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Moving to France from South Africa


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[quote user="tegwini"]

Thank you W-B's brother & CJR

So much guilt in the western psyche- it surprises me constantly - often people who have never travelled & have been brainwashed at school  & etc (that's certainly the case in school today - as a historian I have had to cope with that!)  

 We seem to be apologising for everything - slavery for example, and yet the ancestors of the slaves must thank their lucky stars they are not back in Africa , & be aware of the numbers of their former tribes & families who would give anything to emigrate to the US - or anywhere!

Talking of propaganda Quillan- we get loads of it here - recently the BBC claimed (via a Mugabe crony) that Ian Smith won't be missed - ironic or what?   - most of Zim is counting the days until Comrade Mugabe dies - not all will live to see it however.

Lots of ignorance too, the SA press & judiciary was always independent & there was lots of opposition to the SA (apartheid) government so it's quite wrong to say people don't know or didn't know what was going on - this has not been possible for many decades and it beggars belief that outsiders can pontificate on something they have never experienced.

This is it for me also - the brick wall here is a bit hard!

tegwini

[/quote]

Interesting enough during my holiday in Spain the main item on the news (on Spanish TV) was about the film made of South African university students abusing the black workers. I understand it was also shown on UK TV and in other countries around the world. I don't see many people who took part in this thread standing up and saying what a terrible and despicable thing they did.

Tegwini - I think most of us know that the BBC in particular pumps out propagandist broadcasts and is just a mouthpiece of the British government. I find it better to read the news via the internet and preferably from other countries. You can then put it together and get a better view of what is really happening. A good example of UK government control of the media is that when the second invasion of Iraq took place over 70% of military personnel who fought in the Falklands and in the Iraq/Kuwait war sent their campaign medals back in protest of an illegal war, something never reported in the UK press, but then that's yet another story.

The thing about making comments about where people have or have not been on their travels is a bit dangerous if you don't know them and make assumptions. I have been to SA back in the 70's and it was not for a holiday. I would not have lived there then if I had a choice, it was horrible. It did however appeal to the white neo Nazi's who emigrated there at the time from the UK, they could be a big fish in a small pond. You only had to listen to them in bars and clubs, the "I've got considerably more black servants than you" syndrome, pathetic really. and it got worse at times. If they behaved the same way in public back in the UK they would have got a right smacking off somebody. Mind you the tables have turned now and they can't get out the place quick enough (no disrespect to the OP as I don't know them or their circumstances).

As to Zim, well if Blair ever wanted to invade anywhere to sort things out for the good of the people then that should have been the place. There is nothing racist about the situation there (coz most of the whites are either dead or have left) its just down to one mans ego and lust for money. A very sad situation I am afraid.

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If you want to pursue a moral crusade why not pick on the inequalities which are taking place in China and the treatment of women in Islamic coutries. If Nelson Mandela had lived in China he would not have just been imprisoned he would have been executed. It seems that all the great and the good and the politically correct people in our society never attack the inequalities in large and powerful societies it seems that might is right. Globally you should realise that the equity and rules of fair play that prevail in western society and culture are under attack from the vary values they are trying to protect. Western Society  is in similar situation which lead to the fall of  great civilisations like that of the ancient Romans and Greeks.

Firstly what the white university students did in South Africa was deplorable,  however when taken in context this racial incident is once of a series happening in the country. It is easy to take the moral high ground but consider what is really happening in South Africa and other African countries. I went to a University in South Africa which produced at least five nobel prize winners in the sciences(It is unlikely that any further Nobel Laureate's will come from South Africa for scientific achievment) and before Jan Smuts was voted out of power in South Africa because of the liberal race policies of his party (Incidently I do not think you know it ,but he wrote the preamble to the United Nations Charter and played a leading role in forming the League of Nations ,a truely great achievment by a South African who was born in the country with the same rights as the current rulers of S A )( not an Expat like yourself ). The jury is still out on muti-cultural societies , my view is they do not work nor will they work because of human nature like the failed communist and socialist model. Homogenious societies work best and achieve most. Japan is smaller than the UK with a greater population and largely a homegenioussociety and look at what has been achieved post 1945. They had the effects of two nuclear weapons being used on them yet there current generation have no vendetta on the Americans. I can not see this happening in Africa with all its problems. These were not created by the colonials but by the current generation of African rulers and their propensity for greed , corruption and incompetence and only looking after number one and not the people they govern and lead.

