The SA Critic

Can South Africa be saved from Julius Malema?

2010-01-12T11:19:00.000-08:00

Well the last time I posted, was when everyone was still saying that Jacob Zuma would never become the president of South Africa, because he had too many criminal and moral allegations against him.

Well Jacob Zuma is president, and nothing has collapsed so far. (Except for all the things that were already collapsing such as our Electricity Grid, Eductation System, Health System, Land bank,SAA and SABC) and minor lapses in the upholding of our justice system, such as the fact that criminals like Shabir Shaik was fraudulantly released on Medical parole. (He was later seen roaming the streets as a free man, and now it is rumoured that he may be the future recipient of a presidential pardon from Zuma. Remember he was convicted of fraud in connection with his dealings with the president himself!)

However, Jacob Zuma's new protoge, Julius Malema is an extremist radical, and ACTIVELY ENDORSED by the president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma.

OFFICIAL ENDORSEMENT FOR JULIUS MALEMA TO BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA

Malema was a "leader in the making" and worthy of "inheriting the ANC" - Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa.

Source: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-10-26-zuma-says-malema-a-leader-in-the-making

WHO IS JULIUS MALEMA?

He is the long time leader of an organisation called the ANC Youth League.

Lets look at a few of his views and utterances to understand the man, and his future plans with the country:

All mines and many large stock exchange listed companies (some with foreign listings) should be nationalised

sources

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-10-20-malema-presses-call-for-nationalisation-of-mines

http://www.miningweekly.com/article/nationalise-gold-platinum-first-ancyl-2009-12-08-1

On the scandal of the hermaphrodite athelete Caster Semenya

Background: After Caster Semenya won the woman's 800m world championship gold medal, it was discovered that the management of Athletics South Africa had deliberately lied and conspired to keep secret the fact that her gender tests revealed that she was in fact not a woman (at least not in the traditional medical sense).

Julius Malema had this to say-

"Hermaphrodite, what is that? Somebody tell me, what is hermaphrodite in Pedi? There's no such thing, hermaphrodite, in Pedi.

'... don't impose your hermaphrodite concepts on us'

"So don't impose your hermaphrodite concepts on us.

"You are either a woman or a man. When a child is born you are announcing it's a baby girl or a baby boy. We have never heard in the village a child being projected: 'we are given a hermaphrodite'. There's never been such a thing in the village we come from."

"They can argue about this being determined scientifically, but in the villages we don't see signs, we don't have laboratories. When a child is born, we open its legs and that is the sign we use."

"The imperialists must not impose this on us if they have hermaphrodites where they come from. They must enjoy living with their hermaphrodites, because in South Africa there are no hermaphrodites."

[Editors note: The Pedi word for hermaphrodite is setabane]

Ultimately, Julius Malema immortalised himself with these words answered in an interview:

"He is a woman"

sources:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20091002154409123C338320&click_id=13&set_id=1

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-09-11-caster-is-a-woman-but-maybe-not-100

http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/beautifulyoungthings/2009/12/09/julius-malema-vs-debora-patta-incase-you-never-saw-it/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-1212568/World-champion-Caster-Semenya-hermaphrodite-womb-ovaries--Australian-newspapers-shock-claims-gender-row-runner.html

Malema believes his political opponents should be KILLED

Prof Jansen must be killed

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71656?oid=148532&sn=Detail

And in this Radio interview with Malema live in person: http://www.pod702.co.za/podcast/bestofjohn/20091030JRBestof.mp3

Kill for Zuma

http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/Politics/1057/3575d540179647598f9858ef75699ff7/21-06-2008-05-33/We_will_kill_for_Zuma

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71627?oid=92007&sn=Detail

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-07-02-sahrc-mulls-malemas-kill-for-zuma-remarks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Malema

Despite his followers being desperately poor, he is living the high life

How is it financially possible for a (youth) politician to have amased so much wealth?

Especially considering that he only finished high school at the age of 21 while still failing several of his final year subjects.

He throws lavish parties, where countless bottles of Johnie Walker whiskey are emptied, lives in the posh district of Sandton, and drives million rand cars.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20090921035859524C219577 <- Read how Malema behaves like a hooligan.

See his rich lifestyle:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=594&set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20090926094937344C322814

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-09-21-the-world-according-to-julius-malema

http://southafrica-pig.blogspot.com/2009/09/whos-paying-for-malemas-lavish-life.html

JULIUS MALEMA, SA'S FUTURE PRESIDENT ?

Well with huge popularity (mostly under the young black majority), and an official endorsement from the current President of South Africa, the stage seems set for Julius Malema to become South Africa's next president.

What can save us from this fate?

Only marginal luck. Maybe he ruins himself. Maybe Zuma will want to rule for a second term. Maybe with his lavish parties and exquisite intelligence he gets himself HIV+. Maybe the public at large will wise up about this fool.

We can only hope.

What is it in our fellow South Africans that make them love leaders of his caliber so much?

Surviving South Africa

2008-05-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

Fighting for your Survival

Whats changed ?
- The laws. Previously the country favoured white people under the well hated "apartheid" system of white minority rule. This has been replaced by ANC (near single -party, black rule), affirmative action and black economic empowerment (BEE).

- The country has rocketed from very low levels of crime, to the highest in the world.

This means that if you are a white person, your world has radically and irrovocably been transformed.

Some of the changes are positive. We all agree that any form of discrimination is unfair. We are also happy with some of the cultural revolution - that things are not as "stiff upperlip" as they used to be.

But, now you are subject to massive reverse discrimination whenever you look for work (affirmative action) or conduct business (BEE legislation).

You are also under constant threat with regards to your safety and your belongings. Everyone knows a close friend or family member that has been affected by serious crime in the past year.

Finally we have to watch helplessly as policicians insist on doing various seemingly crazy things (our Zimbabwe policy, allowing the country to run out of electricity despite the fact that it was predicted 10 years ago, their insistence on shutting down the country's most succesful crime fighting unit "The Scorpions", etc etc....)

This creates a lot of mental stress and anxiety in thinking people. Luckily most people have conditioned themselves to simply tune out, or alternatively bitch and moan and move on.

That is not the approach that I advocate.

You need to ASSESS REALITY, and create a PERSONAL ACTION PLAN to survive and thrive.

