a No BS account about South Africa

South Africa is a country with a very modern cosmopolitan feel to it.
It some ways the major city centers can feel a bit like a smaller version of New York (if you live around the Johannesburg areas)

It is a country with 11 official languages, approx 50 million people of which the majority are black, but with several million white, indian and coloured people too!

Why is the racial makeup of the country important ?

--- The story of an emerging democracy

Until about 10 years ago, the country was ruled by a system of white rule, labeled "Apartheid" (loosely translated separation or "Separate Development"). Under this system non-whites did not have the right to vote, and where not allowed residence in white neighborhoods, white schools or white universities.

The aparartheid government went to great efforts to create a seperate education for the black population commonly refered to as Bantu education. Also large areas were specially designated for non-white people to live in. These areas where either incorporated "black townships" or given complete autonomoy in the form of seperate "home-lands" such as Bophutatswanna, Lesotho, Swaziland.

Three major forces to change this state of affairs (racial segregation, and second class citizenship for non-whites) played out, over the course of several years and largely in paralel:

* International Pressure in the form of sanctions against South Africa
* Former black power movements such as the African National Congress (ANC - Now the ruling party of South Africa)
* The white ruling party of the time (National Party) itself were undertaking a process of gradual democracy by actions such as releasing Nelson Mandela from prison, and such as creating the negotiation forum (Codesa) which was responsible for the transition into democracy. The ruling NP also was responsible for putting to poll the famous "Yes/No" vote, and the majority of white South Africans at the time voted "Yes" for democracy (equal of rights for blacks)

The combination of the majority of white people in South Africa voting "YES", the ANC exerting pressure through wide scale political unrest (and a lot of behind the scenes work including measures as extreme as terrorist acts), and the whole world effectively speaking out against SA and applying sanctions, collectively caused the fall down of the hated system of Apartheid.

---- Present Day South Africa

I wall label post 1994 as the New South Africa.
We got a new flag, a new national anthem and our first black president (democratically elected Nelson Mandela - well loved and respected by all)

We also got affirmative action policies to ensure that black people would be given preference over white people in the job market.

BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) laws have been created to ensure that primarily companies with black shareholders, black management and contributing to skills development are allowed to participate in government projects.

The system calculates a point score based on these factors, and also points based on the percentage of goods procured from black firms.

This then forces a cascading effect throughout the economy making it very hard for traditionally white owned and managed companies to remain so.

It also has the side effect of making it difficult to appoint people strictly based on merit - because your point score is affected by the number of "previously disadvantaged individuals" (PDI's) you employ at all levels.

The public investment corporation (PIC) which invests amongst other things all government employee pension funds, have used its purchasing power in the market to buy up the shares of publicly traded companies and then using their shareholder power to force these companies to appoint more black directors.

The allocation of licenses for nearly all regulated industries have also started to become subject to being "black enough" and includes
- Telecoms & Broadcasting rights (ICASA is the controlling body)
- Gambling licenses, The National Lotery
- Mineral Rights (So called "New Style" mineral rights only accessible by sufficiently black consortiums)

Massive government funds and support structures of the past have also started to focus in many cases on exclusively funding ONLY black businesses, or using very rigid quota systems.
- IDC
- TEP
- Gauteng Enterprise Propeller

Universities and Schools have also been "transformed" (meaning: increase the black consituancy) by Law and ministerial actions.

It is well known fact that most competive fields of study have large "Black Quota" components to them. The result of this is that there are black students allowed to study fields such as medicine with much lower marks than certain white students not allowed entrance...

The same happens in many fields of study.

Another problem that has emerged since SA became democratic is the massive rise in crime. Both anecdotal and numerical evidence exists for this.

In a country with masses of
(mostly black) uneducated, unemployed, uninformed people living in extreme poverty...

well you can predict what can result from this.

The single highest crime rate in the world.

For several years the president of SA (Thabo Mbeki) refused to even acknowledge that crime was a problem and thus the problem kept on escalating.

However, the problem has become so major, and in the face of SA been awarded the opportunity to host 2010 World Cup Soccer, there are not many politicians left hanging on to this rediculous point of view (MBeki's words was: "Crime is a problem of perceptions" and the police chief told critics to leave the country)

Although there has not been done any scientific studies, there is a case to be made for the link between
Transformation (removing former competent white people and replacing them with black people with competence only as the second criteria to be considered)
AND
A massive breakdown is service and management competence (commonly refered to in government circles as "Lack of Capacity")


Someone else's detailed review of South Africa's transition to democracy:

http://amren.com/987issue/987issue.html#cover