therefore, the mind must be purified of such malicious thoughts for the preservation of human life and dignity. We bring to mind the words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, son of Baha'u'llah, the prophet-founder of the Bahá'í faith, who said: "There is nothing so heartbreaking and terrible as an outburst of human savagery! I charge you all that each one of you concentrate all the thoughts of your heart on love and unity. When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love. Thoughts of war bring destruction to all harmony, well-being, restfulness and content. Thoughts of love are constructive of brotherhood, peace, friendship, and happiness."

Love for the sake of God

'Abdu'l-Bahá encouraged us to love all persons for the sake of God, and not for themselves. "You will never become angry or impatient if you love them for the sake of God. Humanity is not perfect. There are imperfections in every human being, and you will always become unhappy if you look toward the people themselves. But if you look towards God, you will love them and be kind to them, for the world of God is the world of perfection and complete mercy."

This way of living and thinking is a challenge which requires much practice, but it is the spiritual solution that will rescue us from our present catastrophe. We take this opportunity to offer to your readers a prayer and a wish that with God's help, we as a people may rise up with nobility and love our neighbours as we love ourselves.

Prayer for Mankind

"O Thou kind Lord! Thou hast created all humanity from the same stock. Thou hast decreed that all shall belong to the same household. In Thy holy presence they are all Thy servants, and all mankind are sheltered beneath Thy tabernacle; all have gathered together at Thy table of bounty; all are illumined through the light of Thy providence.

O God! Thou art kind to all. Thou hast provided for all, dost shelter all, conferrest life upon all. Thou hast endowed each and all with talents and faculties, and all are submerged in the ocean of Thy mercy.

O Thou kind Lord! Unite all. Let the religions agree and make the nations one, so that they may see each other as one family and the whole Earth as one home. May they all live together in perfect harmony.

O God! Raise aloft the banner of the oneness of mankind.

O God! Establish the most great peace.

Cement Thou, O God, the hearts together.

O Thou kind Father, God! Gladden our hearts through the fragrance of Thy love. Brighten our eyes through the light of Thy guidance. Delight our ears with the melody of Thy word, and shelter us all in the stronghold of Thy providence.

Thou art the mighty and powerful, Thou art the forgiving and Thou art the one who overlooketh the shortcomings of all mankind."

- 'Abdu'l-Bahá

With best regards,

NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY

of The Bahá'ís of JAMAICAQuote | Report this postPosted by: NONIMOUS, South Africa on 5:52am Tue 12 Feb 08
This article was written by someone who is probably headless and probably not a South Africa. South Africa is doing fine. Things are not as bad as they have been written on this article
This article was written by someone who is probably headless and probably not a South Africa. South Africa is doing fine. Things are not as bad as they have been written on this articleQuote | Report this postPosted by: NONIMOUS, South Africa on 5:55am Tue 12 Feb 08
Poeple are so against Zuma, can anyone point a leader on this earth even in the bible who didnt do a mistake? From Goerge Bush to Robert Mugabe who is perfect?
Poeple are so against Zuma, can anyone point a leader on this earth even in the bible who didnt do a mistake? From Goerge Bush to Robert Mugabe who is perfect?Quote | Report this postPosted by: Matthew on 6:27am Tue 12 Feb 08
The article is of course pessimistic...as are investors. The current situation in SA probably can be fixed but not in nearly enough time to repair the damage done to the confidence of foreign investors. Money makes the world go round unfortunately and SA has a serious struggle ahead. Who in their right mind would want to invest money in a country so poorly governed?!
The article is of course pessimistic...as are investors. The current situation in SA probably can be fixed but not in nearly enough time to repair the damage done to the confidence of foreign investors. Money makes the world go round unfortunately and SA has a serious struggle ahead. Who in their right mind would want to invest money in a country so poorly governed?! Quote | Report this postPosted by: John, South Africa on 10:21am Tue 12 Feb 08
I want a country in this world that thus not have a share of it's own problems, people governing each democratic state are elected into power by the citizens of that country,I know of whites who will vote for th ANC in 2009,proving that the majority of South Africans are confident that what is going on in SA at present are not problems but challenges that can be solved if we stand together .those who leave SA to pursue a specific job opportunity or adventure, or simply to go and experience life in a different culture. To them I say, good luck and godspeed!! . those who leave the country with bitterness and hate, and somehow finds pleasure in bad mouthing SA in every possible way. To them, I say good riddance!!!
I want a country in this world that thus not have a share of it's own problems, people governing each democratic state are elected into power by the citizens of that country,I know of whites who will vote for th ANC in 2009,proving that the majority of South Africans are confident that what is going on in SA at present are not problems but challenges that can be solved if we stand together .those who leave SA to pursue a specific job opportunity or adventure, or simply to go and experience life in a different culture. To them I say, good luck and godspeed!! . those who leave the country with bitterness and hate, and somehow finds pleasure in bad mouthing SA in every possible way. To them, I say good riddance!!! Quote | Report this postPosted by: Bheka Nkonyane on 2:18pm Tue 12 Feb 08
Sounds like a real hell-hole! Unfortunately some of the things in the article are true for example high levels of violent crime, others are not as true, like rampant bribery and houses in France. According to Transparency International, only 3% of the South Africans surveyed paid a bribe in 2007. We also continue to have an independent Judiciary and prosecution authority. Which is why people like Selebi(Police Commissioner) and Zuma face charges. Power failures or "load shedding" are horrible, but California, Australia and others have had those and survived. Yes things are rough, but a sensible, balanced approach is what we need, at home and abroad.
Sounds like a real hell-hole!

Unfortunately some of the things in the article are true for example high levels of violent crime, others are not as true, like rampant bribery and houses in France. According to Transparency International, only 3% of the South Africans surveyed paid a bribe in 2007.

We also continue to have an independent Judiciary and prosecution authority. Which is why people like Selebi(Police Commissioner) and Zuma face charges.

Power failures or "load shedding" are horrible, but California, Australia and others have had those and survived.

Yes things are rough, but a sensible, balanced approach is what we need, at home and abroad.Quote | Report this postPosted by: Jake, London on 3:22pm Tue 12 Feb 08
This problem is not going to end unless, as mean as it may sound, they get over what has happened and want to make a change for themselves. SA and Zim 2 of the most beautiful countries in the world will fall together. Its such a sad thing to write and it may seem that there is no hope but until people like NOMINOUS take their heads out their a** and look around any chance of change will be dimineshed. Mugabe is sick and no one should compare him to bush as that is really kind of a disgusting thing when you see what is going on there, yes people make mistakes but there really is no comparison. I just hope that the governments can get over themselves and ask for help, or the people of south africa and Zim make the right decision and show us that they will not just follow a leader over race but will take the only continent that has not yet become a super power and put it in the position that they can start to achieve this. Some say not to judge these states by european standards but when the people are suffering and dont have a voice to speak out then maybe the world and the countries in africa need to re-evaluate. I just want to say that I love SA with real love. The people are amazing and the potential is infinite. Instead of just complaining so people here dont have a go, ill list some suggestions for the country to make. 1) Stop affirmative action, and start more training schemes if someone is qualified to do the job then they can have it. SA is already a late bloomer, we all know what happened and we all feel horrible what went on, but to wait a few more years to train people and let the success of the country that was there before thrive again you will see more positive results. 2) A rewards Scheme for children in school. In the UK we have a scheme where children are given a government allowance/ reward for the days they turn up at school. This can be adjusted to fit SA. 3) Sort out the political scheme. Have 2 leaders at once, just to start out with, one black and one white things will even out much faster. Or a mixed political party. 4) Start implementing the idea of the Rainbow Nation. IT CANT JUST BE A PHRASE!!!!! it is probably the most over used term with no meaning or evidence that it is there. 5) Violence..... This has to be the one thing that is controlled as quickly as possible. Neighborhood watch/ security patrols/ more police/ BRING IN THE ARMY. With the violence, people will leave the country then there is no hope for a new start. Its not going to be a quick thing to achieve this change but really if some of these things were implemented there will be a positive change. But the first thing that has to be done is to find the voice of the people, cause if they are happy and want to be left alone then there is nothing anyone can do and they will ROTT away.
This problem is not going to end unless, as mean as it may sound, they get over what has happened and want to make a change for themselves.
SA and Zim 2 of the most beautiful countries in the world will fall together. Its such a sad thing to write and it may seem that there is no hope but until people like NOMINOUS take their heads out their a** and look around any chance of change will be dimineshed. Mugabe is sick and no one should compare him to bush as that is really kind of a disgusting thing when you see what is going on there, yes people make mistakes but there really is no comparison. I just hope that the governments can get over themselves and ask for help, or the people of south africa and Zim make the right decision and show us that they will not just follow a leader over race but will take the only continent that has not yet become a super power and put it in the position that they can start to achieve this.

Some say not to judge these states by european standards but when the people are suffering and dont have a voice to speak out then maybe the world and the countries in africa need to re-evaluate.

I just want to say that I love SA with real love. The people are amazing and the potential is infinite. Instead of just complaining so people here dont have a go, ill list some suggestions for the country to make.

1) Stop affirmative action, and start more training schemes if someone is qualified to do the job then they can have it. SA is already a late bloomer, we all know what happened and we all feel horrible what went on, but to wait a few more years to train people and let the success of the country that was there before thrive again you will see more positive results.