If you don't, you are setting yourself up to become a victim through your own inaction.

So, in order to survive South Africa you need to three things:

* Plan for Personal Safety for you and those close to you, and your belongings. Personal Crime Protection Plan (PCP Plan)

* Plan for your economic survival. Your Personal Economic Success Plan (PES Plan)

* Protect your mental sanity, remain positive, don't get sucked into a negative spiral. Personal Stay Positive Plan (PSP Plan)

Notice that I said: "Survive South Africa" and not specifically: "Surviving IN South Africa". For some people the most attractive option may be to find a greener pasture (there are many).

Many other people would be better served by first learning to exploit the opportunities right here in front of them, to the maximum.

Even if you don't believe in the long term future of the country, there exists massive opportunities in the short term, and why not use them as your springboard onto greater things ?

Over the next series of articles we will be addressing each of these elements in more detail.

The writing is on the wall for South Africa

2008-02-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

Save yourself, this Ship is going down!

Dear world,
I'm sorry to announce, but this is the end for South Africa.

Yes, there are still many die-hard, stay-with-it-till-the-end citizens here. So much positive thinking, strong-willed, refuse to accept defeat, fight till the end to save South Africa people.

In fact, I was one of them.

Usually you can divide people into two camps:
(a) Those that whine, and do nothing
Or
(b) Those that Remain positive, and take action

and now consider

(c) The Realist, that accepts reality, deals with it, and develops a personal action plan to save himself, instead of clinging to false hope.

Am I too harsh ?

Lets assess what has transpired here since South Africa was handed over from minority apartheid rule (white racist rule - only white people was allowed to vote and participate at the higher levels of the economy) towards democracy which lead to a new majority black government (98% of top government positions are now held by people of color) :

* South Africa has spiralled into the highest crime rate in the world. Highest murder and rape rates. Refer to: 100,000 Dead, 1.3mil Assaulted, 1 million leave

* For nearly 13 years South Africa has aggresively pursued policies of affirmative action and black economic empowerment, that has led to a massive skills shortage, incompetence at all levels of major institutions and a national electricity crisis. See: A little affirmative action can't hurt; Electricity switched of in South Africa

* Massive numbers of top government officials are clearly incompetent and corrupt, ranging from the minister of health that's a proven drunk despite her liver transplant, to several judges arrested for drunken driving and the chief of police who has admitted to being friends with a major mobster. See: SA - Democracy or Idiocracy

* The people (black majority) has voted as the next president of the country a guy that is still under investigation for corruption, has recently refused white journalists from attending a media conference, were accused of rape (and admitted in court that he showered after sex as a way to prevent getting aids from the woman he slept with, knowing that she was HIV positive). This guy loves singing a song "Bring me my machine gun". He is also married to several wives and has over 20 children. See BRING MY MY MACHINE GUN ; What did Zuma Say behind closed Doors ; Zuma may take 5th wife ; Blacks-only forum betrays ANC’s founding principles ; The machine-gun presidency

* The special operations: "The Scorpions" have been ordered to be disbanded (and members re-integrated into the regular police force). This transpired after this unit was the main unit investigating several top ranking officials from the ruling party (Jackob Zuma the likely next president of South Africa, the Chief of Police etc...) This special unit was one of the most succesful crime fighting units in the country, and is now suddenly getting shut down. See : Confusion around Scorpions plan ; Zuma lays into scorpions ; Business backs Scorpions ; Nqakula backs off on ‘dissolving’ Scorpions ... However this is now still going ahead as it was mandated at the Polekwani ANC conference.

* South Africa maintains exchange controls that prevents individuals or companies to arbitrary obtain foreign exchange (you need special permissions from the reserve bank, or can otherwise take limited amounts for travel purposes).

* Our country has completely lost its moral compass. As mentioned, the person most likely to be our next president (Jacob Zuma, president of the ANC) is confirming that racism is OK by explicitly asking white journalists to leave a media conference. It appears that just about every major ANC top person has been linked to some or other crime. South Africa has been supporting Zimbabwe despite the fact that it murdered and chased white farmers of their farms in a massive land grab - through private diplomacy, a general purpose loan of $us 1000 000 0000 in 2000 with no political conditions attached; and now another investment in Zimbabwe's electricity infrastructure of several millions under the auspices that its for South Africa's benifit. See: COULD SOUTH AFRICA BE THE NEXT ZIMBABWE.

* An opposition DA member was asked to leave parlament when they did not like the questions that he asked (He asked if the president was aware of certain wrong doings ), thereby seriously compromising the political independance of the governance procedures of parlament.

* Public infrastructure is falling into all round disrepear. Roads full of potholes. Continious electricity black-outs. A looming water crises. So many problems at local municipalities that its been given the common label: "Lack of service delivery".

* There are plans on the cards to abandon the "Willing Buyer, willing Seller" principle as the means for driving land re allocation to black people in South Africa. see YOU BASTARDS WILL STAY POOR!

* Anyone who has read books like "Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt, and then read about the "Avalanche of Aids Orphans" in Think Again Mr Minister, will realise that the crime problem in South Africa has now become unsolveable.

How much more convincing do you need ?

This ship IS going down.

It will take many years, but down its going. From COULD SOUTH AFRICA BE THE NEXT ZIMBABE, I estimated it within the next 20 years or so.

In my next article: How to save yourself from South Africa, we'll take a look at what we can do.

In the mean time, I can only hope that the whole world is getting informed about what is really going on here, and that South Africa is not the dream democracy that everyone believes.

Still rubbing your eyes in disbelief ?
Take the red pill - You are not crazy

Please encourage as many people as possible to read this article.
and Remember:

You are not a nay-sayer for telling the truth about South Africa
You are not a looser if you decide not to stay on a sinking ship! There is no cowardice in leaving, in deciding to walk away from an unwinnable battle.
If you decide to stay, and still believe that you (and enough others) can still prevent South Africa from meeting its fate, then great too! That is your personal right and choice. Just don't give the moral high ground to others that decide to choose differently.

Whatever you do, decide to be informed, and take personal action.

