africanhope

I always welcome an open discussion on issues surrounding my country, and therefore welcome this thread. The problem is that the op is so full of false facts and half truths, it is difficult to know where to begin, and it will take some time to answer them all, and time is not something I have an abundance
of.

Before I begin, I must also mirror WEB's feelings, and make a request - This thread is already borderline racist, and I must therefore ask all participants in this thread to please be very careful, and tread very lightly, as racism will not be tolerated in whatever form, from anyone, not by this forum, I have been here long enough to know this, and not by myself.

That having been said let me make one thing clear. I am not waking up to anything, Global, the thread you are refering to, strengthens my long held views about SA; it does not go against it. I have many times condemned my governments handling if important issues, and made it clear that I will never be able to support this government because of three main issues, it handling of HIV, crime, and the poverty question. I live here, so, as someone living here, I am well aware of the country's problems. What I refuse to do is immediately point fingers to black government. We have a bad government, but their race has nothing to do with it. And they are in no ways worse than the government we had, who officially killed people, and who also did not handle the HIV problem, and who only gave stats for white people, so that things like crime and poverty now look a lot worse, whilst they were always quite bad if you take the whole population into account.

Again, you want to penalise black people because they were not allowed to take part in any economic action. This is the only reason why whites build the economic capacity, and on the backs of the black population. And following your logic, then everything must now belong to English South Africans and Jewish South Africans, as it is them who build the economics and banking sector of this country. It was only when they finally seized total power in 1948 that government used the law to redistribute the wealth away from these two groups in to Afrikaner hands. The government funded and found the big banks etc. and made sure, through groups like the Afrikaner Brotherhood that the money goes to Afrikaner pockets. They thus redistributed the wealth, by discriminating against other whites too. But they did not build it, the investments came from the UK, so, again, following your logic, only English South Africans should own everything, right?

Also, saying it was paid for by the whites is not all true. They did not have to pay the full amount, first of all, again, because of the cheap labour, second, because black South Africans did not pay in hard cash, this was not available to them, but in the only real currency they had – land. This country was build not only with money, but from mineral wealth and agricultural wealth, both of these in many instances taken from the black population, or ‘bought’ at ridiculous prices. So, very clearly, black South African also paid for the banks and the economic structures, through two very important commodities, labour and land.

But let us go to your post, and look at some parts;

Whites do not own then anything? Really? Taking much of their land, using them as cheap labour, making sure they get third rate education (and we are paying the price for that now, aren’t we!) taking away many of their basic rights, killing some of them, and yet, whites own black South Africans nothing...? I cannot agree with that. Do not get me wrong – I am not for some sort of collective guilt, or debt payment, that makes no sense, and who decides who is guilty, who not, etc. etc. etc. But saying whites owe blacks nothing, are a fallacy, and a dangerous one at that. No, wealth should not be taken away from one group, and just given to an uneducated other – the Zimbabwe approach, as this is a dangerous approach. But much must be done to gradually make sure the wealth is distributed more equally. And that is happening, just too slow in SA. Saying blacks d no own anything, or are lazy and all those other arguments are plain wrong. Two of the five riches South Africans are black. Cyril Ramaphosa and Tokyo Sexwale are well known, internationally renowned industrialist and businessmen, who build up their companies. And they are not alone. None of the big companies in SA is solely in white hands anymore. Black South Africans are now fully fledged participants in the advanced economy of this country.

The problem is this wealth is still in the hands of a few, the wealth is not trickling down to the masses.

And about your remarks about black south Africans no being compensated – you will find that most of them, excluding a fringe minority like the radical PAC, don’t want a compensation – they want roofs over their heads, food on their tables, a good education for their children and thus the change to compete fairly and equally for jobs, etc. No compensation – which has not been a part of discussion for a long time in SA, except for compensation for white farmers who’s farms are bought by government, all on land taken away from black South Africans, mostly without compensation.