2) A rewards Scheme for children in school. In the UK we have a scheme where children are given a government allowance/ reward for the days they turn up at school. This can be adjusted to fit SA.

3) Sort out the political scheme. Have 2 leaders at once, just to start out with, one black and one white things will even out much faster. Or a mixed political party.


4) Start implementing the idea of the Rainbow Nation. IT CANT JUST BE A PHRASE!!!!! it is probably the most over used term with no meaning or evidence that it is there.

5) Violence..... This has to be the one thing that is controlled as quickly as possible. Neighborhood watch/ security patrols/ more police/ BRING IN THE ARMY. With the violence, people will leave the country then there is no hope for a new start.

Its not going to be a quick thing to achieve this change but really if some of these things were implemented there will be a positive change.
But the first thing that has to be done is to find the voice of the people, cause if they are happy and want to be left alone then there is nothing anyone can do and they will ROTT away.

Quote | Report this postPosted by: Candice, South Africa on 11:10am Wed 13 Feb 08
As a South African, it is always interesting to see how other countries perceive the situation here. I myself, do not feel too affected by the political situation in the country- YET. But what I can say is that I am really tired of the crime here- violent crime. I have been hi-jacked, smash & grabbed and held up in an armed robbery by 5 armed men who beat my brother. Am I expected to accept this- and put a smile on my face? I absolutely refuse to pretend that I am happy with my life here. I am only 24 years old and want to know what more can go wrong. I feel that people who complain about people being "pessimistic" have luckily not had anything happen to them- YET. In this country its a matter of when and not if. When I immigrate from this country- I will not take the negative with me and put the country down- because perhaps one day- if things got better I would come back. But right now its not looking like it will- unless things change drastically.
As a South African, it is always interesting to see how other countries perceive the situation here.

I myself, do not feel too affected by the political situation in the country- YET. But what I can say is that I am really tired of the crime here- violent crime. I have been hi-jacked, smash & grabbed and held up in an armed robbery by 5 armed men who beat my brother.

Am I expected to accept this- and put a smile on my face? I absolutely refuse to pretend that I am happy with my life here. I am only 24 years old and want to know what more can go wrong. I feel that people who complain about people being "pessimistic" have luckily not had anything happen to them- YET. In this country its a matter of when and not if.

When I immigrate from this country- I will not take the negative with me and put the country down- because perhaps one day- if things got better I would come back. But right now its not looking like it will- unless things change drastically. Quote | Report this postPosted by: Chris, South Africa on 1:55pm Wed 13 Feb 08
Cytat:
[bold]Wullie[/bold] wrote: Sadly it would appear that South Africa may be going the way of Rhodesia and all of the other failed African states. But that is the way of African politics and African culture. Relative democracy and stable societies are unfortunately hard to find in the African continent despite that continent\'s natural wealth.
[italic]"But that is the way of African politics and African culture."[/italic] I take offense to this statement, not because South Africa is doing well ([bold]it is not[/bold] ) but because the author of this post generalize everything about South African politics, its people, and its culture. The author of this piece of text attempts to mould every citizen in South Africa to the same mould. Black and whites alike. I have a good recollection of how things were before the whites were forced to leave the country, as I am planning to do now. Anyways - I am going to use this opportunity to perform some [italic]"gal braak"[/italic] - this is an expression we use in Afrikaans that indicates our profound unhappiness with someone or something. In essence, this means bringing up the bitter content from your stomach. Nice thought for a Wednesday afternoon. Stop reading here if strong political content bothers you. Otherwise, continue to read and see another picture. Here goes. Everyone had this HUGE thing about Apartheid and how bad it was, and how bad the country was doing under the Apartheid regime, however, I believe that a lot of things at that time were better than they are now! Yes, there were crime, there were corruption, and there were injustices, but much less than now. Lots of people say that "we just don't know about all the crimes that took place then" - to those I have just a small piece of food-for-thought: With the political situation currently the way it is, don't you think the post-Apartheid government has investigated EVERY Apartheid leader and prominent person they could - to create a sense of justice to the world? Yes, they did. Some attempts were successful (and some were even justified), but some were a blatant misconstruction of what really happened, or searching for injustice where there simply weren't any. Think about that and weep. One of the major reasons (no, not the only one) the economy suffered during Apartheid was because the hypocrites all over the world who blamed everything on Apartheid and instated sanctions against South Africa, making trade illegal. Americans have killed the native Indians like they were the pests of the world, but they want to have the "moral high ground" because of how the whites treated (treats) the blacks? Don't throw stones if you live in a glass house! [bold]Ever heard of Reversed Apartheid?[/bold] This is exactly what is happening in South Africa at this moment in time. White men can barely get jobs nowadays. White men compete with total idiots for jobs, but don't get it, because the other candidate is black. Not better qualified; BLACK! Rediculous! I studied at a prominent University in South Africa from 2002 to 2005. In those years I worked full time, studied part time, got my B. Sc. degree as well as my B. Sc. Honours degree in the same field of study, both in a period of four years, and in this same period, another person (coincidentally, a black person) who studied full time could not even finish two years of his studies. Now - before you blame me for generalizing that black people are stupid, let me just state for the record that I know of some white people who are not much more intelligent than the dirt under my shoes, but the reason I am stating this is because it is required information for the next point I want to accentuate (and elaborate on the same topic from the main article): mismanagement. This student didn't pass the first year prerequisite for a second year subject, [italic]yet he was allowed to continue into the second year[/italic]? What the heck is that about? He asked me a trivial question once in the computer rooms at the university. For someone studying IT, finding the smallest item in an array is a very easy question - especially in your "second" year. Within 30 seconds or so, I wrote the small piece of program for him that sorted the array for him, and told him to do the rest (all he had to do now was to figure out whether I sorted it from large to small or from small to large, and then select either the first item or the last one...). Contrary to my statement above, I am not the least bit bothered that he couldn't do it, because maybe IT is not his strong suit. Maybe he's a good singer, or a handy machinist, or even a future award-winning economist-to-be, but [bold]the fact that he was allowed to continue to the second year subjects without passing the first year prerequisites[/bold], because "the previously disadvantaged black people" have to get the same opportunities that us whities had. Go figure. Incompetence breeds incompetence. This is the type of black person that will compete with me for a job in our wonderful New South Africa. Our wonderful, collapsing Rainbow Nation with a National Anthem that is written in more languages than I care about. Who will get it? Odds are stacked in his favour, because he is previously disadvantaged. Poor thing. Now - to those hypocrites who felt Apartheid was all evil and totally wrong [italic](and not partially right and partially wrong)[/italic] will finally realise that Apartheid was not always all *that* bad. Yes, I agree some things were WELL over the top, such as "no blacks allowed in town after 9pm" or such rules - but to blame the Apartheid for everything going wrong? Come on, grow up and smell the coffee! It is almost 2 decades after Apartheid ended - how long are they still going to blame it all on Apartheid? A while ago, I was walking past a construction site where one white man and two black men were working on some sort of roofing project. I knew the white man, so I stopped to chat a bit. The white person looked at me, saw the Coke in my hand, and in an overly familiar tone, said he was thirsty. Okay, so I had a spare can of Coke with me. Only one, mind you, so I gave it to him (since he asked and all - not took it by force...). Shame, having to work outside in this heat! Immediately his black friend started accusing me of being guilty of Apartheid and what-have-you and being a racist and such. Nice. Very nice. No good deed goes unpunished. I did not have three cokes with me. The white man asked first, so he got it. Simple as that. What do you think I did? I took the Coke from the white person, opened it, and started drinking it in front of them while I stayed another while to talk with the white man. A bit harsh? Maybe. But because of that attitude, none of them had any thirst relief. People are so quick to blame Apartheid for everything. But it is our white forefathers who broke away from the English rule in the early 1800s that made this country what it is today. We built the cities, we advanced the technology. Now, "misinformed everyone" says it is "because the blacks did not have the same opportunities than the whites to make this difference..." and to that I say "What a load of crock!" Look at other African countries. Even those that were without caucasian rule in the last century: VIOLENCE, CRIME, CORRUPTION, MISMANAGEMENT, POLITICAL FAVOURITISM. The WORKS! Some indiginous tribes in Southern Africa, such as te Bushmen, mostly refuse to "westernize". While this is admirable for their tribal values and core beliefs, it also indicates that they will ALWAYS be a predominantly primitive folk. About cancelling the 2010 World Cup Soccer? Great idea. They will probably cut our electricity to provide for the soccer stadiums and surrounding areas, preventing us folks who can't be at every single game to miss out on the action. So - take it away, folks, I am not going to see any of it anyways, so why would I care? I am proud to be a white South African, but no longer proud of my beautiful country, and I am hoping that ALL whites who share the same frustrations as I do, will follow my example of leaving this wretched place and let the Africans suffer all on their own. On the other hand, if you don't share my points of views, and want to call me a racist and an irrational idiot in a public forum, be my guest, post your comment in answer to mine (that is if my comment is not to hot for the Herald to handle, and it does not get deleted) :-)
Wullie wrote:
Sadly it would appear that South Africa may be going the way of Rhodesia and all of the other failed African states. But that is the way of African politics and African culture. Relative democracy and stable societies are unfortunately hard to find in the African continent despite that continent\'s natural wealth.
"But that is the way of African politics and African culture."

