Harry’s Place

Good to see someone with the balls to refer to this as ‘Racism’, which all the press and TV I have seen thus far have studiously avoided.

Not that the media is driven by agendas other than objectivity, oh no.

This is horrific stuff. I hate to single anyone out from the victims, but I find the attacks on Zimbabweans particularly poignant - as if they hadn’t suffered enough brutality already.

Just spoke to a friend who lives in the East Rand where a lot of this is happening. What struck here was that all the police being deployed to the troubled areas were white, and she who worked as a volunteer at a local police station says this must have taken some doing, as the ratio of black:white police is around 20:1.

They have apparently recognised the huge potential for tribal conflict in subduing the violence, what with the range of tribal affiliations within the black police force. Irony, or what?

She also mentioned that there is particular resentment of Somalis as they are most economically successful. Whereas in the UK, this is not the case.

Viewer Discretion Advised.

http://multimedia.thetimes.co.za/photos/2008/05/flames-of-hate/
http://multimedia.thetimes.co.za/videos/2008/05/xenophobic-attacks-in-alexandra/
http://multimedia.thetimes.co.za/videos/2008/05/winnie-visits-alexandra/
http://multimedia.thetimes.co.za/videos/2008/05/foreigners-speak-about-xenophobic-attacks/
http://multimedia.thetimes.co.za/videos/2008/05/homes-burn-as-xenophobic-violence-continues/

Top left corner for photographic slide shows.

Millions of native South Africans still live in terrible conditions, most of the post-apartheid resources having gone to the bolster the black middle-class and the establishment of a new black elite, and, it has to be said, some spectacular cock-ups.

So the ANC was merely a reactionary, bourgeois movement?

What percentage of whites have left or are thinking of leaving?

Sadly, I don’t find news of these attacks at all surprising.

On top of Brett’s highlighting some of SA’s violent crime….indeed largely because of it….. there is another massive surge of ‘white flight’ from SA. Mainly white, middle class professionals, whose skills are in-demand in London and Perthfontein; folks with get-up-and-go, are doing just that!

They are spurred on by the continuing horrific massive violent crime levels in SA, all too much incompetent governance, signs of worrying authoritarianism within the ruling ANC, the idiot that is Jacob Zuma being voted in as head of the ANC and quite possibly next state president, the tacit endorsement of Mugabe by the ANC. All this combined of course with increasingly institutionalised black racism that makes career prospects for whites, ever more bleak, and all but impossible for those starting out on their careers. It’s all getting a little bit much, so folks are voting with their feet.

I worked for the fist 3 months of this year on contract in Pretoria city council (now City of Tshwane) running a Project Management Office; it was quite an eye-opener for me, really a rather disparately depressing.

Just 2 headlines from today’s SA Business Day…

Crime ‘biggest cause of SA brain drain’

Netcare, SA’s biggest private hospital group, warned yesterday of “terrible unintended consequences”, including skills flight

“She also mentioned that there is particular resentment of Somalis as they are most economically successful. Whereas in the UK, this is not the case.”

Only anecdotal observation, but young women from Somali families in the UK seem to be fairly successful economically and professionally.

most of the post-apartheid resources having gone to the bolster the black middle-class and the establishment of a new black elite

Clearly not enough resources are going towards increasing the size of the black middle class and black elite.

The ANC pursued neo-liberal economic policies that had the effect of entrenching preexisting patterns of inequality and poverty - patterns that so happened, in South Africa, to be configured along quite strict “racial” lines, the legacy of apartheid.

Yeah, the mother of one of my son’s friends is a very successful somalian businesswoman.

the idiot that is Jacob Zuma being voted in as head of the ANC and quite possibly next state president

Perhaps one should ask why Zuma was elected.

Of course I understand why. Competition for scarce resources brings out the absolute worst in people. Millions of native South Africans still live in terrible conditions, most of the post-apartheid resources having gone to the bolster the black middle-class and the establishment of a new black elite, and, it has to be said, some spectacular cock-ups. This combined with a massive health crisis, rapid uncontrolled urbanisation and, of course, horrific levels of crime, has left an underclass of millions simmering on the point of boiling over.

South Africa is far and away the most economically successful country in sub Saharan Africa. Just over the border is Zimbabwe which is undoubtedly currently undergoing far more poverty and repression, particular amongst the poorest. Logically it would follow that Zimbabwe should suffer more underclass crime and violence. Yet the reverse is the case. In Zim the violence is overwhelmingly led by the government, the citizens are comparatively law abiding.

There’s something despicable about holding everyone responsible except the perpetrator. I note they don’t even register on your list of causes.