Also, on the economy failing, I have posted this so often, I will not spend too much time on it. If we are doomed to failure, why have we had our longest continuous economic growth in our history and the highest the last decade? Yes, it is slowing down a bit now, but the whole world market, and more so the developing or emerging markets are under pressure due to happenings in the US economy. If we are failing so badly, why is it going so well? Never, not even in the heyday of gold, has this economy, when it as in white hands, done so well. This is fact, not pipe dreams and doom prophecies.

Actually hoping for a blood bath, and awaiting (from this and other posts in the other thread, I must say that it seems you are wishing for it) the return of Apartheid, I will not even qualify with an answer, I will let the other posters on this forum, some of whom I know and trust, decide for themselves the foundations and quality of that remark, if you do not mind.

Again, false facts. The weapons industry in SA is a highly regulated one. The biggest military company is called Denel (old Krygcor) and his fully in government, and thus the people of SA, all of them, ownership. Military industry is therefore not totally in white hands, but yes, there will some, very small, companies in partly white ownership, and others in black ownership. (I say partly, since government is obviously the biggest buyer, and under law, they will not buy from companies totally in white hands).

I live in a town which is both a military town and a university town. Bu boyfriend’s brother in law is a mayor in the army here. Walk around, and you will not see many white soldiers, many of them left after 1994, not willing to fight or die for this country anymore. All soldiers are treated equally. Top command is now mostly black, not white, and last year we had the Minister of Defence begging white people to join the military, to bring the numbers back up. This little dream you state here of a military still in white hands, with the best guns for white soldiers would have been funny if it was not so sad.

No, the economic situation is not getting worse, the divide is getting worse, and on that I will agree that much has to be done.

It is clear that you assume that white people will start the civil war you are whishing for. As whites are much richer now than before 1994, they will realise they have much to lose of a war breaks out. Also, since it is a fringe of the white population who truly wants the old days back, it would only be small number of them. They already tried, a group called Boeremag. They blew up one power substation and a train track, and the whole organisation was caught, and the case is in court right now. Their attempts were laughed at, and widely condemned by all walks of South African society. And you also assume that whites disagree with the Zim policy and blacks agree. Strange then that the largest representative group of the black population except for the ANC, the Trade Union COSATU, continues to openly condemn the SA governments handling of the issue, and calls for more action to be taken against uncle Bob. No civil war waiting on this issue or any other that is for sure.

And then on your points, most of this is nothing new, it is exactly what the old government tried to do, most of it anyway, and with very very little success. And just some facts, SA already completed a nuclear program, we had 6 bombs, but it was destroyed by FW de Klerk. We will not go down that horrible road again.

Oh, and one other thing, I don’t get, you mention as one of the reasons whites are becoming restless, the close relationship with China, and then you say after the whites have taken the country (How exactly is 4 milj, people going to defeat 40 mil?) they should have very close ties with China? I only bring this up to proof your double standards, half truths and wrong conclusions based on very little facts.
Let me repeat myself a bit here – I am not blind to the many shortcomings in SA, and more so in our less than satisfactory government. But, thinking it is because we have a black government is wrong and racist. Thinking it was better in the old days, is based on wrong information – even for white people things are much better now, on many fronts. Thinking a return to that failed policy (and that is why it ended, it failed, plain and simple) will solve this countries many problems, is to be just as short-sighted as the current government. We have problems, yes, but we must use our brilliant constitution and our diversity to solve these problems. Dividing ourselves once more will not do the trick, just like it did not do the trick last time.
AH

PS. Let me just add this on consumr confidence, aparently the South Africans do not agree with Globals summary of the state of our nation -

South African consumer confidence still positive

__________________
“The subject no longer has to be mentioned by name. Someone is sick. Someone else is feeling better now. A friend has just gone back into the hospital. Another has died. The unspoken name, of course, is AIDS.”
“From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8, 000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.”