Jacob Zuma the leader of the ANC excluded white journalists from a briefing to the forum of black journalists recently , also white South African school children are having to swear an oath where they are made to feel morally inferior to their fellow  black students.

The South African Government practices affirmative action , not employment of the best and most suitable for the position. I can not see any reasonable person wanting to live in a society like this whether they are black white pink or yellow.This means as a consequence you have a large number of either incompetent or government stooges in positions of great responsibility. This is one of the main reasons the fabric of the economic infrastructure is crumbling as is the case throughout Africa. Also, it is only in a corrupt government like the current one running the affairs of state in South Africa where you have a rapist and one who is shortly to be charged with corruption for the theft of nearly £200 million in an arms deal. There is documentary proof of Zuma's transgressions  however, my guess is that Zuma will never be convicted because there is no longer a fair legal system in operation in South Africa which used uphold the very basic legal rights of individuals. If this were not the case, when things changed and Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first black president it would not have been very peaceful at all in South Africa the whites accepted that they when in control they behaved badly however that was in 1994 nearly 14 years ago and South Africa is no better place than it was in 1994 in fact it is far worse and not really democratic.This is largely unreported in the European and UK media.

 

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[quote user="CJR"]...the whites accepted that they when in control they behaved badly however that was in 1994 nearly 14 years ago and South Africa is no better place than it was in 1994 in fact it is far worse and not really democratic.[/quote] (My bold)

You're surprised that it's taking longer than 14 years to counter 400 years of  'bad' behaviour', and its legacies?

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[quote user="CJR"]

If you want to pursue a moral crusade why not pick on the inequalities which are taking place in China and the treatment of women in Islamic coutries.

AND

South Africa is no better place than it was in 1994 in fact it is far worse and not really democratic. This is largely unreported in the European and UK media.

[/quote]

But we are not talking about China or Islam which I agree have their own problems, we are talking about SA.

How could SA have been democtratic during apartheid when only the whites had the vote? Bit like the tail wagging the dog back i.e. the minority ruling the majority.

The current problems go back to when SA was colonized and what the colonists did and how they ruled the indigenous population. The bulk of which was done by the British.

People don't forget old scores, take Yugoslavia for example where groups are divided by force thus stopping them from resolving their problems by whatever means. The colonists in SA divided the tribes to force 'peace' upon them but was that the real reason, or was it divide and conquer, I thnk it was the latter. Once those that ruled handed the country back the indigenous population resorted back to how it was and possibly with greater vengeance than before because of pent up frustration. I think, however bad things went, the tribes should have been left to sort their own problems out which is what is happening now.

Because you are white and are 2nd or 3rd generation living in a country that was colonised by your own ancestors does not make you an indigenous member of that countries population just merely the spouse of the conqueror. There is and never was an indigenous white population of SA. Personally I think white South Africans should be made to re-apply for their nationality like any other immigrant.

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History was obviously not a good subject for you at school. You are totally incorrect.

 400 years ago would put you in the 17 th century where there was no racial legislation. We are talking about the 20 th century at a time when racial prejudice and racially prejudiced laws were not unusal. Particularly in the USA and Australia. In South Africa and the Cape Province during the 17 th century interacial marriage was not unusual and was socially acceptable.  In the 20 th century expats particularly from the UK, forced the Government  of South Africa to introduce legislation  in the Mining Industry to protect jobs. So we are not talking about 400 years ago in fact until up until 1956  some blacks and coloured people had the vote.

In the 20 th century racisim and racial issues was not confined to South Africa but commonplace in Europe.

 

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Yes Quillan the 'whites' gave Africa back to the 'indigenous' population...just as they should have...and look what they are doing now to their own people.

The fact is that Africa was always a tribal civilisation;  pre-white settlement it was always subject to tribal rule/law. It always has been. It was fine for them to spear their people 200 years ago...but to do such things to women and childen today, and with machetes...?

But that's okay...because they rule themselves now, right?

If parts of the world had been left to develop under 'indigenous populations' we would have a very primitive planet today indeed. Are you English? bear in mind that the true indigenous English are now living in Wales and Scotland.

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[quote user="Jura"]

Yes Quillan the 'whites' gave Africa back to the 'indigenous' population...just as they should have people. 

[/quote]

Exactly and quite right too.

[quote user="Jura"]

The fact is that Africa was always a tribal civilisation;  pre-white settlement it was always subject to tribal rule/law. It always has been. It was fine for them to spear their people 200 years ago...but to do such things to women and children today, and with machetes...?

But that's okay...because they rule themselves now, right?