I take offense to this statement, not because South Africa is doing well (it is not ) but because the author of this post generalize everything about South African politics, its people, and its culture. The author of this piece of text attempts to mould every citizen in South Africa to the same mould. Black and whites alike. I have a good recollection of how things were before the whites were forced to leave the country, as I am planning to do now.

Anyways - I am going to use this opportunity to perform some "gal braak" - this is an expression we use in Afrikaans that indicates our profound unhappiness with someone or something. In essence, this means bringing up the bitter content from your stomach. Nice thought for a Wednesday afternoon. Stop reading here if strong political content bothers you. Otherwise, continue to read and see another picture. Here goes.

Everyone had this HUGE thing about Apartheid and how bad it was, and how bad the country was doing under the Apartheid regime, however, I believe that a lot of things at that time were better than they are now! Yes, there were crime, there were corruption, and there were injustices, but much less than now. Lots of people say that "we just don't know about all the crimes that took place then" - to those I have just a small piece of food-for-thought: With the political situation currently the way it is, don't you think the post-Apartheid government has investigated EVERY Apartheid leader and prominent person they could - to create a sense of justice to the world? Yes, they did. Some attempts were successful (and some were even justified), but some were a blatant misconstruction of what really happened, or searching for injustice where there simply weren't any. Think about that and weep.

One of the major reasons (no, not the only one) the economy suffered during Apartheid was because the hypocrites all over the world who blamed everything on Apartheid and instated sanctions against South Africa, making trade illegal. Americans have killed the native Indians like they were the pests of the world, but they want to have the "moral high ground" because of how the whites treated (treats) the blacks? Don't throw stones if you live in a glass house!

Ever heard of Reversed Apartheid? This is exactly what is happening in South Africa at this moment in time. White men can barely get jobs nowadays. White men compete with total idiots for jobs, but don't get it, because the other candidate is black. Not better qualified; BLACK! Rediculous!

I studied at a prominent University in South Africa from 2002 to 2005. In those years I worked full time, studied part time, got my B. Sc. degree as well as my B. Sc. Honours degree in the same field of study, both in a period of four years, and in this same period, another person (coincidentally, a black person) who studied full time could not even finish two years of his studies. Now - before you blame me for generalizing that black people are stupid, let me just state for the record that I know of some white people who are not much more intelligent than the dirt under my shoes, but the reason I am stating this is because it is required information for the next point I want to accentuate (and elaborate on the same topic from the main article): mismanagement.

This student didn't pass the first year prerequisite for a second year subject, yet he was allowed to continue into the second year? What the heck is that about? He asked me a trivial question once in the computer rooms at the university. For someone studying IT, finding the smallest item in an array is a very easy question - especially in your "second" year. Within 30 seconds or so, I wrote the small piece of program for him that sorted the array for him, and told him to do the rest (all he had to do now was to figure out whether I sorted it from large to small or from small to large, and then select either the first item or the last one...).

Contrary to my statement above, I am not the least bit bothered that he couldn't do it, because maybe IT is not his strong suit. Maybe he's a good singer, or a handy machinist, or even a future award-winning economist-to-be, but the fact that he was allowed to continue to the second year subjects without passing the first year prerequisites, because "the previously disadvantaged black people" have to get the same opportunities that us whities had. Go figure. Incompetence breeds incompetence. This is the type of black person that will compete with me for a job in our wonderful New South Africa. Our wonderful, collapsing Rainbow Nation with a National Anthem that is written in more languages than I care about. Who will get it? Odds are stacked in his favour, because he is previously disadvantaged. Poor thing.

Now - to those hypocrites who felt Apartheid was all evil and totally wrong (and not partially right and partially wrong) will finally realise that Apartheid was not always all *that* bad. Yes, I agree some things were WELL over the top, such as "no blacks allowed in town after 9pm" or such rules - but to blame the Apartheid for everything going wrong? Come on, grow up and smell the coffee! It is almost 2 decades after Apartheid ended - how long are they still going to blame it all on Apartheid?

A while ago, I was walking past a construction site where
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Quote | Report this postPosted by: The Doc, South Africa on 4:44am Tue 26 Feb 08
I'm a northern European medical doctor. A senior surgeon, working in the public sector of South Africa. I have done so the last 5 years. I do not want to speak outside my discipline, so this will be about the medical demise of SA. Most visitors to South Africa, who encounter the public health sector, do so by visiting a hospital or a clinic in or near the big cities. What they get to see is a hospital or a clinic, which is working, but not up to Western standards. Before I came down here, I believed that pre-94 South Africa had a very good health care system for the white population, and nothing for the black. I soon discovered that was not the case. The Calvinistic white rulers of South Africa had built an elaborate network of public hospitals, reaching the outermost societies of this large country. We are talking about 5-600 beds hospitals far out in the rural areas. Before 1994, they were well manned and equipped, and complicated procedures were carried out there. I know this. I’ve been to these hospitals and spoken to the people working there. I have gone through old patient files and surgical statistics. These were hospitals that catered for the black population. This web of hospitals as I can see must have covered more or less 100% of South Africa’s population, including the former Bantustans or homelands. I know that the same situation was present as to schools. The ANC run a couple of campaigns like “Election before education” and “To make the country ungovernable”. As part of that, most rural schools were burnt down. Keeping in mind the traditionally very violent African culture down here, one perfectly do understand why the hospitals built by the apartheid government, did not suffer the same fate. This has left us with a window to the past; we can clearly see that the apartheid government did not only care for their white population, but in fact, also took great responsibility for the black, at something that must have been an enormous cost. Back to visiting South African hospitals… When doing so, the visitor will be shown one of a few hospitals, were not too many windows are broken, not all the equipment has been vandalized and not all the electric supply has been cut off. Now, go outside these hospitals, go to the former rural hospitals, and what do you find? You will find that the hospitals built for the black population, by the black ANC government, have been degraded and left unfunded. You will find hospitals with no doctors. Hospitals with no electricity. No X-ray equipment. No furniture. You actually will find old rural hospital inhabited by squatters! It is for me a huge paradox that the black government seems to have zero compassion for their own population, as long as they can get away with it and no one can or will see it. The black population has not by magic become so much healthier after 1994 that these hospitals are not needed anymore. Au contraire, the black population is in dire need of these hospitals, but all they find are ghost hospitals. Many of whom I’ve visited, are beyond repair. I am leaving South Africa now. I have paid my duties, and I am forever marked by Africa in the form of an entry and exit 9 mm bullet hole in my right upper leg. I got it because my robber was not happy with me handing over my 10 year old or something Nokia 6110 cellphone, and some small coins. No wallet, no rings and only amalgam fillings… Now, what kind of doctor is that? My last word to South Africa: Go to hell!
I'm a northern European medical doctor. A senior surgeon, working in the public sector of South Africa. I have done so the last 5 years. I do not want to speak outside my discipline, so this will be about the medical demise of SA.
Most visitors to South Africa, who encounter the public health sector, do so by visiting a hospital or a clinic in or near the big cities. What they get to see is a hospital or a clinic, which is working, but not up to Western standards. Before I came down here, I believed that pre-94 South Africa had a very good health care system for the white population, and nothing for the black. I soon discovered that was not the case. The Calvinistic white rulers of South Africa had built an elaborate network of public hospitals, reaching the outermost societies of this large country. We are talking about 5-600 beds hospitals far out in the rural areas. Before 1994, they were well manned and equipped, and complicated procedures were carried out there. I know this. I’ve been to these hospitals and spoken to the people working there. I have gone through old patient files and surgical statistics. These were hospitals that catered for the black population. This web of hospitals as I can see must have covered more or less 100% of South Africa’s population, including the former Bantustans or homelands. I know that the same situation was present as to schools. The ANC run a couple of campaigns like “Election before education” and “To make the country ungovernable”. As part of that, most rural schools were burnt down. Keeping in mind the traditionally very violent African culture down here, one perfectly do understand why the hospitals built by the apartheid government, did not suffer the same fate. This has left us with a window to the past; we can clearly see that the apartheid government did not only care for their white population, but in fact, also took great responsibility for the black, at something that must have been an enormous cost.
Back to visiting South African hospitals… When doing so, the visitor will be shown one of a few hospitals, were not too many windows are broken, not all the equipment has been vandalized and not all the electric supply has been cut off. Now, go outside these hospitals, go to the former rural hospitals, and what do you find? You will find that the hospitals built for the black population, by the black ANC government, have been degraded and left unfunded. You will find hospitals with no doctors. Hospitals with no electricity. No X-ray equipment. No furniture. You actually will find old rural hospital inhabited by squatters! It is for me a huge paradox that the black government seems to have zero compassion for their own population, as long as they can get away with it and no one can or will see it. The black population has not by magic become so much healthier after 1994 that these hospitals are not needed anymore. Au contraire, the black population is in dire need of these hospitals, but all they find are ghost hospitals. Many of whom I’ve visited, are beyond repair.
I am leaving South Africa now. I have paid my duties, and I am forever marked by Africa in the form of an entry and exit 9 mm bullet hole in my right upper leg. I got it because my robber was not happy with me handing over my 10 year old or something Nokia 6110 cellphone, and some small coins. No wallet, no rings and only amalgam fillings… Now, what kind of doctor is that?
My last word to South Africa: Go to hell!
Quote | Report this postPosted by: Chris, Cape Town on 9:49am Tue 26 Feb 08
TIME FOR THE TRUTH For the past 13 years we have heard how all our problems are the fault of the long since departed apartheid regime. The ANC spin doctors resort to all sorts of excuses when things go wrong, as they have been doing for the past 10 years. Now is the time for the truth. In 1994 the ANC took over a country that was in a healthy state of repair, with an Education system rated one of the top ten in the world. A Health system that produced pioneers in many fields of medical research and enjoyed the respect of the medical fraternity the world over. A transportation system that was the envy of the rest of Africa, and a network of roads equal to the best in Europe. A police force that controlled crime. A water supply rated one of the cleanest in the world. What have we now? An education system rated at the bottom end of a field of 50, with a required pass rate of 33% (the lowest requirement of any system in the world, and still our pupils are unable to achieve this miserable standard). We have a health system where those in control believe beetroot and garlic will cure AIDS, where babies die in hospitals through lack of knowledge, medication, equipment and efficient care. Where untrained staff forget to check regularly on patients in serious condition. We have a Minerals and Energy Minister who suggests that businesses close for certain periods to conserve electricity whilst South Arica suffers power failures, but until very recently continued to supply electrical power to our northern and eastern neighbours. We have cholera outbreaks because of contaminated water supplies in rural areas. We have a crime rate which is just about the highest in the world. We have a government composed of officials under investigation for corruption, theft, fraud, consorting with criminals, drunken driving, speeding and many other forms of law breaking. Time to tell the truth – the ANC government is incapable of running our country. And their policies border on insanity. The ANC policy of Affirmative Action has stripped the country of 75% of its skilled population and is responsible for the deprivation of the constitutional and social rights of the white population. The practice of putting black people in a position way above their ceiling of competence is now showing the inevitable signs of efficiency erosion at all levels. Along with the inevitable rise in prices and lowering of standards of service and living. The Black Economic Empowerment policy has empowered a certain group of people (all ANC members) at the expense of the entire population. And has cost, and continues to cost, our country billions of rand. The ANC government officials, both local and national have embarked on a policy of rewarding themselves with excessive salaries, and ridiculous bonuses, for utter inefficiency. Eskom is another case in point, with an alleged R143 million paid in bonuses, whilst the country suffers an energy crisis due to ignorance and lack of planning. This crisis now threatens the economy of our country. I am sure many of those who operate a Telkom service have had the pleasure of holding on for 49 minutes when contacting Telkom's help line. (My personal best was 59 minutes on January 26, 2008. I must admit that I was helped after that period, which was a refreshing change). We have a crime rate that is the envy of the Russian Mafia, who will no doubt soon be relocating to Johannesburg and Cape Town. (The Sicilian Brotherhood are already here it seems, enjoying the friendship of some of our Commissioners and Ministers). We have roads which, in the rural areas, are slowly crumbling away, if they have not already disintegrated. We have roads in our towns and cities which have more potholes than a slice of Swiss cheese. We have traffic lights which do not work for at least 2 - 3 days each month. As a reward for this farcical and criminal inefficiency, the government hands out awards and bonuses to all concerned. Let's be honest. Several Ministers should have been fired by the President 4 years ago. Those involved in Health, Safety and Security, Education, Home Affairs, Land Affairs, Labour and Minerals and Energy should long since have walked the plank. The latest madness is to disband the one department that stands between absolute corrupt government and the man in the street, the Scorpions. In fact our democracy, such as it is, is under severe threat. We have a former Minister of Defence who bought fighter planes which the airforce did not want, and who, it is alleged by a former ANC Minister, received R39-R50 million for his troubles. We have two submarines (cost R1.6 billion a piece, it is alleged) which are languishing in Cape Town Harbour as no one can drive them. We also have a fancy army, which costs millions monthly, with no one to fight. Which is why we have millions unemployed and without shelter. And 4 million refugees, which we cannot afford to cater for. But if one criticises the present ANC government, (which should be one’s democratic right), one is labeled 'racist'. But the biggest racists are those who accuse others of racism, and everyone knows where they are. Let's be honest, tell the truth and declare quite openly, the ANC are incapable of running this country.
TIME FOR THE TRUTH

