How close is South Africa to being fully dysfunctional?

[vespax]

Hi All

just read an article in the Feb 2007 edition of True Love magazine - Adopting a new attitude.
If you believe that children are the future of the country, it makes some scary reading ---> At present 1 in 8 born in SA today is orphaned. Government estimates there are 240 000 child-headed households. Some statisticians believe that by 2015 there will be as many as 4,6 million orphans in the country. Most orphanages are grossly under-funded and understaffed. Much of the burden falls on extended families or private charities and NGO's.
Many children lose parents to AIDS. Literally creating a generation who have no formalised education, does not bode well.

cheers
air

That's extremely scary if you think of the implecations for the future. no parents to teach kids, motivate them, etc means that gangs are now the new family's for all these kids. So we get a generation of gangsters fighting each other. Even more so than we currently have...

 

[BandwidthAddict]

I'm not sure.
Pity the fact that the white regime was mainly interested in uplifting whites (especially Afrikaners) rather than South Africa as a whole.

Don't agree. SA whites do not need uplifting, we do it for ourselves. No nanny mentality here.

I'm not sure.A wise ruling body would have eased the majority into elections, while grooming their favoured candidates for the roles they would assume.

I mean, imagine if after the 2nd world war, the government decided to unban black political parties with the provisor that they could participate in general elections within 20 years, while in the meantime they started educating a black workforce and also holding 'mock' elections in which the black majority decided to leaders they wanted to be trained in the way of managing a country?

In this I 100% agree. That is the one charge of the previous government that I support. They messed up big time in this. Although, if you read the history of SA, Vervoed apparently intended this exact outcome when he devised apartheid. It was his belief that ppl of more primitive cultures would not be able to integrate until they are brought up to speed; and he was working on bringing the black areas up to parity. It is also, aparently, the reason for his assassination; the other NATs were in favour of cheap labour and didn't like Vervoed's concept of parity.

BTW, I got that snippet from one of Vervoeds ex-critics, a journalist that did some research and published an article carried by various newspapers. Don't know if it is true but couldn't find anything to counter his argument.

Peace.

 

[BeVonk!]

Late to this debate but here's my comments:

SA has been dysfunctional for the last century at least. In some ways we are less dysfunctional now - and in others we are more so. Apartheid was dysfunctional for the majority of SA'ns. But in the process of moving out of that mess we moved into another (possibly biggger one). One step forward then two steps back.

The problem as I see it is that the cake is just that big and only so many slices of value can be cut from it. The Apartheid regime knew this and took the cake to their room, cutting it up inot slices that would feed their kind only. The ones on the inside got a fair piece. Those on the outside got nothing (almost). Now, in the new SA, (in line with neo-communist ideals) the cake (that hasn't got any bigger really) must be cut into far more "equal sized" slices - and it is just not viable. The slices become so thin it's useless. So what has now happened is that a new "elite" took the cake to their room ...

The SA goverment cannot deliver to all - equally - no matter the will and determinantion. The butter will have to be spread far too thin to cover all the bread on the table. For many therefore the new is as the old - and people are still without jobs. No jobs = crime. Fighting this crime then sucks up more and more money - that leaves less and less for other services and responsibilities. And so the downward spiral continues until complete dysfunctionality is reached.

 

[LoneGunman]

to my mind, 'crime' is something that the Government is using, to keep individual citizens terrorized and sitting at home. The previous Regime needed to pass 'States of Emergency' to keep people off the streets, and away from mobilizing and protesting - now, its the norm, with few visible signs of 'evil' police doing it.

Another layer is the death toll, a daily death of 1000 AIDS victims, + another 80 - 120 murdered people - means that the ANC, by doing 'nothing' - sits and watches the clinical removal of all these people, that it knows it can never find housing, jobs, or be able to pay for schools to educate them. Instead, its a daily flushing of lives, away from the responsibility of the Government.

And 'crime' (ie: 'widescale civil unrest') keeps everyone else firmly self-locked up across the country. How convenient for a Government, when its citizens lock themselves up each night, and are too freaked out and scared to be able to mount any form of organized systematic resistance. And its too late for any kind of old style resistance. All that's left, is to try and remove ones money from the clutches of this Government - and given that a tiny percentage of tax payers are paying for the Governments behaviour and the vast majority of citizens, the easiest way to bring the death toll down, is to deprive the Gov of your money - force them to have to suck profit from a smaller and smaller pool of willing victims, as everyone else moves elsewhere and waits for the slow collapse of the economy.

 

[Xarog]

Don't agree. SA whites do not need uplifting, we do it for ourselves. No nanny mentality here.

I suggest you re-read my post. What I said was that the Apartheid regime only cared for the wellbeing of the white population, specifically the Afrikaners.

I said nothing about whites needing uplifting.

 

[simple_simon]

if we are able to escape the bad news which is brainwashed into us everysingle day in every form of media, south africa might come right. your perception changes your reality, if we can change the perception of the majortiy of sa, we can change the reality that has been manifest

which is excessively negative

 

[froggytoo]

if we are able to escape the bad news which is brainwashed into us everysingle day in every form of media, south africa might come right. your perception changes your reality, if we can change the perception of the majortiy of sa, we can change the reality that has been manifest

which is excessively negative

So you mean our "perceptions" of the facts and truth is wrong? We only perceive the high crime rate? How feeble a though can be. How will ostrich games prevent the crime wave in this country

 

[Dmitrimm]

After the third mugging (each one getting progressively more violent, stabbed last time), I'd say my lives are running out in this country. I've been transformed into another whinging white.

