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South Africa violence and the country's future?

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  • Registered Users Posts: 12,541 ✭✭✭✭Varik


    Limited natural resources excluding all the mining which pays for everything.



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    I'll divide this response into two

    (1). I'll not dispute that some of SF's communications have elements of populism about them, but to characterize them as out-and-out populists, and particularly in the Irish context doesn't really wash given other party's histories. Fianna Fail are really the OGs of populism in Ireland. For the longest time they were the 'keepers of the flame' 'the ordinary plain man's party' again' 'them fellas above in suits in Dublin' defending their interests against pernicious elites (even when they're the one with the hands in the cookie jar). A long history of buying elections and an unfortunate history of running the economy into the wall. As I said earlier, we should be thankful young men could take off to London and Chicago pretty much at will over the course of our history since independence. Scenes like the above video would have been very probable had that escape hatch not been available. Easy to forget that the government of days gone by intensely lobbied the US to keep on taking our young at various points. Unemployed South Africans have nowhere to go. We've always had a populist streak running through our political culture - independents engage in it on the regular and Labour have form going back through the years. The only major party that can credibly claim not to have really engaged in populism (although Leo has dabbled with inverse populism with his 'early riser' schtick) is Fine Gael, because they have historically been too tied to certain interest groups for them to credibly get away with it.

    (2) Populism relies on there being some fanciful grand narrative of corrupt elites looting the country. This isn't a conspiracy in South Africa. The ANC and their enablers in the residual large industries in SA have ransacked the public purse since the end of aparthied. South Africa is the number one most unequal economy in the world by gini coeificient measures. Think about that. It's not kind of unequal, it's a global statistical outlier. About two percent of people in the country live lives as we would, the other 98 percent have next to nothing and have always had next to nothing. First world opulance for a tiny sliver of the population, and squalor for the rest. Quaint ideas like tut-tutting about mean tweets in Ireland and drawing inferences to the world of populism is something you can do, but it bears little relevance to the hellscape of SA and is almost completely besides the point.*

    *There is by the way an out and out and very dangerous populist party in SA, and it's not the ANC. Julius Malema's EFF are what you're looking for if you're seeking to tar someone with the populist brush. You'll probably be hearing more from them on the international stage once this is done. The ANC are just vanilla goons in suits with a far too big cohort of kleptocrats and political incompetants.



  • Registered Users Posts: 16,342 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    Reason it's not being reported all that much is that it's not a neat narrative, ie bad white fella, for certain interests.

    I had to chuckle at a recent SA segment on Newstalk, a nostalgic love-in about Dunnes strikes and Mandela. Obvs not a whisper about what's going down now. That's about the only SA related things Irish media can handle.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,338 ✭✭✭Suckler


    I do a lot of international work and have heard the same from different South African companies and people (Not just today or yesterday either)

    The "white flight" & " Brain drain" are definitely more noticeable in recent years; a lot more white SA CV's coming across the desk. Eager to move and their parents/ families eyeing up west coast America more and more from what I've seen.



  • Registered Users Posts: 43,028 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    Ethiopia is booming

    strange how things work out



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  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Interesting, seems to be booming alright. Although a lot of it seems to be from Chinese investment, hopefully turns out OK long term for them.



  • Registered Users Posts: 817 ✭✭✭Butson


    Family member lived their for 6 years. Got out last year.

    Country is a total basket case. The stuff he saw, you could write a book. Attended more than one funeral where innocent people were kicked to death for simply nothing. In one case just walking down the street.

    The liberal media here will never report on this though, doesn't suit their narrative.



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    Ethiopia is staring down a potential default. Inflation outstrips GDP growth by about a factor of 4 at the moment (inflation is running at approx 20%, not good news for a developed economy). It's devaluing its currency and its foreign currency reserves are being undermined by the Fed printing dollars. Currency devaluation in a developing economy is usually a Hail Mary pass to stimulate artificial productivity at the expense of structural reforms which are unpalatable. Ethiopia is a country that bet big on infrastructure, but a significant currency devaluation and hemorrhaging dollars mean inputs from abroad become a lot more expensive leading to cost overruns on big-ticket projects like dams.

    Like all developing countries, its economy is precarious. It's a country worth watching as they have had massive population growth (and accompanying impressive GDP growth), but GDP (like Ireland lest we be reminded) doesn't tell the whole story.



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,673 ✭✭✭Feisar


    Hardly anything to do with the way Europe carved it up? Look at ourselves and we only had one border imposed on us.

    First they came for the socialists...



  • Registered Users Posts: 23,759 ✭✭✭✭Kermit.de.frog


    To be fair Sky News did do a report so might be exaggerating to say it's totally not reported.


    It's exactly the same as the "protests" in the US just on a bigger scale in a smaller country. Let's be real, this is not protest. It's just criminal anarchy and looting.

    It is a very pertinent question though - how long can a country go on like that?

    The government there want to expropriate land with no compensation. Same thing happened in Zimbabwe.



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  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Reading the CIA world factbook for South Africa, it says that life expectancy in 2008 was only 43 years of age. That's incredible, although now it's risen to 63, which while still not great is a big improvement.