For the past 13 years we have heard how all our problems are the fault of the long since departed apartheid regime.

The ANC spin doctors resort to all sorts of excuses when things go wrong, as they have been doing for the past 10 years.

Now is the time for the truth.

In 1994 the ANC took over a country that was in a healthy state of repair, with an Education system rated one of the top ten in the world.

A Health system that produced pioneers in many fields of medical research and enjoyed the respect of the medical fraternity the world over.

A transportation system that was the envy of the rest of Africa, and a network of roads equal to the best in Europe.

A police force that controlled crime.

A water supply rated one of the cleanest in the world.

What have we now?

An education system rated at the bottom end of a field of 50, with a required pass rate of 33% (the lowest requirement of any system in the world, and still our pupils are unable to achieve this miserable standard).

We have a health system where those in control believe beetroot and garlic will cure AIDS, where babies die in hospitals through lack of knowledge, medication, equipment and efficient care.

Where untrained staff forget to check regularly on patients in serious condition.

We have a Minerals and Energy Minister who suggests that businesses close for certain periods to conserve electricity whilst South Arica suffers power failures, but until very recently continued to supply electrical power to our northern and eastern neighbours.

We have cholera outbreaks because of contaminated water supplies in rural areas.

We have a crime rate which is just about the highest in the world.

We have a government composed of officials under investigation for corruption, theft, fraud, consorting with criminals, drunken driving, speeding and many other forms of law breaking.

Time to tell the truth – the ANC government is incapable of running our country. And their policies border on insanity.

The ANC policy of Affirmative Action has stripped the country of 75% of its skilled population and is responsible for the deprivation of the constitutional and social rights of the white population.

The practice of putting black people in a position way above their ceiling of competence is now showing the inevitable signs of efficiency erosion at all levels. Along with the inevitable rise in prices and lowering of standards of service and living.

The Black Economic Empowerment policy has empowered a certain group of people (all ANC members) at the expense of the entire population. And has cost, and continues to cost, our country billions of rand.

The ANC government officials, both local and national have embarked on a policy of rewarding themselves with excessive salaries, and ridiculous bonuses, for utter inefficiency.

Eskom is another case in point, with an alleged R143 million paid in bonuses, whilst the country suffers an energy crisis due to ignorance and lack of planning. This crisis now threatens the economy of our country.

I am sure many of those who operate a Telkom service have had the pleasure of holding on for 49 minutes when contacting Telkom's help line. (My personal best was 59 minutes on January 26, 2008. I must admit that I was helped after that period, which was a refreshing change).

We have a crime rate that is the envy of the Russian Mafia, who will no doubt soon be relocating to Johannesburg and Cape Town. (The Sicilian Brotherhood are already here it seems, enjoying the friendship of some of our Commissioners and Ministers).

We have roads which, in the rural areas, are slowly crumbling away, if they have not already disintegrated.

We have roads in our towns and cities which have more potholes than a slice of Swiss cheese. We have traffic lights which do not work for at least 2 - 3 days each month.

As a reward for this farcical and criminal inefficiency, the government hands out awards and bonuses to all concerned.

Let's be honest. Several Ministers should have been fired by the President 4 years ago. Those involved in Health, Safety and Security, Education, Home Affairs, Land Affairs, Labour and Minerals and Energy should long since have walked the plank.

The latest madness is to disband the one department that stands between absolute corrupt government and the man in the street, the Scorpions.

In fact our democracy, such as it is, is under severe threat.

We have a former Minister of Defence who bought fighter planes which the airforce did not want, and who, it is alleged by a former ANC Minister, received R39-R50 million for his troubles.

We have two submarines (cost R1.6 billion a piece, it is alleged) which are languishing in Cape Town Harbour as no one can drive them.

We also have a fancy army, which costs millions monthly, with no one to fight. Which is why we have millions unemployed and without shelter.

And 4 million refugees, which we cannot afford to cater for.

But if one criticises the present ANC government, (which should be one’s democratic right), one is labeled 'racist'. But the biggest racists are those who accuse others of racism, and everyone knows where they are.