 

[vespax]

After the third mugging (each one getting progressively more violent, stabbed last time), I'd say my lives are running out in this country. I've been transformed into another whinging white.

Glad you made it through. I seem to get mugged every three months. Not looking forward to the stabbing that is bound to happen (just the odds ).

 

[simple_simon]

So you mean our "perceptions" of the facts and truth is wrong? We only perceive the high crime rate? How feeble a though can be. How will ostrich games prevent the crime wave in this country

thats not what i said....we continue to manifest negative "events" in south africa because we continue to be in a negative state of mind....we are almost never allowed to escape it....the "free" media we have give us a nice long "balanced" view of the bad news all the time, 24/7.

change the majority's state of mind we will change our reality.

its like when you buy a new car, after you buy it you all of a sudden notice that its everywhere, you never used to notice so many of them on the road.

if you are in a positive state of mind you will notice the positive opportunities or events in your life.

 

[froggytoo]

thats not what i said....we continue to manifest negative "events" in south africa because we continue to be in a negative state of mind....we are almost never allowed to escape it....the "free" media we have give us a nice long "balanced" view of the bad news all the time, 24/7.

change the majority's state of mind we will change our reality.

its like when you buy a new car, after you buy it you all of a sudden notice that its everywhere, you never used to notice so many of them on the road.

if you are in a positive state of mind you will notice the positive opportunities or events in your life.

Like You, Mbeki feels the same as he claimed the crime is not out of control. Maybe he is right, its the government that is out of control rather

 

[simple_simon]

Like You, Mbeki feels the same as he claimed the crime is not out of control. Maybe he is right, its the government that is out of control rather

i'm not talking about ignoring an even that has already manifested, i'm talking about changing "future" manifestations. there is crime, it is out of control.

how do we change that now, with a change in thought and attitude and feeling. if more people start seeing the positive regardless of what is happening...the positive will eventually manifest in reality.

what mbeki is saying is that its not happening at all....which is untruthfull

thats just my 2c

 

[RichardP]

Like You, Mbeki feels the same as he claimed the crime is not out of control. Maybe he is right, its the government that is out of control rather

The only crime in Mbeki's books is an empty bottle of Johnny Walker - and the bottle stores are closed.

 

[BeVonk!]

Mbeki said that crime is not out of control based on feedback he received from the numerous imbizos held accross SA. I have a few problems with this ...

(1) Did he conduct imbizos amongst all SA'ns - or mostly in certain communities?
(2) Poverty, jobs, houses and transport are bigger issues than crime to poor black communities. A hungry person care smore about his/her next meal than crime. Imbizos in these areas will therefore not have crime at the top. Mbeki will thus get a biased perception from these imbizos.

It also comes doen to definitions. What is Mbeki's definition of (1) crime, and (2) control? He can easily play around with these concepts if the definitions have not clearly been agreed upon.

A true statement can be made that crime is not out of control if one is meaning that someone somewhere is in control of crime - example syndicates. In this wway crime is under control - but under the wrong type of control.

Further ... a leader of a state will not concede in public that anything under his/her control has gone out of control. To expect Mbeki to be honest in public is to expect too much. It may be interpreted as weakness and failure.

 

[RichardP]

Mbeki is like a pilot of a doomed aircraft...... The announcements on the PA system are all made in a possitive and calm manner - but in the cabin they are sh1tting in their shorts wondering how to stop the plane hitting the ground.

If Mbeki says 'Crime is out of control' then all the foreign investors will pack their bags and leave... and there wont be new investors to replace. He cant admit any of the shortcomings - the international community will eat him alive.

 

[Nokkie]

farking scary!

 

[BeVonk!]

RichardP, exactly. The leader of a country must feed the masses what they can digest - and the world what it is willing to digest. It's not about truth here but about perceptions. We down on the ground know the truth and must align our choices and actions with this truth. To expect the government to tell the truth when it is negative is like believing in Santa. We can only hope and pray that in the cockpit the pilot do acknowledge the truth and is doing something about it without letting the passangers panic.

 

[froggytoo]

Mbeki said that crime is not out of control based on feedback he received from the numerous imbizos held accross SA. I have a few problems with this ...

(1) Did he conduct imbizos amongst all SA'ns - or mostly in certain communities?

Imbizos, Umbuntu ? Looks like Mbeki is still stuck in a kraal of tribalism. No wonder he is such a failure. They even bleeding/slaughtered a goat for Yengeni's cleansing, In town? Then Zuma still refers to Ethnic culture as an excuse for rape.

I see, no wonder Mbeki talked about evolution in his interview.

 

[duderoo]

Talk about a post of mine that has been brought back to life.

 

[duderoo]

If Mbeki says 'Crime is out of control' then all the foreign investors will pack their bags and leave... and there wont be new investors to replace. He cant admit any of the shortcomings - the international community will eat him alive.

Very true.