How incompetents switched off South Africa's electricity

2008-01-24T04:13:00.000-08:00

It is the year 2008, and suddenly there is not enough electricity to power the country. All major business districs and house holds are switched off for two hour blocks at a time, in the form of rolling black-outs throughout the entire country.

This is now starting to happen several times a day.

Business comes to a stand still as computer networks are disrupted...
Traffic grid locks as traffic lights in entire areas stop functioning...

How did this come about ?

Before the advent of democracy (rougly 13 years ago), South Africa had such a major electricity surplus that it mothballed 3 power stations, and still managed to export electricity to neighbouring countries.

So how did South Africa suddenly (and according to the politicians: "Unexpectedly") run out of electricity.

Lets look at the facts:

* In 1998 a goverment whitepaper was presented to parlament predicting that South Africa would run out electricity by 2007 if immediate action is not taken (build more power stations). Nothing was done.

* In 2002 the electricity regulator fined Eskom (the national power utility) for gross negligance for how it is managing the country's electricity supply

* Electricity demand is not difficult to predict. Ten years ago the ANC said it was targeting 5-6% economic growth rate, which was roughly what transpired. Electricity growth CORRELATES near perfectly with GDP growth. Thus any high school kid armed with a calculator can predict future electricity demand.

Therefore there exists no other explanation for this dire situation: Gross Incompetence.

The major changes that occured in the Government and at Eskom in the past 13 years of democracy:

* White politicians from the old order have been replaced by ANC people (almost all non-white)

* Massive sections of Eskom's white management has been replaced by black management in order to comply with governments affirmative action laws.

It does seem enterresting that South Africa always had excess electricity. Then it replaced all the white faces with black faces. Then 10 years later the country runs out of electricity.

What are the effects ?

Two weeks ago the single largest ever foreign direct investment into South Africa was cancelled because there is not enough electricity to support the project (R 22 Billion)

Several platinum projects were also placed on hold.

I predict that South Africa will loose in the region of R 200 billion in foreign investment over the next 5 years as a direct result of this.

Eskom has said that it will take at least 5 years for the problem to be rectified, whilst independant experts place it at 7-10 years.

In one fell swoop irreparable damage has been done to the SA economy.

References

Eskom tells mines to shut down

Electricity shortage a national emergency

WARNED 10 YEARS AGO OF ELECTRICITY CRISIS

Lack of electricity now blackens the economy

Electricity crisis worsens, mines close

http://www.sabcnews.com/features/eskom/

Where does the blame for load-shedding really lie?

-------------- One last happy thought...

Whats the difference between the TITANIC and SOUTH AFRICA ?

?

With the Titanic, the lights were still on, when it sank!

Bring me my Machine Gun

2007-12-18T00:03:00.000-08:00

It is indeed amazing.
The majority of South Africas (mostly black) think it is a fantastic idea to choose Jacob Zuma as the next president of the ANC, and also as the next president of the country.

What makes this truly amazing is:

* He is still under investigation for Fraud and Corruption

* Although he was found not guilty in a recent rape trial, he made all kinds of strange remarks including the fact that he knowingly slept with an HIV positive woman, without protection. (Then he showered afterwards as a preventative method)

* His favourite song that he sings to his cheering crowds of supporters is loosely translated as "Bring me my machine gun".
At the recent ANC conference where he just got voted in as the next president (of the ANC, but therefore also most likely the country)... he sings this song again! ( news24 - Stop Zuma Anarchists)

In a country with the highest crime rate in the world, should Zuma be convicted on his Fraud and Corruption charges, at least he will be truly representative of the people.

You know it is popular when...
Bring me my machine gun is popular enough with our fellow (mostly black I would assume) South Africans, to warrant the release of the Ring tone: http://thehyrax.vox.com/library/post/bring-me-my-machine-gun-ringtone-now-available.html

....

Therefore, I beg of you, Please help me get Zuma's Machine gun to him.

....

How South Africa chooses to be poor

2007-11-27T05:47:00.000-08:00

What creates wealth ?

Taking advantage of opportunities.

Making the most of each. Extracting maximum economic value from every opportunity.

What do we do instead ?

We choose to be 50-60% less efficient than we can be.

How do we do this ?

Imagine an economic value chain 7 levels deep. One business buys a product from another business, who in turn depends on service from another business who in turns ... you get the idea!

Now imagine loosing 10% efficiency at every step....

I've calculated the effect will be that you only realise 47% of the value, with 53% of the value being lost.

This means if we used every opportunity to its full, each person would have been twice as wealthy, earn twice as much money... and half as many people would have been desperately poor.

Instead this is how we throw away our opportunities
- Imagine loosing 10% in productivity due to massive electricy problems
- Imagine loosing 10% in time due to being stuck in traffic jams and lack of public transport
- Imagine a business spending 10% of its inccome on security measures due to our rampant crime
- Imagine the productivity loss due to the Telkom monopoly
- Imagine the loss in productivity due to the fact that many companies are required to hire employees that best fit their BEE (black economic empowerment) objectives rather than the most skilled ones
- Image the loss in productivity due to all the highly skilled people buggering off to Australia, the UK etc.
- Imagine the loss in productivity due to inflexible labour laws (companies cannot hire and fire employees easily, employees regularly strike and demand wage increases far in excess of inflation etc.)

All of these inefficiencies add up.

This is the South African reality. A place that has through active negligence by its leaders ensured that it only operates at 47% efficiency.

If only SA didn't wait until recently before acknowledging the extent of crime...
If only Eskom could have ***somehow*** foreseen the obvious supply problems 10 years ago...
If only South Africa could have realised the price it pays for BEE in terms of inefficiencies and in chasing competent white people out of the country...

All of these things have been blatantly obvious for years, but our leaders refused to act.
The damage has been done and will take 10 years or more to recover from - if we get superstar competent president appointed next.

However the majority (mostly black people) are all voting for Jacob Zuma, the person that has been accused of Fraud, Rape, Corruption and that enjoys singing a song (Translated as "Bring me my machine gun")

Articles in the news:

Zuma makes his final legal stand
ANCYL wants zuma for President
'Zuma will be President'

and then: Totally Bizare ?!??

"President Zuma will sort out White People" was published in the Sunday Standard in Gaborone.

The Wealth Redistribution Myth

2007-11-16T00:06:00.000-08:00

What most white people fear will happen to South Africa ...

