Rian Malan on SA: "Slow-motion catastrophe"

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Arthur

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Rian Malan - writer, musician and sometime tortured soul - has an op-ed in the latest BookForum, here.
The central problem of writing about South Africa is that it is almost impossible to explain the country's slow-motion catastrophe in terms that make sense to foreigners ... It's all here—the ostentatious display of wealth by a greedy elite, buffoonish utterances from a politician renowned for crass racial demagoguery, and the insinuation that this bacchanalia is taking place under the auspices of the ruling party and is therefore above the law. All that's missing is the reaction, which was equally interesting..."
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Worth a read.
Africa. Love it and weep.
 
The central problem of writing about South Africa is that it is almost impossible to explain the country's slow-motion catastrophe in terms that make sense to foreigners
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Zimbabweans are foreigners too.
 
Lycanthrope said:
Indeed, everyone should be apathetic to our country's problems, that's the first and most important way to solve those problems.
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We all know what the problems are. However Rian Malan only moans about it, he doesn't offer any solutions.
 
deweyzeph said:
We all know what the problems are. However Rian Malan only moans about it, he doesn't offer any solutions.
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That is where you are wrong. There are many people still living in a dreamworld, thinking that everything is OK. They need to be woken up to the reality.
 
One man alone cannot undo what these incompetents have been doing to our country, read the books.
 
deweyzeph said:
*Yawn* I'm so tired of Rian Malan's moaning.
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I'm not. I think he's quite a clever guy and I enjoy reading what he has to say.

If you don't like his stuff, please pass it on to me! This is the first political article from him I think I've ever seen.
 
WIFE OF NIA CHIEF ON TRIAL FOR SMUGGLING COCAINE, the NIA being our CIA.
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It's disgusting. Only agents working for the NIA should be involved in cocaine smuggling. Just like the CIA.
 
When Mugabe took power in 1980, Zimbabwe was regarded as one of Africa's jewels, a country with good infrastructure, deep soil, and a thriving agricultural sector, whose exports were the country's largest sources of foreign earnings. At the outset, Mugabe himself cut a Mandela-like figure, going to extraordinary lengths to allay white insecurities and paying close attention to reform of the educational system. In this regard, his efforts were wildly successful, producing a generation of luminously self-confident youngsters, almost all of whom seemed able to quote Shakespeare and hum Handel.
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and the useful idiots fell for it hook, line and sinker.

But with this came a tendency toward skepticism and freethinking that didn't sit well with Mugabe. When the nation rejected (in 2000) constitutional reforms that would have extended his increasingly corrupt rule for another decade, Mugabe turned nasty, organizing mobs to drive white farmers off their land—a move intended to restore the dictator's popularity with the masses. Instead, it destroyed the country's banking system, which in turn led to soaring inflation and generalized economic collapse. With most of his subjects facing starvation, Mugabe and his generals resorted to naked repression.
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Incorrect. Mugabe never turned "nasty" in 2000. He was always "nasty". In the early 80s his notorious 'fifth brigade' slaughtered 20 000 innocent people in Matabeleland.
 
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