Let's be honest, tell the truth and declare quite openly, the ANC are incapable of running this country.Quote | Report this postPosted by: Realist, not racist., South Africa on 9:54am Tue 26 Feb 08
As a comment to what 'The Doc' wrote: I see you are up early, Doc! I pians me that a health professional should be wanting to leave South Africa, and with a bullet wound in his leg, nogal! Can't blame you, I too have had a gun shoved in my face by a student I helped to educate (free) in my 8 years with a social-upliftment NGO. Another doctor, Nobel Laureat Albert Schweitzer was, and is, as quoted by the writer from New Zealand, right about the black African. He will destroy you, and all your work. Although I do subscribe to the Christian rule of loving my neighbour, I also realize that a neighbour who scorns that rule, and flouts God's laws, is not my bretheren. Not a racist, a realist.
As a comment to what 'The Doc' wrote: I see you are up early, Doc! I pians me that a health professional should be wanting to leave South Africa, and with a bullet wound in his leg, nogal! Can't blame you, I too have had a gun shoved in my face by a student I helped to educate (free) in my 8 years with a social-upliftment NGO. Another doctor, Nobel Laureat Albert Schweitzer was, and is, as quoted by the writer from New Zealand, right about the black African. He will destroy you, and all your work. Although I do subscribe to the Christian rule of loving my neighbour, I also realize that a neighbour who scorns that rule, and flouts God's laws, is not my bretheren. Not a racist, a realist. Quote | Report this postPosted by: ANC DUPLICITY, South Africa on 10:55am Tue 26 Feb 08
Those who doubt the racism of the ANC who supposedly fought for 'peace and democracy' in SA need only YouTube 'Mandela sings about killing whites'. Yes, the same Nelson-mark-of-Beast Mandela of 4-[bold]666[/bold] -4. We who understand black languages know well that the ANC talks at their rallies of 'peace and democracy' in English to con the West, and then switch to Xhosa with anti-white hate-speech for 'the black masses'. The YouTube song is an ANC staple, and they still, today, 14 years after 'democracy' openly chant 'Kill the farmer, kill the Boer' and give Robert Mugabe standing ovations in parliament. Don't be fooled: after 350 years here, we white South Africans know what we are dealing with. We have been here as long as the (white) Canadians have been in Canada, but we don't hear calls for them to hand over their farms and businesses to the last of the Mohicans. Awake, White Man of the West, and and stop the genocide of your brothers in South Africa. Impose sanctions like you did to bring down the 'evil racist apartheid regime' and bring the 'evil racist ANC regime' to account.
Those who doubt the racism of the ANC who supposedly fought for 'peace and democracy' in SA need only YouTube 'Mandela sings about killing whites'. Yes, the same Nelson-mark-of-Beast Mandela of 4-666 -4. We who understand black languages know well that the ANC talks at their rallies of 'peace and democracy' in English to con the West, and then switch to Xhosa with anti-white hate-speech for 'the black masses'. The YouTube song is an ANC staple, and they still, today, 14 years after 'democracy' openly chant 'Kill the farmer, kill the Boer' and give Robert Mugabe standing ovations in parliament. Don't be fooled: after 350 years here, we white South Africans know what we are dealing with. We have been here as long as the (white) Canadians have been in Canada, but we don't hear calls for them to hand over their farms and businesses to the last of the Mohicans. Awake, White Man of the West, and and stop the genocide of your brothers in South Africa. Impose sanctions like you did to bring down the 'evil racist apartheid regime' and bring the 'evil racist ANC regime' to account. Quote | Report this postPosted by: BREEDERS AND CONSUMERS, South Africa on 12:05pm Tue 26 Feb 08
I was born in Zambia, a white, but live in SA, and ask if I, as a true African, can claim my birthright? Can I own land in Zambia, build a business for my children, hand down a legacy? No, I can only lease land, at the whim of a transient government. In SA, as a white, I am being told to hand my farm over to blacks, am forced to give tham shares in my business. Where in the history of the white race, have we ever been given a country, lock, stock and barrel with hospitals, universities, schools, airports and railways, and all that goes with it? But the black masses were given my new country, South Africa. Why? It is because they are a breeding, consuming, demanding majority. In all my years in frica, that's all I've ever seen them do- breed, consume, and demand more, not build and achieve, like my own race have had to. They mimic our western culture, because they like 'bling' but they are not the creators of any of it. They will consume it, until there is nothing left to take from the whites. Africa is dying, they don't even know it, and no amount of 'giving' will save it. Beware, black man- when the Chinese are your masters, you will long for the day of the white man.
I was born in Zambia, a white, but live in SA, and ask if I, as a true African, can claim my birthright? Can I own land in Zambia, build a business for my children, hand down a legacy? No, I can only lease land, at the whim of a transient government. In SA, as a white, I am being told to hand my farm over to blacks, am forced to give tham shares in my business. Where in the history of the white race, have we ever been given a country, lock, stock and barrel with hospitals, universities, schools, airports and railways, and all that goes with it? But the black masses were given my new country, South Africa. Why? It is because they are a breeding, consuming, demanding majority. In all my years in frica, that's all I've ever seen them do- breed, consume, and demand more, not build and achieve, like my own race have had to. They mimic our western culture, because they like 'bling' but they are not the creators of any of it. They will consume it, until there is nothing left to take from the whites. Africa is dying, they don't even know it, and no amount of 'giving' will save it. Beware, black man- when the Chinese are your masters, you will long for the day of the white man. Quote | Report this postPosted by: Peter, South Africa on 12:05pm Tue 26 Feb 08
Welcome to South Africa. Off course Fred Bridgland is correct. Those that say otherwise is just trying to put some spin on it all. aha....hahaha. My fiance was murdered two years back by our black (yes, golly gosh, I said it!) gardener for her cellphone and wallet. Needless to say that it was the same gardener that I send to school (at my expense) for more than 8 years and, on top of that, sponsored all his soccer attire and what not. Yup, Africa is tough for a white. I am also seriously considering leaving this cesspool for ever, but I will not leave until I personally experience the biggest circus in town that is arriving in 2010. How can you dare to miss it? Power cuts, robberies, rapes, hijacks, dirty streets, etc. Man, this is the stuff that movies are made off. You guys were imbeciles to award the 2010 World Cup to South Africa. Tally-ho!
Welcome to South Africa. Off course Fred Bridgland is correct. Those that say otherwise is just trying to put some spin on it all. aha....hahaha. My fiance was murdered two years back by our black (yes, golly gosh, I said it!) gardener for her cellphone and wallet. Needless to say that it was the same gardener that I send to school (at my expense) for more than 8 years and, on top of that, sponsored all his soccer attire and what not. Yup, Africa is tough for a white.

I am also seriously considering leaving this cesspool for ever, but I will not leave until I personally experience the biggest circus in town that is arriving in 2010. How can you dare to miss it? Power cuts, robberies, rapes, hijacks, dirty streets, etc. Man, this is the stuff that movies are made off.

You guys were imbeciles to award the 2010 World Cup to South Africa. Tally-ho!Quote | Report this postPosted by: Karen, JHb South Africa on 12:07pm Tue 26 Feb 08
To all you out there who do not live in South Africa, give me your passports (as mentioned earlier)You come live here, please. Live in my beautiful 4 bedroomed house with huge garden and swimming pool. Wake up at 10pm and hear the gun shots going off across the street. Wake up to the banging outside because you think it is someone breaking into your house. Live in my prison. Money cannot buy you everything, not even safety, and apparently not even power. It is easy for you to talk and to criticise, because you are not here. This article is true. If you do not believe it then look at the daily newspapers online. Read the headlines. Just at a glance "double murderer blames apartheid and alcohol", "airport thieves strike again". If you think it is normal and natural to fear the dark, if you think it is normal, and natural to carry a gun for your own safety, or to dance in a night club with your purse wrapped up in your hand, or to lock your doors to the drive down to the store because walking is not safe and you could be hijacked on the way, then yes South Africa is just fine. Or how about this, the new FBJ (Forum for Black Journalists). No whites allowed. Is that not discrimination? Is that not reverse racism? And you know who their fist guest of honour was? The ANC president, Jacob Zuma. And he of course had no problem with this group. Why? Because he is another Robert Mugabe, waiting for the chance to expel all white people out of South Africa. When there is a massacre of white people in the years to come, it will be too late for the "I told you so's"
To all you out there who do not live in South Africa, give me your passports (as mentioned earlier)You come live here, please. Live in my beautiful 4 bedroomed house with huge garden and swimming pool. Wake up at 10pm and hear the gun shots going off across the street. Wake up to the banging outside because you think it is someone breaking into your house. Live in my prison. Money cannot buy you everything, not even safety, and apparently not even power. It is easy for you to talk and to criticise, because you are not here.

This article is true. If you do not believe it then look at the daily newspapers online. Read the headlines. Just at a glance "double murderer blames apartheid and alcohol", "airport thieves strike again". If you think it is normal and natural to fear the dark, if you think it is normal, and natural to carry a gun for your own safety, or to dance in a night club with your purse wrapped up in your hand, or to lock your doors to the drive down to the store because walking is not safe and you could be hijacked on the way, then yes South Africa is just fine.

Or how about this, the new FBJ (Forum for Black Journalists). No whites allowed. Is that not discrimination? Is that not reverse racism? And you know who their fist guest of honour was? The ANC president, Jacob Zuma. And he of course had no problem with this group. Why? Because he is another Robert Mugabe, waiting for the chance to expel all white people out of South Africa. When there is a massacre of white people in the years to come, it will be too late for the "I told you so's"Quote | Report this postPosted by: Simon, South Africa, Cape Town on 12:30pm Tue 26 Feb 08
I love my country, I love my City. But sadly there is no fairness. Our country is not run by black or white it is run by people that do not have the skill to make it successful, that encourages equality or do it for the country. they do it for self gain to get back at people that in the past done wrong. Just an example. Cape Town is one of the safest, successful regions in south africa - at least here we dont all live in prisons. Yes there are areas which aren't safe but I would say for the majority - we can go about our daily lives. It is growing and most businesses are booming. I do think this is due to Helen Zille being in charge. She is a great leader. that could get this country back on track.
I love my country, I love my City. But sadly there is no fairness. Our country is not run by black or white it is run by people that do not have the skill to make it successful, that encourages equality or do it for the country. they do it for self gain to get back at people that in the past done wrong.

Just an example. Cape Town is one of the safest, successful regions in south africa - at least here we dont all live in prisons. Yes there are areas which aren't safe but I would say for the majority - we can go about our daily lives. It is growing and most businesses are booming. I do think this is due to Helen Zille being in charge. She is a great leader. that could get this country back on track.