[/quote]

Not it's not right by our standards but then that's our standards not theirs. Would you think it right that the current president went to the UK (or France as you are living here I believe) and told them how to run their country or if you went exactly the same way as the British in SA to enforce his way of doing things. We might consider it uncivilised and not right by our standards but it's nothing to do with us what they do in their own country. You will be saying it was right to invade Iraq next and perhaps we should consider China and sort them out, after all they murder female babies there most of the time. But again that's another issue and we wouldn't because they can fight back on an equal standing and we might loose.

[quote user="Jura"]

If parts of the world had been left to develop under 'indigenous populations' we would have a very primitive planet today indeed. Are you English? bear in mind that the true indigenous English are now living in Wales and Scotland.

[/quote]

Does not work I am afraid. Yes the English are a bastardised race and it's happened over a 1000 years or more starting with the Romans but then they have integrated, married (or a bit of the old rape and pillage with the Vikings etc) so they are now a right old mix. The issue, unfortunately, is that it's easier to spot when the parents are of two different colours and the whites in SA made little or no attempt to integrate with the native population. Lets get some current statistics from the SA government website shall we.... SA Population is 47.9M. Africans are in the majority at just over 38-million, making up 79.6% of the total population. The white population is estimated at 4.3-million (9.1%), the coloured population (that's mixed race as you know) at 4.2-million (8.9%) and the Indian/Asian population at just short of 1.2-million (2.5%). These figures were produced in mid 2007 (source - http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/demographics/population.htm ) if you want to know about the UK then look at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/commentaries/ethnicity.asp These statistics don't take in to account the mixing of European 'invaders' over hundreds of years.

Also the word 'race' in the context of what we are talking about and keeping in simple (I can give you the long description if you wish) is European, African and Asian. So the French, Germans, Spanish, Russians (with the exception of Mongolians who are defined as Asian) etc are part of the same race. Europeans and African are of different races. For a better definition try "Definition of Race" in Google.

(My sources are public domain and not copyrighted.)

 

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Okay, fine. I accept your comments as you are obviously comfortable with what is being done to innocent women and children there, and all in the name of it being 'their' continent.

Trouble is 'their' continent does not belong to the people themselves, only to the murderous Idi Amin-type dictators that the West does not tolerate anywhere else in the world, but this only holds it seems in oil producing nations. Africa does not contribute in this respect so why bother with them? What white nation these days is going to try and interfere with a black nation? But you say we should do nothing because it is 'nothing to do with us'...? No-one bothers the Chinese for obvious reasons.

I cannot believe the way you think.

We are all human beings. Cold blooded murder of the population by it's leaders should never be condoned/accepted as 'cultural'. I cannot be bothered with the rest of what you have written re the English.

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This is old style colonial politics, perhaps we should send a gun boat over a sort the nasty black chappies out [;-)]. You are right, we are all human beings and by our standards we think these things are abhorrent but that's by our standards. You can't go round forcing your standards on other countries and in particular races, you have no right and it's wrong. What makes us think our standards are right anyway, its a very deap question I know.

An area I do agree with you on is that if you were to force your standards on other counties it should at least be even handed. I am not so much thinking of oil but the arms trade (another nasty area) and my thoughts immediately go to the middle east where the UK have let a certain country (well the one we know about) get away with murder and civil rights infringements because they will cancel arms deals worth billions if the UK gets involved. Even France has and had problems in the past with it's old colonial territories, the most famous of which must be Vietnam where they used ex Nazi SS troops who were assimilated in to the Foreign Legion after WW2. They had more success there than France and America put together but the price was so high they were quickly removed. The UK also have (and may still do) supply torture instruments to African countries (I'm thinking of Plessey which no longer exists) that were and still are run by dictators. We also allow UK nationals to be tortured in Guantanamo Bay. I don't think this allows us to interfere just from a morality point of view. If you want to police the world hen you have to be whitter than white, metaphorically speaking with no skeletons in your closet.

Is it right that 80% or a counties population be told what to do by 9% of the population?

Why can't you be bothered with the English bit, is it because you never knew?

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No it is not that I know nothing about the English; it matters not where the English come from but rather where they are allowing themselves to be led these days.

My OH is studying English history with the OU...I know enough already believe me. But then I suppose they have something in common with the unfortunate African people...their Govt's care not a fig about their people.

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Let me quote some population statistics which indicate that the blacks could not have suffered too much in South Africa before they took over running the country in 1994.

 

 In 1900 : Whites   1.5 million, Blacks 4.5 million , Coloureds and Indians 1 million  (Approx). Oxford History of SA Volume 2.