Rich vs Poor

What we all fear...

So we are being told that the massive gap between the HAVE's and HAVE-NOT's must be closed.

Here are some useful background facts and widely used buzz words:

The rising black middle class (supposedly responsible for record increases in property prices in the early 2000's)
The "Black Diamonds" phenononym to describe the newly minted rich black yuppies.
Despite the biggest economic boom in South Africa's history, the number of desperately poor people (those living on less than a dollar a day) have doubled since democracy(1996) from 2 Million to 4 Million, and the biggest preportional increase was from the white race group (Ref: The race relations research institute)

Land Reforms, Wealth Redistribution blah blah... transformation ... blah

This is the mind virus that we are constantly being fed.

What everyone is missing, is a fundamental economic truth:

Wealth can ONLY be Created or Destroyed. Never redistributed.

Whenever artificial and forceful means are attempted to redistribute, or re-allocate wealth, the wealth gets dissapated in the process. Look at the history of Argentia, Zimbabwe, Russia, Poland.... (Communism is the perfect story book example of what happens when one tries to distribute wealth evenly)

The solution to make the Poor happy is not to kill the rich fat cats.

The solution is actually to make the rich fat cats EVEN RICHER, along with everyone else.

Wealth is basically a pyramid

..............RICH
.....MIDDLE CLASS
.DIRT POOR PEOPLE

A small number of very rich people at the top, a middle class, a lot of people scraping buy, and in South Africa, tons of poor people at the bottom.

The trick is to pull the Entire pyramid up. Not to try and reshape the pyramid and in the process destroy the wealth.

Some of the main reasons why wealth cannot be redistributed

Someone who did not create something, cannot care for it, look after it or manage it.
Wealth is not money. Rather: Wealth is the ability to create money from specialised knowledge, business systems and saved up capital.

Which factor causes crime: Poverty or Race

2007-09-09T10:11:00.000-07:00

I hope my subject line was provocative !

One of the common arguments these days is that the crime in South Africa is caused by poverty.

Could this be bullshit propaganda to keep us dumbed down to the fact that crime is actually a complex multi-factor problem of which poverty is only a component ?

To help illuminate this complex issue, I've interviewed Dr Crime.
Names may have been changed. Then again, perhaps this interview did not actually occur.

SA Critic: Which do you think is the biggest predictor of criminal behaviour: race or poverty ?

Dr Crime: Here's a study done in America: http://www.nationalistpartyusa.org/crime.htm

SA Critic: Those are some pretty damning stats.

However, what if you brought poverty into the equation? You may find an equally strong correlation, i.e.

poor people commit crime
black people are poor
therefore black people commit crime?

"In 1999, for example, for every dollar of wealth held by the average white household, the average Black household held barely 9 cents."
(src http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2000/Feb00/r020800a:)

Dr Crime: A very good book on analysing the differences between correlated statistics versus causal factors in economics is Steven Levitts' book "Freakonomics". Its a lotta fun too - I'll lend it to you when I see you next.

Applying the statistical methods mentioned in 'Freakonomics' to the above facts, it is possible that ANY one of the following could be correct:
(a) poverty causes crime
(b) crime causes poverty
(c) crime and poverty are both caused by another third factor that causes both
(d) No casual relationship is in effect and they are simply correlated

It does seem interesting that black people are both poor and criminal.
So is it skin colour or poverty that causes crime ?

All that one then has to do to try and determine whether it is 'poorness' or 'blackness' that causes crime, is to look at other communities that are poor but not black (and see how they correlate with crime), and communities that are black but not poor (and see how they correlate with crime).

So how do poor white neighborhoods compare with poor black neighborhoods for crime ?
and how do rich, black neighborhoods compare with rich white neighborhoods for crime ?

So statistically one can determine what is really going on without resorting to old racial rhetoric questions such as: 'Why are the black people still so poor and backwards in America where they've shared the same constitution with their white counterparts for a 100 years ?' Why are the blacks in the rest of Africa (free from white interference) just as poor or poorer than their counterparts in America and South Africa where they are being mistreated by the whites ?

Anyway, back to the statistical argurment:

So how do poor white neighborhoods compare with poor black neighborhoods for crime ?
and how do rich black neighborhoods compare with rich white neighborhoods for crime ?

West Virginia:
1,718,777 Whites 95.0% of the population.

The incidence of violent crime in West Virginia is consistently among the lowest in the nation. Violent Crime Rate National Ranking: 44

WV is also one of the poorest states in the country. The poverty rate in West Virginia is 17.90%. The national average is 12.38%. Percentage of the poverty population that are White is 92.28%. The national average is 55.60%. So, we can conclude that poverty is NOT an indicator of crime rates.

I don't have enough statistics to test all the variations of the statistical test, but I believe you can see where this point is headed

Thank you for raising the point about poverty and crime again.

If reducing poverty in South Africa would solve crime then it would make sense to rather go and present entrepreneurship workshops in the townships, free of charge....

I'm still open for you to prove me wrong with this.

My argument is: Using completely bogus statistics here: Lets say 5% of blacks are criminals no matter what you do and 2% of whites are criminals no matter what you do. My belief is that you have to stamp these elements out of society and totally marginalise them by making it clear to them that crime is NOT acceptable.

Instead of dancing around the issue and trying to sympethise with them, and trying to find excuses for them such as: They killed that man because they are poor. SA has the highest rape stats in the world because our people is poor (reaaally?). Ditto for murder and violent assaults.

Why isn't ethiopia the most violent place on earth ?

I appreciate your argument, because these arguments are very commonly used as excuses for avoiding taking the actions needed to attack these problems directly.

Take the red pill.

SA Critic: Sorry, I'm so accustomed to using that argument that it's hard to stop :-)

You are correct: poverty does not cause crime. It's a pretty convincing argument on the surface, but it falls apart under scrutiny. I'll take the red pill.

However, "blackness" as a cause of crime is a difficult pill to swallow, let alone ask someone else to swallow (especially a black person :-)

Dr Crime: Very true. Any statistical generalisation is unfair to the individual in the group. Because tendencies do not rule over the power of the individual.