Quote | Report this postPosted by: Help, Pretoria, South Africa on 12:47pm Tue 26 Feb 08
This article sums up, to the word, what is currently happening in this beautiful country. We are in dire need of help, I'm afraid that the rest of the world will only see that when it is too late as with the rest of Africa. If someone in power is reading this, please help.
This article sums up, to the word, what is currently happening in this beautiful country. We are in dire need of help, I'm afraid that the rest of the world will only see that when it is too late as with the rest of Africa. If someone in power is reading this, please help.Quote | Report this postPosted by: WALTON YOU DOOS., South Africa on 1:06pm Tue 26 Feb 08
Yes, Walton is a doos, as we say here. So you are in 'temporary exile' in Scotland. How many gunshots did you hear last night, Walton? How many murders, rapes, hijackings, muti murders are in your newspaper today? Do you have a dancing, singing, love machine as president of your ruling party there? No, or none, to all of the above? Boy, it must be boring! Come home to SA, doos, and we'll show you a good time! PS make sure you have travel insurance.
Yes, Walton is a doos, as we say here. So you are in 'temporary exile' in Scotland. How many gunshots did you hear last night, Walton? How many murders, rapes, hijackings, muti murders are in your newspaper today? Do you have a dancing, singing, love machine as president of your ruling party there? No, or none, to all of the above? Boy, it must be boring! Come home to SA, doos, and we'll show you a good time! PS make sure you have travel insurance.Quote | Report this postPosted by: SUNNY SOUTH AFRICA, Western Cape on 1:53pm Tue 26 Feb 08
Despite the undestandable angst and pessimism of the Afro-realists, the worst efforts of the (hopefully temporary)ruling party, and the deluded optimism of Walton the Doos, South Africa is still a beautiful, sunny tourist destination. The Western Cape, in particular, is like a breath of heaven, relatively safe, and abounding with good food, fine wine, and friendly, welcoming people. Do a rent-a-car trip from Cape Town through the winelands, the Klein Karoo and the Garden Route, then back to Cape Town, and fly to the Kruger Park lodges, and you will sing this country's praises. You will also note, however, that virtually everything that runs efficiently, and is of a first-world standard, is run by hard-working, law-abiding white Africans, and the very few, hard-working, law-abiding black Africans- they do exist. Sing their praises too, and tell the world that we are hanging in here, ready to welcome you to OUR beloved country.
Despite the undestandable angst and pessimism of the Afro-realists, the worst efforts of the (hopefully temporary)ruling party, and the deluded optimism of Walton the Doos, South Africa is still a beautiful, sunny tourist destination. The Western Cape, in particular, is like a breath of heaven, relatively safe, and abounding with good food, fine wine, and friendly, welcoming people. Do a rent-a-car trip from Cape Town through the winelands, the Klein Karoo and the Garden Route, then back to Cape Town, and fly to the Kruger Park lodges, and you will sing this country's praises. You will also note, however, that virtually everything that runs efficiently, and is of a first-world standard, is run by hard-working, law-abiding white Africans, and the very few, hard-working, law-abiding black Africans- they do exist. Sing their praises too, and tell the world that we are hanging in here, ready to welcome you to OUR beloved country. Quote | Report this postPosted by: Simon Says, South Africa on 2:52pm Tue 26 Feb 08
Simon says: Helen Zille, leader of the opposition, is the one to lead SA. Quite right. She is dynamic, incorruptable (to the frustration of her opponents) bright, but white. Her enemies imported two Senegalese witchdoctors to put a 'whammy' on her- shows what we're dealing with here! ANC supporters throw chairs at her at public meetings. Can't see the 'dancing, singing, love machine' Zuma asking her to co-lead the government, unless she joins his harim. Perhaps the Scottish Herald can start a campaign to have her recognised as 'the only legitimate representative of the oppressed white minority in South Africa'. Where are you now, Western Liberal, or has all the liberal conscience gone out of you? Picket our embassy now, like you used to do to get the ANC into power, but this time, hold placards that say 'Stop Boer Genocide'. What made you think, Western Liberal, that South Africa was ready for a liberal democracy? Just watch how 'liberal' the Zulus are when they take back power from the Xhosas. It was only the strong arm of the white man that held this country together in the past, but you broke his arm, Western Liberal. Now, welcome to the real world of Black African politics.
Simon says: Helen Zille, leader of the opposition, is the one to lead SA. Quite right. She is dynamic, incorruptable (to the frustration of her opponents) bright, but white. Her enemies imported two Senegalese witchdoctors to put a 'whammy' on her- shows what we're dealing with here! ANC supporters throw chairs at her at public meetings. Can't see the 'dancing, singing, love machine' Zuma asking her to co-lead the government, unless she joins his harim. Perhaps the Scottish Herald can start a campaign to have her recognised as 'the only legitimate representative of the oppressed white minority in South Africa'. Where are you now, Western Liberal, or has all the liberal conscience gone out of you? Picket our embassy now, like you used to do to get the ANC into power, but this time, hold placards that say 'Stop Boer Genocide'. What made you think, Western Liberal, that South Africa was ready for a liberal democracy? Just watch how 'liberal' the Zulus are when they take back power from the Xhosas. It was only the strong arm of the white man that held this country together in the past, but you broke his arm, Western Liberal. Now, welcome to the real world of Black African politics. Quote | Report this postPosted by: Not Nelson Mandela, Europe on 4:47pm Tue 26 Feb 08
Well, well, well. How long will it take before the brainwashed and lobotomized western world wakes up to what is REALLY going on here? How long will people fail to see the connection between the complete lack of negro accomplishments and the well-documented low negro IQ. It's all "white racism", despite the fact that every shred of civilization in black Africa was brought by whites. South Africa would still be a useless Bantu backwater if whites had not introduced civilizatio. But of course, then Mandela and his posse would have nothing to destroy. Same thing as Haiti. It's 95% black, and despite having been independent for 200 years, is the absolutely poorest and most corrupt nation in all of America. Is that "white racism" too?
Well, well, well.

How long will it take before the brainwashed and lobotomized western world wakes up to what is REALLY going on here? How long will people fail to see the connection between the complete lack of negro accomplishments and the well-documented low negro IQ. It's all "white racism", despite the fact that every shred of civilization in black Africa was brought by whites. South Africa would still be a useless Bantu backwater if whites had not introduced civilizatio. But of course, then Mandela and his posse would have nothing to destroy.

Same thing as Haiti. It's 95% black, and despite having been independent for 200 years, is the absolutely poorest and most corrupt nation in all of America. Is that "white racism" too?Quote | Report this postPosted by: David, Pretoria on 11:48pm Tue 26 Feb 08
This article is a very good summary of what's happening here in South Africa. The calamity is so vast it's difficult to sum all the main points concisely, yet this article succeeds.
This article is a very good summary of what's happening here in South Africa. The calamity is so vast it's difficult to sum all the main points concisely, yet this article succeeds.Quote | Report this postPosted by: johan, Pretoria on 12:31pm Wed 27 Feb 08
Have a read what is really happening in this f.cked up country [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] cks.blogspot.com/ato m.xml
Have a read what is really happening in this f.cked up country
[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]
cks.blogspot.com/ato
m.xmlQuote | Report this postPosted by: Andre, Pretoria on 2:42pm Wed 27 Feb 08
My question to the Australians, New Zealanders, Americans, Dutch, Swedes etc. ; Why are you now so quiet about all the racial discrimination in South Africa. Fifteen years ago you were very vocal!
My question to the Australians, New Zealanders, Americans, Dutch, Swedes etc. ; Why are you now so quiet about all the racial discrimination in South Africa. Fifteen years ago you were very vocal!Quote | Report this postPosted by: WILLIE JONES, south africa on 7:49pm Wed 27 Feb 08
I am staying in South-Arica and run my own bussiness. Besides all the problems mentioned strikes in the mining industry last year still have a evect on steel and other raw materials. In sone cases i have been waiting6 weeks for standard steel profiles and plates. Now tell me how can you run a bussiness when you need to rely on incompotent clowns to manage your line of supply electricity,fuel,wat er, and infrastructure. I ask why is the rest of africa in a semi broken down state oposed to europe. We have been the same time in the each continent. But what makes africa wat it is today. Did you ever see a double story mud hut in africa? What in africa is older than 300 years wich was build by these native clowns and can be shown today. There are milions of buildings all over the world except in africa.
I am staying in South-Arica and run my own bussiness. Besides all the problems mentioned strikes in the mining industry last year still have a evect on steel and other raw materials. In sone cases i have been waiting6 weeks for standard steel profiles and plates.

Now tell me how can you run a bussiness when you need to rely on incompotent clowns to manage your line of supply electricity,fuel,wat
er, and infrastructure.

I ask why is the rest of africa in a semi broken down state oposed to europe. We have been the same time in the each continent. But what makes africa wat it is today. Did you ever see a double story mud hut in africa?