 If it were not for western medicine  the blacks would not have been able to experience the population growth that has happened since then in South Africa. The white population in South Africa have achieved a lot in spite of their numbers being so much fewer than the blacks. I know that as a Chartered Accountant when I lived in South Africa,  the banking and computer technology sector was far superior to that of the UK. For example a cheque cleared in one day in the 1970s.  Also, I had online access to banking information in 1981. Standards of financial reporting were far superior.

This  8.9% white population you talk about have, created the 'power house of Africa'.  This is slowly being destroyed.

You talk about the policing problems of the world , in my opinion the rule we follow is :

-Smaller or weaker than us?

-Any advantage in it?

-Is it Politically Correct?  and, otherwise don't bother!!         Is this hypocritcal or what?

You mentioned that we should not impose our standards on others-   well it's necessary we do -  think of Nuremburg 1946, the Hague Int'l. Court - quite a few nasties have been there recently. And the UN, ineffectual it is, has soldiers in many countries, but we let Mugabe et al

get away with genocide.  More policing is needed, not less.

CJR

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I would like to know where the Oxford History of SA (pt2) that you quoted got it's facts from. I ask this because if you visit the archives of the university of Port Elizabeth you will see the first documented census results which were gathered (very loosely) in 1911 and published in 1912. The validity of the census is called in to question by modern historians because firstly any group of less than 100o was not counted, only 83 cities and towns were included and the counting was done by people literally counting people. The SA specialist on this matter is a chap called A. J. Christopher and a quick google will get you the correct information you require.

Your comments on health are interesting. I read just now on the SA Health website that blacks reaching 50 will continue on to outlive whites as they get older and that whilst the mortality rate of black babies has improved it has decreased for whites.

I would like to know how many, or the proportion, of your clients were black (not coloured) and how many were white or do I assume they were all white. You have mentioned banking and in particular online banking back in the early 1980's, I wonder what the proportion percentages between white and black there was in those using such services. I don't think many blacks could have afforded a computer for online banking back then. In fact I doubt many even had a bank account. In fact I think all these services and benefits were for the whites only, prove me wrong. We are now seeing the 'price' that the blacks have had o pay for the 8.9% whites used to create the 'power house of Africa'.

Yes I do mention standards and I do believe we should not force them on others, it is dictatorial and no better than the Nazi's. Also, if you go around continuously sorting out other peoples problems they will continue to make the same mistakes and constantly rely on others to sort them out.

You mention Mugabe, I don't like him at all, he has bought his country to it's knees and then some. True if they found oil there tomorrow the Americans would be in there like a shot (the UN is just an American glove puppet). It's for the people to rise in Zimbabwe and throw out the dictator like other countries have done otherwise they will learn nothing and make the same mistakes again. One hopes that by the time Mugabe goes the whole population will understand this. Of course he will win the next election on the 29th March and it will be fixed yet again (he won't allow any external invidulators yet again) but this may be the last straw as far as the people are concerned.

The question is with Mugabe is how is he staying in power, he can't do it on his own, people have to support him, who are they and why. Well I think the reluctance of the other African states and the west to get involved holds the answer. In particular the west because now nothing is being produced there at all due to economic viability and the horrendous inflation. Everything has to be imported and you don't have to look far to see who is supplying the goods and food and who gains financially. Money and greed yet again.

And finally, don't hold the Europeans up as an example, we are just as bad as you say the Africans are. We practice genocide (Yugoslavia), we let people die of starvation when we have plenty (there should be no need for charities to raise money for food the western governments should just give it and distribute it for free). We allow people to die in the UK because the government won't pay for the drugs to save them. We did nothing to stop the 6M Jews, gypsies, mental patients and political activists from the holocaust. Putting them on trial at Nuremberg did not help those that died. For these and many others reasons we are not the ones to go round telling people how to run their county, we are no better.

 

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The comments below of a Journalist are self evident of what is what is happening on the ground right now in South Africa.. I do not accept  any of your interpretations on Africa , you clearly have your head in the sand. At one stage you lived in the country and have a superficial knowledge about South Africa and Africa in general.

In just 14 years the South African economy is being destroyed not by the whites but by the blacks running the economy of South Africa. They inherited a vibrant and strong economy and it has only taken 14 years to ruin this. Not unusual in Africa. You can not blame the whites for what is clearly a combination of greed , corruption  and incompetence.