Well, as you all know I've dedicated a significant portion of my personal resources this year to establish a non-profit organization that seeks to study and promote information related to the problems in South Africa. (Crime, Incompetence, Reverse-discrimination, ANC-one-party-state)

The purpose of the organization is to have the government seriously tackle crime (and the other social ills), regardless of its racial attributes.

To you and me, would we care whether they lock up white or black murderers ? Or do we simply want government to do its job as effectively as possible? We are not interrested in racially-based solutions although we have to look at all statistics to understand the prevalance and distribution of crime to make sure our non-racial solutions will properly solve the problem across all races.

We also need to be able to understand the govenerment propaganda and people's common misconceptions and know how to conclusivly rip it to shreads with fact and argument. This requires deep understanding beyond just our stated facts.

Can one prevent people from turning into murderers (or other level criminals) by giving them fast (unfair) promotions to high positions, social grants, BEE shareholdings ?

Will a person with criminal tendencies effectively manage the next *Fidentia ? (*Fidentia: The widow and orphan fund that was looted to bankrupcy)

A criminal in a cosy position simply becomes an incompetent person that lacks moral judgement who is now empowered to disenfranchise many more.

Here is the list of social ills that I consider of importance (please add or debate)
* Crime (It destroys opportunities and quality of life for everyone)
* Incompetence (private and public sector causes incompetence causes widescale misery and destruction of opportunities)
* Reverse Discrimination (leads to incompetence, takes opportunities away, is morally wrong in a free democracy, chases competent people out of SA - brain drain)
* Socialism vs Capitalism
* The One-Party state phenonem and the message that we should strive for maximim unity (One Nation, ANC-Unity, ANC-alliances with Cosatu and the South African Communist Party) destroying of diversity, choice and debate - ultimately creating the perfect environment for a dictatorship.

Maybe for the reasons of focus, one should pay special attention to the most important three:
Crime
Incompetence
Reverse Discrimination

Your thoughts ?

Perhaps there is a unifying banner that one can use to bind these things together ?
Quality of Life ?
Loss of Opportunity ?
Human Rights ?

I've thus far decided on the theme of Truth by labeling the society: Truth SA - a very impactful name. Again remember the primary purpose of the organisation is the collection and dissemination of high quality information and argument.

If the government is not doing everything that a generally competent government can be expected to do in order to address the many social ills of SA then we'll be the watch dog to remind them to play nice because the whole world is watching.

The DA tried to play this role (as have the Independant Democrats), but as minority opposition POLITICAL parties success is somewhat limited and they have conflicts of interrests as they fight for political power.

Glad you took the red pill. Lets see how far the rabbit hole goes...

PS: You should book a time to watch the DVD: Thank you for smoking. Its very thought provoking about human nature and lobbying to government.

Take the red pil - You are not crazy

2007-09-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

Some questions you need to immediately ask yourself

Why did the government try to cover up the crime statistics in South Africa in the early 2000s, by placing a moratorium on the release of all crime statistics ?

Why has the government until recently tried to deny that crime is a problem in South Africa, despite SA having the highest murder and rape rates per 100 000 ?

Why has the government for years denied that HIV causes AIDS, that anti retrovirals are a suitable treatment of AIDS, and then tried to block the distribution of these drugs (the Treatment Action Compaign had to force the government via the courts to take action) ?

Why is the government at the same time:
1. Promoting a policy that gives preference to race over competence, resulting in 1000 0000 highly skilled white people leaving the country
2. Complaining about the lack of skills ?

Why has the government not fired the minister of Health, Manto Tsabalala-Msimang whom after a recent liver transplant has been proved to drink in hospital (medical records obtained by the Sunday Times) and known to have been fired from a prior position of Medical Superintendant due to theft, years ago in Bophutatswana. She is also known for her flawed views on HIV, and scandals at several hospitals (thousands of babies dying, unsafe hospital conditions)... in fact the president commended her for her courageously defending herself against the press!

Why has the government allowed the dire situation in Zimbabwe to continue to spin out of control since the late nineties, since they repossessed white farms (murdering many), bulldozing people's houses down, and creating the worlds highest inflation (approaching 10 000%), the population starving and millions of desperate people illegally entering South Africa.

Why is Telkom, the fixed line monopoly so useless that several hate websites are dedicated to it, and organisations such as the telecoms action group (TAG) have taken out full page adds against it in major business publications ? Why is it in many cases near impossible to get proper internet services, despite Telkom having been identified as the main culprit, nearly 10 years ago already ?

Why are most municipalities and local government structures a complete mess, failing to deliver basic services and steeped in corruption ?

Why has SAA (the government owned airline) been run completely into the ground ?
See sites like www.neverflysaa.com

Why was the planning at the national power operator so flawed that major South African business areas are regularly affected by power cuts ?

Why does the South African government insist on free medical care for all citizens whilst many of the state hospitals are near collapse ?

Why are so many top politicians being investigated for crime and corruption at the moment ?

Why are the mob ties of our national police chief not properly investigated ?

Why do we have exchange controls preventing individuals from taking their money out of the country ?

The reason for these and many others are
1. Sheer incompetence
2. The supposed needs of "Whites" are considered less important than the needs of blacks (the voting majority), such as the redistribution of wealth and affirmative action.
3. We are slowly sinking into a tyrannical state, just like almost any other African country where suffering, despair, poverty, crime and AIDS is rampant.

The system is corrupt and incompetent to the core!

If you are still here (like me), I hope you have a backup escape plan.

There is no swift collapse coming, but neither is their a quick fix to all our woes in the pipeline.

Feeling depressed ?
There is nothing wrong with you.

If you are dumb-founded with the questions above, and questioning your own sanity, or simply confused by the mismatch between your own inner logical mind and the chaos so clearly visible around you in everyday life in South Africa, I can only offer you a small consolation.

The problem is not with you. The system is busted. They ARE out to get you.

You bastards will stay poor!

2007-08-27T23:33:00.000-07:00

(src: http://www.africancrisis.org/ZZZ/ZZZ_News_007285.asp)

Video Clip: Land Reform - Celebrating in Hope - South Africa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuGHKBJV3uA

The great South African Land Scandal:
http://greatsalandscandal.blogspot.com/

There is plenty of solid, hard evidence: The South African government will "buy" productive white owned farms, hand them over to any black person that makes a claim against it (often times with only anecdotal evidence being sufficient)

Then surprise, the new people that have just been handed prime farms (game farms, lodges, maize farms, dairy farms, wine farms etc) run it quickly into the ground.