What in africa is older than 300 years wich was build by these native clowns and can be shown today. There are milions of buildings all over the world except in africa. Quote | Report this postPosted by: Kolver, Pretoria on 8:54pm Wed 27 Feb 08
Let me explain something to the people who do not believe this article. Baby rapes, tortures, etc. were not included in the article because it would simply be too long... We are dealing with barbarians (similar to the Sierra-Leona war crimes), who are now in power and who are streaming in from the rest of Africa. It is true that not all black people are barbarians, but it is a small percentage who are not... And they are not standing up against the barbarian majority, therefor the white Africans have lost their respect for them. Where did it all go wrong? All life on earth has one thing in common, which helps a species to become better and better - evolution! these are not big steps, but small steps. Like all species, humans are also evolving daily. Caucasians have come a long way before they developed "democracy". Human cultures need many advances before they can understand and appreciate democracy. This has not happened in the Black African culture yet, and therefor they are happy with their "king" to own everything. When we speak of a "democracy" in Africa, it is a false word, only used for purpose of propaganda. The democracies of the democratic republic of Congo, south-Africa or any other country in africa is not the same as the western world democracies. The aim of a democracy is after all to give as many independent thinking citizens a vote to put a government in place who act in the best interest of their people. Age do not make a person an independent thinker... Anybody who votes for a terrorist organisation, should not have the right to vote. The ANC is a terrorist organisation, who's aim was (and still am) to kill civilians, including woman, children regardless of race. They have killed countless black people during the "struggle years", and are continuing to do so at this point in time... Where are the liberal people who believed they helped end Apartheid today, now that more white people are murdered and tortured today than black people (who were terrorists) in the evil Aparheid regime?
Let me explain something to the people who do not believe this article. Baby rapes, tortures, etc. were not included in the article because it would simply be too long... We are dealing with barbarians (similar to the Sierra-Leona war crimes), who are now in power and who are streaming in from the rest of Africa. It is true that not all black people are barbarians, but it is a small percentage who are not... And they are not standing up against the barbarian majority, therefor the white Africans have lost their respect for them.

Where did it all go wrong? All life on earth has one thing in common, which helps a species to become better and better - evolution! these are not big steps, but small steps. Like all species, humans are also evolving daily.

Caucasians have come a long way before they developed "democracy". Human cultures need many advances before they can understand and appreciate democracy. This has not happened in the Black African culture yet, and therefor they are happy with their "king" to own everything.

When we speak of a "democracy" in Africa, it is a false word, only used for purpose of propaganda. The democracies of the democratic republic of Congo, south-Africa or any other country in africa is not the same as the western world democracies. The aim of a democracy is after all to give as many independent thinking citizens a vote to put a government in place who act in the best interest of their people. Age do not make a person an independent thinker...

Anybody who votes for a terrorist organisation, should not have the right to vote. The ANC is a terrorist organisation, who's aim was (and still am) to kill civilians, including woman, children regardless of race. They have killed countless black people during the "struggle years", and are continuing to do so at this point in time...

Where are the liberal people who believed they helped end Apartheid today, now that more white people are murdered and tortured today than black people (who were terrorists) in the evil Aparheid regime?Quote | Report this postPosted by: j winand, belgium on 11:05pm Wed 27 Feb 08
to fred bridgland extreemly urgent concerning pomfret. can you help me.as i writhe .some sa gov bureau is on his way to evict all people of pomfret on the street. is this democraty hope someone can help regards j w
to fred bridgland
extreemly urgent concerning pomfret. can you help
me.as i writhe .some sa gov bureau is on his way
to evict all people of pomfret on the street.
is this democraty
hope someone can help
regards
j wQuote | Report this postPosted by: leonie, Canada on 6:43am Thu 28 Feb 08
I am a single mother and one of those South Africans who got "panicky" and left the country 7 years ago. Luckily before either of my children were robbed, raped or killed. In answer to all the people still living in that hell-hole pretending all is fine and that there is no better place in the world.....get real, wake up. I work half the hours that I used to in South Africa, I own a large house, drive a luxury vehicle (all of which I could afford within the first year of moving here, although I left the SA with no money- my house there was worthless- only my education, my 2 children and 4 suitcases accompanied me) My house is filled with "luxury items" such as TV's computers etc etc, which I never could afford or dared own in SA...NO burglar bars on the windows here, no security gates...no, not even a fence around my property or any of my neighbours' properties. My children can walk to school, go fishing or hiking on their own after school, walk home in the dark, with NO FEAR of being attacked by fellow humans! We go on regular overseas holidays and do not have to worry about returning to an empty,ransacked house. In fact we seldom lock our doors. Schooling here is excellent, universities affordable, and life here is worth living. For all who have chosen to stay in South Africa and may be perfectly happy to live that way...I ask only this, stop trying to convince those who were intelligent enough to seek a better life that life in SA is or will ever again be great...we are not the stupid ones.
I am a single mother and one of those South Africans who got "panicky" and left the country 7 years ago. Luckily before either of my children were robbed, raped or killed. In answer to all the people still living in that hell-hole pretending all is fine and that there is no better place in the world.....get real, wake up.
I work half the hours that I used to in South Africa, I own a large house, drive a luxury vehicle (all of which I could afford within the first year of moving here, although I left the SA with no money- my house there was worthless- only my education, my 2 children and 4 suitcases accompanied me) My house is filled with "luxury items" such as TV's computers etc etc, which I never could afford or dared own in SA...NO burglar bars on the windows here, no security gates...no, not even a fence around my property or any of my neighbours' properties. My children can walk to school, go fishing or hiking on their own after school, walk home in the dark, with NO FEAR of being attacked by fellow humans!
We go on regular overseas holidays and do not have to worry about returning to an empty,ransacked house. In fact we seldom lock our doors.
Schooling here is excellent, universities affordable, and life here is worth living.
For all who have chosen to stay in South Africa and may be perfectly happy to live that way...I ask only this, stop trying to convince those who were intelligent enough to seek a better life that life in SA is or will ever again be great...we are not the stupid ones.Quote | Report this postPosted by: REALIST, Klein Karoo on 9:06am Thu 28 Feb 08
Well said, Leonie safe in Canada. You were brave enough to take your children to a new land, and start again. Nelson Mandela (yes, that 666 'saint'again)told us whites that 'a real South African would stay, and put up with what the blacks have always put up with'! Why the hell should we put up with barbaric behavior? We built up this country from a wilderness to a first-world paradise, but had to kick a few black butts to do it. Then the ignorant and deluded 'Western Liberal' forced us to hand over our entire country to the black barbarians, and we are now an opressed ethnic minority in our own land. The only impression blacks have ever left in he sands of time, are their butt-prints! The Western Cape, the last bastion of civilization on the Dark Continent, should be supported by an international call for a homeland state for the White Tribe of Africa. You see, Leonie, some of us just refuse to give up on this place, and are waiting for the West to support our plea for a safe haven in the Cape. Write to your newspapers in Canada, and tell them this, and remind them that we whites have been in South Africa as long as the whites have been in Canada, and have every right to self-determination. We are depending on your support. Ignore the deluded PC liberals- they wouldn't live here if you paid them.
Well said, Leonie safe in Canada. You were brave enough to take your children to a new land, and start again. Nelson Mandela (yes, that 666 'saint'again)told us whites that 'a real South African would stay, and put up with what the blacks have always put up with'! Why the hell should we put up with barbaric behavior? We built up this country from a wilderness to a first-world paradise, but had to kick a few black butts to do it. Then the ignorant and deluded 'Western Liberal' forced us to hand over our entire country to the black barbarians, and we are now an opressed ethnic minority in our own land. The only impression blacks have ever left in he sands of time, are their butt-prints! The Western Cape, the last bastion of civilization on the Dark Continent, should be supported by an international call for a homeland state for the White Tribe of Africa. You see, Leonie, some of us just refuse to give up on this place, and are waiting for the West to support our plea for a safe haven in the Cape. Write to your newspapers in Canada, and tell them this, and remind them that we whites have been in South Africa as long as the whites have been in Canada, and have every right to self-determination. We are depending on your support. Ignore the deluded PC liberals- they wouldn't live here if you paid them.Quote | Report this postPosted by: david, Durban on 12:54pm Thu 28 Feb 08
This is a very simplistic article and is actually a bit ignorant. South Africa has it's problems but it's too easy to draw comparisons with Zimbabwe and then make conclusions. It is a very lazy way of analysing the countries problems. My experience is that 99% of 40 year old plus white south africans are simply unable to accept having black people on a level playing field with them. South Africa is a fantastic country, a much better place than it was before 1994. The crime is a problem - but we will get over this. We got over Apartheid and none of the challenges facing us now are anywhere close to the scale of Apartheid. I am tired of white people in South Africa and abroad criticising the country with such a lack of objectivity. Most people that criticise South Africa are people that have left and want to convince themselves that they made the right decision - the serial celebrators of failure - or people that are thinking about leaving and have the same objective. I will never leave South Africa, it is in my heart and soul and nowhere else will do.
This is a very simplistic article and is actually a bit ignorant. South Africa has it's problems but it's too easy to draw comparisons with Zimbabwe and then make conclusions. It is a very lazy way of analysing the countries problems. My experience is that 99% of 40 year old plus white south africans are simply unable to accept having black people on a level playing field with them. South Africa is a fantastic country, a much better place than it was before 1994. The crime is a problem - but we will get over this. We got over Apartheid and none of the challenges facing us now are anywhere close to the scale of Apartheid. I am tired of white people in South Africa and abroad criticising the country with such a lack of objectivity. Most people that criticise South Africa are people that have left and want to convince themselves that they made the right decision - the serial celebrators of failure - or people that are thinking about leaving and have the same objective. I will never leave South Africa, it is in my heart and soul and nowhere else will do.Quote | Report this postPosted by: richard - durban, Umhlanga on 1:07pm Thu 28 Feb 08
Leonie I agree with you that people should not criticise people that chose to go and live somewhere else, but you are opening yourself to criticism by calling South Africa a hell-hole. This may be your perception but it is not my reality. We also have a big house. We live in La Lucia, my kids go to a fantastic school. We go to the beach before sunrise on weekend mornings and surf and paddle surf-ski's. In december we usually take an overland trip to Botswana or go to Mozambique. Most importantly, my kids are South African - and I could never take that away from them. We worry about the crime, but that is the only thing. All of this nonsense about the ANC doesn't sit well with me, I think they have done a pretty good job overall. As far as Eskom is concerned, we bought a generator and my friends that dont have a generator just have a braai when the lights go out. We live in Africa so we take these things in our stride. Africa is either in your blood or it isn't. Lucky for me I have not been a victim of violent crime - the same as you. My friends and I are professionals and generally pretty smart people, none of us believe that South Africa can be compared to any other post-colonial African mess-up, least of all Zimbabwe. We're staying, we love it here and our country needs us.
Leonie I agree with you that people should not criticise people that chose to go and live somewhere else, but you are opening yourself to criticism by calling South Africa a hell-hole. This may be your perception but it is not my reality. We also have a big house. We live in La Lucia, my kids go to a fantastic school. We go to the beach before sunrise on weekend mornings and surf and paddle surf-ski's. In december we usually take an overland trip to Botswana or go to Mozambique. Most importantly, my kids are South African - and I could never take that away from them. We worry about the crime, but that is the only thing. All of this nonsense about the ANC doesn't sit well with me, I think they have done a pretty good job overall. As far as Eskom is concerned, we bought a generator and my friends that dont have a generator just have a braai when the lights go out. We live in Africa so we take these things in our stride. Africa is either in your blood or it isn't. Lucky for me I have not been a victim of violent crime - the same as you. My friends and I are professionals and generally pretty smart people, none of us believe that South Africa can be compared to any other post-colonial African mess-up, least of all Zimbabwe. We're staying, we love it here and our country needs us.Quote | Report this postPosted by: GET REAL, South Africa on 3:14pm Thu 28 Feb 08
Dear David and Richard in Durban: It is amazing how quickly one changes one's tune when oneself, or a family member is brutalised. I spent 8 years with a NGO educating blacks- for free. My reward was to have a gun stuck in my face and robbed by ex-students. My ex-wife and 13-year-old daughter have sufered armed robbery and attempted rapes, my 17-year-old son robbed at knifepoint, my 19-year-old daughter punched in the face for her cellphone, my 21-year-old son hijacked, kidnapped at knife-and-gunpoint and dumped, my dad assaulted and mugged, and some family friends brutally murdered. I have lost count of the burglaries and cars we have had stolen. The common denominator? All the perpetrators were black. I have a problem with that. I refuse to accept or ignore this barbaric behavior, the 'African Way'. Go to any city in the world, and who make up the vast majority of criminals and the jail population? Blacks. Am I an evil racist for noticing this glaring fact? Sorry to say, my clever friends, but it is only a matter of time before this truth 'hits home' so to speak. I will be interested to hear your stance, then. The leaders of this country are indisciplined, corrupt, greedy and arrogant. They are also the most racist regime in the world today, passing anti-white legislation in every sphere of society and government. Didn't we all (72% of whites) vote for a new constitution that did away with all forms of racism? Didn't you, David and Richard? The actual income of the average black South African has halved in the last ten years (statistical fact) yet you still say that 'it's much better now'. For whom? We have millionaire black fatcats emerging now who were 'Marxist freedom fighters' a decade or so ago. Corruption has become a way of life here. Or schools and universities are falling apart, our crime and graffitti-infested inner cities harbour druglords and lowlife criminals, something we didn't here see before democratic 'freedom and democracy'. Africa is not ready for true democracy- they prefer anarchy, and would rather have a 'dancing-singing-lov e-machine' like Zuma as president than an honest statesman (whoever he may be). Yes, I too love this country, and want it to succeed, but I am not blind, and it's time to get real, and speak the truth. I do not want to be ruled by barbarians. Neither should you.
Dear David and Richard in Durban: It is amazing how quickly one changes one's tune when oneself, or a family member is brutalised. I spent 8 years with a NGO educating blacks- for free. My reward was to have a gun stuck in my face and robbed by ex-students. My ex-wife and 13-year-old daughter have sufered armed robbery and attempted rapes, my 17-year-old son robbed at knifepoint, my 19-year-old daughter punched in the face for her cellphone, my 21-year-old son hijacked, kidnapped at knife-and-gunpoint and dumped, my dad assaulted and mugged, and some family friends brutally murdered. I have lost count of the burglaries and cars we have had stolen. The common denominator? All the perpetrators were black. I have a problem with that. I refuse to accept or ignore this barbaric behavior, the 'African Way'. Go to any city in the world, and who make up the vast majority of criminals and the jail population? Blacks. Am I an evil racist for noticing this glaring fact? Sorry to say, my clever friends, but it is only a matter of time before this truth 'hits home' so to speak. I will be interested to hear your
stance, then. The leaders of this country are indisciplined, corrupt, greedy and arrogant. They are also the most racist regime in the world today, passing anti-white legislation in every sphere of society and government. Didn't we all (72% of whites) vote for a new constitution that did away with all forms of racism? Didn't you, David and Richard? The actual income of the average black South African has halved in the last ten years (statistical fact) yet you still say that 'it's much better now'. For whom? We have millionaire black fatcats emerging now who were 'Marxist freedom fighters' a decade or so ago. Corruption has become a way of life here. Or schools and universities are falling apart, our crime and graffitti-infested inner cities harbour druglords and lowlife criminals, something we didn't here see before democratic 'freedom and democracy'. Africa is not ready for true democracy- they prefer anarchy, and would rather have a 'dancing-singing-lov