These attacks are not ‘racism’. The violence is black-on-black, with the indegenous South African Zulu or Shona peoples dishing out the unpleasantness to the refugees and economic migrants arriving from Angola, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and other places to the north.
So what sort of ‘-ism’ is that, then, where the fairly poor in townships are being rather nasty (necklacings I believe) to the grindingly poor who are fleeing the brush wars and ethnic cleansings in the Sudan, the horn of Africa, and of course from what used to be the breadbasket of the continent until Mugabe and his merry men wrecked it, Zimbabwe?

Logically it would follow that Zimbabwe should suffer more underclass crime and violence.

No, not when the economic meltdown in Zimbabwe coincides with a rise in the power of dictatorial government and state control. I am sure there is not much crime in Burma either. There wasn’t much crime in Maoist China either - not by ordinary folk who who too scared to do anything.

Point of information: Shona are not indiginous South African. They are from Zimbawe.

If you think there is not racism among black ethnic groups, and that a Zulu can’t be a racist in his treatment of a Xhosa person, then you are wrong.

Fucking Mbeki and the ANC spineless idiots. You cant expect much with such terrible leadership and effective support for Mugabe’s regime.

o what sort of ‘-ism’ is that, then,
xenophobia-ism, possibly with a bit of tribalism thrown in, as an accellarant.

South Africa is far and away the most economically successful country in sub Saharan Africa.
In fact in the whole of Africa. But then, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!

SA’s economy is still smaller than Denmark’s, and only twice as big as Singapore’s, a tiny, almost natural resource free island the size of the Isle of Wight, that has well under one tenth of SA’s population.

Africa as a whole has perhaps 11% of the World’s population but only generates 1% of Global GDP.

Brett

Yes, but its not “racist” is it? It’s tribal animosity.

“Racism” itself is a problematic term, because even “racism” between blacks and whites is not to do with races.

…….and of course from what used to be the breadbasket of the continent until Mugabe and his merry men wrecked it, Zimbabwe?

Mugabe and his merry men didn’t just appear out of nowhere. They were mollycoddled, groomed, financed and supported by a large cross-section of The West’s left-liberal whites who felt that sacrificing Ian Smith on the altar of a post-apartheid world would somehow atone for their past racism.

“What percentage of whites have left or are thinking of leaving?”

I believe as much as one sixth of the white population made an exit stage left as soon as the ANC got in power.

Quite simply ….Tribalism.

You can only use “racist” when talking about whites.

You can only use “racist” when talking about whites.

I see, you’re white.

Why? Because that statement IS racist.

“You can only use ‘racist’ when talking about whites.”

Um, why?

Um, why?

Because were we to allow the meaning of the word to expand and encompass ALL forms of racism, comfortable and complacent white liberals would experience pangs of angst and would therefore have to begin thinking again.

Blacks and whites can both be racist, just as both can eat fried chicken.

I’ve personally experienced black racism in SA; even more than the somewhat ironic reverse Apartheid, manifest in the SA job market of late under the auspices of ‘Affirmative Action’. Indeed, within the last couple of Months, in a way that bore upon me and others in my life, rather significantly.

This is racism:

A 68-year-old woman has been told that she can’t get an ID because she is too ugly to be a South African citizen.

Clara Sibuyi from Bodlambongolo in Acornhoek, Mpumalanga, has struggled for 10 years to get an ID book and has been forced to beg for hand-outs because she can’t receive her pension grant without one.

“I have tried everything I can in my power, but now it seems the ugliness has beaten me,” said Sibuyi.

She says she has spent ten years going back and forth to the department of home affairs and trying to convince them she is South African.

“I have lost hope and just wish God would take me because my life is hard. I don’t have money to travel to offices anymore. I am stuck,” said Sibuyi.

She says the last time she went to home affairs’ Thulamahashe offices on March 3, an official told her that she was too ugly to be a South African citizen.

Her surname was even misspelt on the copy of the department’s acknowledgement of receipt.

They wrote a Mozambican surname, Xiburi, instead of Sibuyi.

“I was told that I look ugly, like a Maputo woman, and that’s the reason my ID cannot be issued,” says Sibuyi, sadly.

She says all four of her sisters have their IDs, while she is being treated like a foreigner.

“I am now a burden to everyone because I always ask for this or that, whereas I should be getting my old age grant and taking care of my grandchildren,” she says.

Home affairs’ manager for the Ehlanzeni region, Joana Molekwa, invited Sibuyi to her office to get help.

“It is very sad to see old people still struggling to get IDs,” says Molekwa.
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2310442,00.html

Well ‘Racism’ in the UK is also defined by Nationality. Thus attacking and murdering foreigners is still racism to anyone without ideological blinkers.

Perhaps it is ‘Imperialist’ to expect black SA’s not to murder foreigners.