There should be no surprise. If you just hand people the fruits of someone else's labour, what do YOU think is going to happen ?

The government has set aggressive targets for land reform - it wants to purchase (or obtain otherwise -- no more willing buyer willing seller) 30% of all registered land in South Africa, and redistribute it to black people.

This process has already resulted in nearly halving South Africa's productive food capacity. In fairness this can't be blamed solely on land redistribution policy. I'm sure the outright murdering of a significant proportion of the white farmers also contributed * (see below).

Of course white farmers are hesitant to make large new investments in their land, because at any moment the government can come along and take it away through a pending land claim.

Instead of handing productive farms over, why not give undeveloped land to our upcoming black farmers, and allow the recipients to develop it (through the usual land bank loans - instead of purchasing productive existing farms with that money) ?

Is this not what the white farmers had to do when they just started out 10-20 years ago ? Why should it be any different today for a black farmer just starting out ?

Indeed: You bastards will stay poor!

----
Government Sources:

You can see plenty of good intentions despite the flawed concept that "people who work the land deserve to own the land" (Imagine how hard the average Entrepreneur will laugh at that: You deserve to own anything only when you buy it - that is what the free market system is all about)

http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/2005/05072812151001.htm
(Minister of Agriculture)

http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/pubs/umrabulo/umrabulo24/landreform.html
(Confidence to push ahead with land reform)

http://land.pwv.gov.za/publications/Land_Summit/Conference_Papers/Land%20Summit%20financing%20-%20World%20bank%20speech.pps
(Powerpoint slides - Financing of Land Reform - looks like a well thought out presentation, but dear reader I'll leave it as a challenge to you to spot the problems)

Farm Murders* (White farmers!)

Genocide Watch Report:
http://www.genocidewatch.org/BoersSlain01.htm

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Farmer_Murders

Farmers Achilles Tendons slashed
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1878534,00.html

The farm murder plague:
http://www.christianaction.org.za/firearmnews/2004-03_Thefarmmurderplague.htm

2010 World Cup: Catalyst or Catastrophy

2007-08-22T03:12:00.000-07:00

South Africa has been awarded the hosting of the 2010 World Cup Soccer, by FIFA.

Multi billion rand facilities are well underway as well as major upgrades to the country's public transport infrastructure.

Safety and Security plans have also been defined which includes some very innovative ideas such as

Foreign nation's visitors will be able to identify police officers from their own country at the event (dressed in the official uniforms of that country, conversant in the languages of that country)
Spy planes flying overhead, and massive camera monitoring centers and response teams

However, considering that SA is the crime capital of the world, will all of the measures to be implemented really guarantee an acceptible level of risk for our foreign guests ?

Now lets play devils advocate, and examine three seperate doomsday scenarios:

The conspiracy theory guys will love this...

DOOMSDAY SCENARIO 1: FIFA retracts the 2010 from South Africa
Although it has been affirmed that SA will be hosting, there are backup nations on "stand-by" (not officially supported by FIFA) that could take over the hosting should SA not be ready.

Imagine crime does not improve much over the next two years, and lets say that the international community does not buy into our proposed security solutions.

A last minute withdrawel of the 2010 hosting from SA would be catastrophic. We have already sunken billions into the project, and it would be a massive blow to citizen morale.

DOOMSDAY SCENARIO 2: 2010 Becomes a PR disaster
All goes well, and we host the event.
However, despite all the security measures in place, several high profile visitors are raped, murdered and robbed at gun point (common occurances here in SA).

The PR fallout from this could be massive.

The long term damage to SA's reputation would be hard to recover from.

DOOMSDAY SCENARIO 3: 2010 Becomes a financial disaster
Due to the fact the contracts are awared based on race criteria (called economic empowerment or BEE) massive inefficiencies are introduced.

Also we have to spend more on security due to our obnormally high crime situation.

What if, after all the costs are tallied and compared to the financial benifits of 450 000 fans visiting brings to the country, we come out with a BIG MINUS ?

Simply due to inefficiencies and structural problems (security spend) we do not manage to conduct the event at breakeven or better ?

Then SA will be left with a massive debt overhang

Summury
Several things could go wrong with 2010. But will they ?

here is another thinking man's blog on the topic:
http://eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/170

100,000 Dead, 1.3mil Assaulted, 1 million leave

2007-08-20T07:20:00.001-07:00

This sounds like the typical war-torn country with international attention and refugee status...

However this humanitarian crisis is South Africa.

"...more than 100 000 people were murdered in South Africa in the five previous financial years, nearly 270 000 raped, and 1,3-million seriously assaulted.

More than a million robberies were committed and nearly 450 000 cars stolen."

src: http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=312960&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/

Now who are all these nameless faceless victims, and how can you be sure this stuff is the real tangible stuff that you can "touch" ?

Read THIS link:
Why I'm fleeing South Africa
by Anne Paton (widow of Alan Paton)
London Sunday Times—DISPATCHES, Sunday, November 29, 1998
src: http://www.ourcivilisation.com/cry.htm

Ofcourse I can tell you how many of my friends that have been murdered, the number of times that I had near death experiences due to crime, or how a close friends elderly parents were attacked and attempted rape etc... but I think the above link does justice to the extent of crime in South Africa.

Or perhaps the one below will:

Where Angels Fear To Tread - A True Story

SA: Democracy or Idiocracy ?

2007-08-19T08:46:00.000-07:00

Do watch the comedy movie titled: Idiocracy starring Luke Wilson.
It projects a future where the world is run by stupid people...

In South Africa the future seems to have arrived, and there is nothing funny about it.

How dare I make such a blunt statement, and who exactly am I taking potshots at here ?

Well lets first start with the voting public of South Africa.

The cornerstone of Democracy is that each and every person is equal and therefore has an equal vote. This means that someone living in a shack, that is illiterate (and therefore never even picks up a newspaper), completely uninformed, under nourished with an IQ of 85 will carry exactly the same weight as someone with a double doctorate in Economics and Political Studies.