e-machine' like Zuma as president than an honest statesman (whoever he may be). Yes, I too love this country, and want it to succeed, but I am not blind, and it's time to get real, and speak the truth. I do not want to be ruled by barbarians. Neither should you.






Quote | Report this postPosted by: Aadil, South Africa on 9:30pm Thu 28 Feb 08
It puzzles me that some people (like on this forum) - who don't their head from their a$$ - can unduely and savagely criticise people like Nelson Mandela as well as downplay apartheid. As for anyone criticising Nelson Mandela. Before you go any further, I challenge you to try to build a consensus with just 10 people on a mildy divisive subject. Let's see if can make an inch of progress. When you undoubtedly fail, you'll begin to realise how great he really is.
It puzzles me that some people (like on this forum) - who don't their head from their a$$ - can unduely and savagely criticise people like Nelson Mandela as well as downplay apartheid.

As for anyone criticising Nelson Mandela. Before you go any further, I challenge you to try to build a consensus with just 10 people on a mildy divisive subject. Let's see if can make an inch of progress. When you undoubtedly fail, you'll begin to realise how great he really is.Quote | Report this postPosted by: Simon, Johannesburg on 10:34pm Thu 28 Feb 08
Dear Fred, I do take some of what you say seriously, but I think it is a touch of one-eyed journalism to list all of South Africa's faults and give delibarately emotional and inflammatory examples of what is going wrong in the country, in a summary if all the country's faults. Firstly, it is important to note the reactive attitude of South Africans to the power crisis. People are now turning off all surplus appliances and load shedding has decreased immensely therefrom. Scheduled power cuts continue, but for the first time there is publicity and warning before and people are now prepared for them. The Rand has not entered freefall. It has stabilised immensely under Trevor Manuel who oversaw a violently volatile economic period. I think it is a credit to him how things have remained relatively stable in times where political decisions have not neccesarily merited a stable currency. Yes, the police chief has been taken to court for his dodgy dealings with organised crime bosses, but do you not think it is is progressive that this government is dealing with this **** this way? Should he not pay for his crimes against the state which he represents? At last the ANC is taking a stand against those who abuse South Africa. Zuma - eh... I don't have much positive to say about him other than I hope he is tried for his corruption allegations and a just decision is reached. (I hope he goes to jail and never gets out which will mean the blind following he has will have to look elsewhere). The crime here is disgusting. Shocking and foul, yet I have lived in JHB for 19 years and I am still fine. Don't let the media dictate crime to you. It is an easy trap in which to fall. I am very sad about the demise of the Scorpions. The only government watchdog is being shut down. This is a sad day for South Africa. Although I disagree with your one-eyedness, I do think you bring forth many valiud points and I enjoyed disagreeing and agreeing with your article. Thank you so much for writing it. Simon.
Dear Fred,

I do take some of what you say seriously, but I think it is a touch of one-eyed journalism to list all of South Africa's faults and give delibarately emotional and inflammatory examples of what is going wrong in the country, in a summary if all the country's faults.

Firstly, it is important to note the reactive attitude of South Africans to the power crisis. People are now turning off all surplus appliances and load shedding has decreased immensely therefrom. Scheduled power cuts continue, but for the first time there is publicity and warning before and people are now prepared for them.

The Rand has not entered freefall. It has stabilised immensely under Tr
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