I still have family in South Africa and my brother is a Company Director with a  South African and Australian company in  the Mining Industry. South Africa used to lead the world in the mining industry, however because of the uncertainties, corruption  and violence in the country most of the leading academics have left. A friend of ours a retired professor in Economic History from the University of Watersrand  ( An Oxford University Academic) regulary writes to us about what is going on in South Africa. His views are entirely objective  and  based on academic research  on the South African Economy.

Quote from the Sunday Herald - A liberal South African Pape
r

Wounded Nation 9 February 2008

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 11:50pm Saturday 9th February 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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You never answered my questions about your clients  ethnic background and who used the wonderful banking system that you described so I must assume I was correct in that it was only for the benefit of the whites. Everything that was done by the whites was for the benefit of the whites and it they that prospered.

If SA whites had integrated with the blacks and educated them to the same standards as themselves instead of segregating them and using them as cheap labour the blacks would have been better equipped to take power. Your quite right the current leaders have no idea how to run the country but then who's fault is that. How much preparation with regards to educating them etc was done before the free elections and handover of power, very little if any.

If you look at India and the way things were done there, allowing Indians to play an active part in the administration, then you can see a totally different outcome. Don't get me wrong, the whites (more to the point the British) did some terrible things there as well but it was handled differently and India is becoming a world economic power in is own right.

It's like putting a 1000 children in a chocolate factory and walking away, they will simply gorge themselves till they are sick with no idea how to continue production. Then the previous owners can put their hands up and say "nothing to do with us" and walk away denying any further responsibility. Just like the white South Africans, they refuse to take any responsibility for their past and the current state of the country.

It will take a complete generation of black South Africans before things improve then not by much and then it will takes years for things to return to anything like they were.

You reap what you sow in life and that is what is happening now in SA.

 

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We had quite a few black clients  I worked for Deloitte Touche one of the largest accounting and consulting firms in the world. Also  when I was in industry where we employed over 1500 people largely black,  they all had bank  or savings accounts.

It  is common sense that banks  have neverever been selective  in financial matters in South Africa nor has large private business. In fact, Anglo American,  Barlows to name a few,  had very progressive and generous employment policies, especially for the blacks.

The UK banking sector even now does not offer next day clearance of cheques. South Africa with all its problems has  since the mid 1970's  offered next day clearance of cheques and still does today.

You are making excuses, like our current government in the UK,  for incompetence and mismangement,  & in the case of SA this level of incompetance & criminality never existed before, nor would the previous SA gov't have accepted it.

Quillan- B&B must be quiet at present, but I have better things to do- so totsiens!

CJR

ps I am not married to a 2-3 generation SAfrican, rather I trace my ancestry on both sides to the late 18th century.

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Quillan, Mugabe is in power, yes, but not due to a democratic process. He has a militia behind him and a murderous one at that. 'People power' has nothing to do with his position of office. If it did I am sure he would be six feet under by now...trouble is his 'people' are starving, diseased and terrified. He works to that old standard...eliminate all opposition.

As to who gains financially in that State...as a dying aids-stricken woman once told a journalist inquiring as to how much Bob Geldof's 'Aid' had helped the African people - " We are still hungry and dying but the local militia all are carrying new guns ".

It is obvious where the money goes and it does NOT go to the people. They do not need cash. They need an infra-structure supplying the most basic of services that we all take for granted and they just do not have it.

And you are correct that the US and British Govts did nothing to halt the murder of jewish, gypsy and other peoples in the death camps in WW2. Even though aerial photographs taken by British pilots on reconnaissance missions over Poland in 1942 showed plainly the gas chambers and prisoners of Auschwitz, and more, and were presented to both Govts, as well as Geneva and the Vatican...they all chose to do nothing.

It seems nothing has changed today. It seems that to some world powers that there are people on this earth who are dispensible and who do not matter.

 

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Spot on Jura.

I guess Mugabe keeps his troops in line by giving them food. There must become a time when the people do turn on him. Of course many will die in the process, it will probably be a massacre/bloodbath. Out of that however a lesson one hopes will be learnt and the same situation will not happen again. We we live in hope.

The problem I have these days is that more and more I see people putting the blame on others and not taking responsibility for what is either happening now or in the past. The only way forward in my mind is to accept your (as a general term, not personal) responsibility and then say 'right now what can we do to put it right'.

I think you are right that there are things that still happen that show we have learnt nothing from the past.

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I think we place too much power in the hands of our so-called 'leaders' and not enough sense of obligation.

For pete's sake, if we have not yet learned from what has happened in just the past 70-odd years what hope do we have?

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