Now lets see, which of these two groups are better represented in our population:

"...that of the slightly more than 26
million adults in (people aged 15 and over) about 12 to 13 million of them had less
than a full (grade 9) general education, about 7.4 to 8.5 million of these had less than
grade 7 (often used as a minimum education level indicator of sustainable functional
literacy) and about 2.9 to 4.2 million people had no schooling at all (and were
presumably, by definition, illiterate)."
source: http://www.info.gov.za/otherdocs/2007/developmentindicator/education.pdf
& http://www.aldsa.org/survey/2001%20census.html

Now lets look at the people that have been elected by our not-so-smart masses, and have been placed in positions of power to rule over us all and to manage our resources to our collective benefit.

Because I don't have access to all our senior government people's IQ scores, I will simply quote a few words from each or give examples of things that they have done, and let you dear reader decide!

Minister of Health

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang: Presented beetroot and the african potato as an effective treatment of HIV (as an alternative to anti-retrovirals) at a world health summit. She was also fired from a position of hospital super intendant on account of theft. There are rumours that her recent liver transplant was needed due to excess drinking, and that post her transplant she has been drunk on several occasions.
http://www.theherald.co.za/herald/news/n03_14082007.htm
http://www.citizen.co.za/index/article.aspx?pDesc=45477,1,22
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=316773&area=/insight/insight__international/
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=316780&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=316785&area=/insight/insight__comment_and_analysis/
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=316575&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=316582&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=316491&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/

Top judge Hlope
Incompetent and Corrupt
See the following:
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=436240
Racial split over Hlope:
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=293522&area=/insight/insight__national/

Minister of Justice responds rather inaptly:
http://www.sabcnews.co.za/south_africa/crime1justice/0,2172,115217,00.html

http://www.jacobson.co.za/2006/12/is-the-judicial-service-commission-worth-its-salt/
http://www.jacobson.co.za/2006/12/judges-under-the-spotlight/

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=313662&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/

National Police Commissioner
Jackie Selebi: Ties to the mob
http://iafrica.com/news/sa/429648.htm
http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3340730
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=292261&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=289534&area=/insight/insight__national/
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=285288&area=/insight/insight__national/
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=273445&area=/insight/insight__national/
http://www.blogsouthafrica.net/2006/11/17/the-selebi-enigma

Ekurhuleni metro police chief
Robert Mcbride: faces charges of driving under the influence of alcohol, defeating the ends of justice and fraud. McBride also faces alternative charges of reckless or negligent driving, conspiracy and incitement.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=314495&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=314476&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/

Safety and Security MEC (Eastern Cape) Thobile Mhlahlo: Charges of firing gun in public area whilst drunk, assualting a group of youths, and fails to appear at his court appearances:
http://www.theherald.co.za/herald/2005/02/02/news/n11_02022005.htm

Safety and Security Minister
Charles Nqakula

The ex national chairman of the SA Communist party. A communist. Literally.

Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula has provided Parliament with inaccurate crime statistics when replying to questions, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said.
He has also been accused, and later threatened with court action if he keeps refusing to release crime statistics, by the FF+ party.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) -- Charles Nqakula, South Africa's minister for safety and security, has a message for people complaining about his country's rampant crime rate: You can pack your bags and go.

"The whingers [complainers] can do one of two things. They can continue to whinge until they are blue in the face -- they can be as negative as they want to -- or they can simply leave this country," Nqakula announced during a budget speech to South Africa's parliament in June.

http://www.whoswhosa.co.za/Pages/profilefull.aspx?IndID=900
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=316765&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
http://www.24.com/news/?p=ra&i=276554
http://www.24.com/news/?p=tsa&i=576921
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A541161
http://www.sateenz.co.za/index.php?name=Forum&file=topics&p=496424&DC100SID=d4166a59682374f20d1fc9e5d4e6b1b2

Former deputy president of South Africa
Jacob Zuma: Sacked after allegations and trials relating to corruption and rape.
In his rape trial he alleges his reason for showering after having sex with a woman that he knew to be HIV positive, was ironically to reduce his chances of contracting the disease.

President of South Africa
Thabo Mbeki: Denied HIV causes aids, but later changed his stance. Initially pretented that crime problem was not real but merely a perception. He has been neglecting the crises in Zimbabwe.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=316822&area=/insight/insight__africa/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/720995.stm
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=298350&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5019687
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/TheVault/Article.aspx?id=383295
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/Columnists/Hogarth/Article.aspx?id=402010
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/Columnists/Hogarth/Article.aspx?id=419760
http://www.da.org.za/da/Site/Eng/campaigns/reportcard2005.asp
http://www.iolhivaids.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=2911146&fSectionId=1593
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=527054
http://www.dispatch.co.za/2001/03/19/features/AMBEKI.HTM
http://health.iafrica.com/doconline/hiv_and_aids/hivcauseaids.htm
http://www.maverick.co.za/opinions/837447.htm
http://www.homecomingrevolution.co.za/?page=2&category_id=96&related_id=2005
http://www.24.com/news/?p=ra&i=637611
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A540175
http://www.iol.za.org/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=ct19991030202224543A2362669
http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page66309?oid=146432&sn=Detail
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&amp;amp;amp;click_id=13&art_id=nw20070727182024906C902367
http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=542611
http://www.tac.org.za/newsletter/2000/ns000606.txt
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/pubs/umrabulo/umrabulo27/art1.html

The consequences of having incompetent and morally inadequate people elected into positions of power are
- Massive breakdown in services
- Corruption
- Rampant Crime
- Lives destroyed

Could South Africa become the next Zimbabwe ?

2007-08-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

Thabo Mbeki with Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe

Here is a 1994 documentary celebrating the apparent success of democracy in Zimbabwe, just as South Africa was busy deciding wether it should hand over from white-minority rule to true democracy.

This is essential history in video format:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR6mwzPjDfs <--- a must see!

------> FOR THOSE WHO WISH TO SUFFER ONWARD WITH MY INTERPRETATION OF EVENTS..... here is my very limited interpretation....

My interpretation and timeline

1980: Zimbabwe's white minority government hands over control to Democracy under Robert Mugabe
........ Massive period of prosperity and Economic boom
1994: Zimbabwe handled the transition succesfully. Whites and blacks have been integrated in most places, including schools (some whites leave for New Zealand etc)
1997: Corruption and many other problems start surfacing
2000: White farmers no longer welcome
2004: Zim economoy in free fall, Rule of law and Freedom of speech no longer applies
2006: People bailing out left right and center, peoples houses get bulldozed down, Economy decimated

All in all roughly 20 - 24 years to total destruction from hand-over.

Now Compare South Africa

1994: Hand-Over to democracy
1996: Worst fears of whites appear not to have been realised, although small numbers have left the country
1998: Crime starts to be realised as a problem, people protest the fact that the death penalty has been removed
2000: More crime, affirmative action causes more white people to leave, public schools start integrating white and black successfully
..... South Africa experiences largest economic boom in histroy
2005: Wide scale corruption starts to surface, Brain drain becomes a major problem
2006: Government in denial about crime, Government minister says things such as "South Africa can learn a lot about land reform from Zimbabwe"
2007: Crime, Corruption is rampant, Quiet diplomacy with Zimbabwe still intact, Government slowly begins to acknowledge crime as a problem (though not a priority compared to other problems such as poverty)

We are now at a CRITICAL juncture in time.

One of the main flaws in Zimbabwe in my opinion was the forced redistribution of wealth and the resultant breakdown in ethics (suddenly white peoples rights stopped to matter, corruption was OK, we all deserve to get rich quickly because we were oppressed before, etc) not to mention total distruction of opportunities and wealth.

The critics might say that the redistribution was not fast enough, and on too small a scale. Yet as the redistribution of farms clearly illustrated, fast forced redistrobution of assets leads to a destruction of those assets - and more importantly - loss of ethics in society ( i.e. fast unlawful economic gains are given preference over hard work and honesty) .... not to mention loss of opportunities lower down that creates a downward economic spiral

If South Africa decides to choose morality and that means
* Realise that massive redistribution of wealth on a wide scale is a pipe dream
* Crime is attacked head on and stamped out (including corruption)
* Incompetence is weeded out and not tolerated
* All forms of racial discrimination is weeded out
* Capitalistic principles embodied in all areas leading to strong sustainable economic growth
... then all goes well and we go ahead, host 2010, and become one of the worlds miracle nations.

If however South Africa decides that
* We simply need to transform faster and more aggressively (i.e. replacement of white faces, transfer of wealth from white hands to black)
* Crime is not a serious problem and need not be directly addressed
* Ethics and Morals is non-sense: It is fair to discriminate against white people when one wants to "right the wrongs of the past", Widescale corruption and immoral, criminal behaviour from top government officials is acceptable
...then we might be on the exact same trajectory as Zimbabwe

Lets consider that it takes 24 years for an African country to destroy itself once handed over from white minority rule to democracy (calculated from Zim), then we can expect total irriversable melt down in 2018. That is 11 years from now. Within the next 3-5 years is the most critical period, and by then it would be clear which path SA will take.

This junction point coincides roughly with 2010. I believe 2010, if successful, will buy us at least another 2-3 years, even if the government does not fix the critical problems mentioned.

If 2010 fails however (international PR disaster due to killed and raped tourists), or the bid is taken away from South Africa ( e.g. due to crime), then the timeline should continue as projected without extra time, and might actually shorten.

Some mitigating factors that counts in favour of South Africa:
* We've succesfully had two democratic elections (Although Zim appeared to have had the same)
* Freedom of speech is unlikely to dissapear over night
* 2010 World Cup soccer economic boost
* Zimbabwe example that we can look at and learn from about "How not to do it"

Also these examples show the two extreme cases. Extreme success, and Extreme failure.

Is it possible that South Africa achieves neither of these two extremes, and simply continious limping along like a wounded animal for the next 50 years without dying ?

a Little affirmative action can't hurt ? Just BEE nice!

2007-08-14T03:14:00.000-07:00

As South Africans (especially as white South Africans) we have been told by politicians (mostly black) that we should accept unequal employment practices giving preference to black candidates over white candidates (strangely enough this is called equal opportunity employment!)

Is it our duty as white South Africans to right the wrongs of the past ?
To pay the price so to speak, and to just stand aside and make space for previously disadvantages brothers and sisters ?

And for how long ?

The common answer from these politicians has been: "For as long as it takes".

There is very little indication of How Long they think this will be.
It has already been more than 10 years.

Perhaps we can't expect repair an ill of a generation to be overcome in 10 years, but is the solution to still allocate opportunity based on race ? Should we give preference to black people today because 10 years ago we gave preference to whites?

Isn't this merely reverse discrimination ?

Isn't this simply neo-apartheid whereby white people are now reduced to being second class citizens just as black people were during apartheid ?

I have some good questions, but not enough answers, but I'm sure the bloggers will help me out...

CNN: South Africa tries Affirmative
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/9810/08/safrica.affirmative.action/index.html

Here is what others are writing on the topic:

http://www.blogsouthafrica.net/2007/02/02/affirmative-action-in-the-spotlight/

AA not working for anyone: http://www.fin24.co.za/articles/default/display_article.aspx?ArticleId=1518-1522_2149411

Here's to white economic empowerment:
http://finblogs.24.com/ViewBlog.aspx?blogid=14781510-ecc0-48e1-a1a3-0ad6f3e56590
http://finblogs.24.com/ViewComments.aspx?blogid=14781510-ecc0-48e1-a1a3-0ad6f3e56590&mid=db80de32-f788-4a01-b2cf-41992873becd

www.thenakedemperor.co.za

“Affirmative action is couched in fine words – diversity, talent, merit, opportunity, tolerance, development”.

“But when carried out, it is always punitive. In fact, affirmative action must be punitive. It requires the government to target one group for help because of its race or ethnicity. This means it must target all other groups for punishment. This is the logical flipside of affirmative action, but it is widely ignored. And so affirmative action leads to unintended, (but easy predictable consequences. It increases group conflict, as resentment by the punished groups grows and the demands of the beneficiaries increase. It emphasizes group differences, rather than eliminating them. It discourages effort by the beneficiaries, who come to expect special privileges. And it destroys equality before the law”.

- Don Caldwell in his book No more Martyrs Now

a No BS account about South Africa

2007-08-14T03:08:00.000-07:00

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