    They have control over their fertility at 2.2 which should in theory allow them to develop a properly functioning economy and society.

    The overall crime levels are frightening though. Not a country I'd like to live in or raise children.



  • Registered Users Posts: 81,220 ✭✭✭✭biko


    SA have been circling the drain a long time now. It will turn into Zimbabwe and totally corrupt itself.

    Everything will be the white man's fault of course even though whites hasn't held power in over a generation.



  • Registered Users Posts: 23,759 ✭✭✭✭Kermit.de.frog


    Is partition an openly discussed possibility in South Africa on either side?



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,805 ✭✭✭Jacovs




  • Registered Users Posts: 2,020 ✭✭✭Slideways


    Ms Slideways is South African and her parents are there. She is worried sick about them, even more so of late.


    I have worked with a heap of saffas and at first I thought they were the most arrogant bastards but it’s mostly just the phrasing they use that makes them seem that way.


    The country is circling the drain because the clowns are now running the circus. Zuma was a crook and Ramaphosa is also a crook but even dumber than zuma if anyone thought that was possible



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,118 ✭✭✭Melanchthon


    Read a few things that talk about how the current disorder is more about internal faction fighting in the ANC with this being the Zuma faction putting on pressure with an ethnic aspect in relation to the Zulu

    Thoughts?



  • Registered Users Posts: 10,493 ✭✭✭✭AbusesToilets


    Makes the West's actions towards Rhodesia worse in hindsight.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,921 ✭✭✭John Doe1



    The country is a basket case now and I do not see how to can regain its former economic postion.

    Also, regarding the white farmer murders, I'm sure the far left secretly love the idea of the former colonial masters being murdered. Its not a form of ethnic cleansing though, its justice....



  • Registered Users Posts: 82,819 ✭✭✭✭Atlantic Dawn
    M


    Perhaps if they showed videos of Fianna Fail croyme 1980-2010 people would see sense in their politicians being corrupt fookers exploiting and destroying the resources of their country for their own and their families personal enrichment. We don't seem to see this here.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,557 ✭✭✭Quantum Erasure


    Don't mention the situation in the Tigray region though,

    surprised there hasn't been a thread on that here at all,

    https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflict-ethiopia



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  • Registered Users Posts: 859 ✭✭✭Randy Archer


    Perhaps educate your self on what has being happening in South Africa since 2006 alone !


    South Africa IS a failed State and has been for years .


    they placed one racist nation for another . The natives of SA are nothing but a shower of racists and there’s not a god damn thing that you can say to rebut that with any credibility ,so spare us your faux outrage and false claims of racism


    The Natives have been literally lynching asylum seekers from Zimbabwe and elsewhere since 2008 , all in broad day light and in front of BBC cameras


    Asians and South Africans of Asian descent have been forced to flee South Africa in recent years ,especially if they own business. The actual Minster for Enterprise is on public record on this issue . ANC pander far too much to unelected native chiefs


    Oh and that’s before we even talk about the issues the White people go through


    South Africa use to be an economic powerhouse . It’s now a basket case since the natives took over . Very little difference with other African nations economically and in terms of human rights . The vast majority of these governments couldn’t be trusted to run a sweet shop, never mind a government and nation



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Zimbabwe now asking white farmers to return to their old land and get things back functioning again. Wonder if SA will be smart enough to see what happens there and cool off on the anti-white farmer drive? Or will they follow the exact same path as Zimbabwe - i.e. get the feel-good "justice" of driving out/killing the white farmers, taking over the land, then act all remorseful and conciliatory when it inevitably goes belly-up.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    It's funny how the whole developed world was united in opposing Apartheid South Africa.


    Now when there is bloodshed and the country is falling apart, there are crickets. People are whistling to themselves and walking the other way when this type of uncomfortable truth surfaces.


    All this tells me is that Israel should stand strong in the face of the woke mob in the west. They certainly won't be there if the day comes when Israel gets overpowered by its enemies. They won't want to know. But for now it's nice and easy and clean and virtuous to be against the white oppressor.



  • Registered Users Posts: 16,342 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    Israel will be alright, no fear of them. Top of the line armaments vs chewing gum-and-sticky tape rockets and a dis-united squabbling set of enemies.



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    Are we seriously at the point of the thread now where people are trying to frame apartheid as some sort of benign attempt at social harmony gone awry? Give me strength.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,186 ✭✭✭✭jmayo


    Ethiopia is never far away from starvation.

    Few people seem to grasp fact that population has tripled since 1985 when they were starving.

    Now you can argue that they were at war in 1985 and it was Soviet backed government versus Western backed rebels & Eritreans.

    Funny thing is they never far from war with Eritrea. It is almsot like India Pakistan, they are continously firing off at each other.


    Israel will wipe out it's neighbours if in danger of falling.

    They have the nukes and they wont give two shytes what any leftie liberals in the West or indeed what the US thinks.

    Israel's military and secruity services were all founded on the principle that the Jews will never again meekly go to their slaughter.


    That is very simplistic.

    Ireland was founded and run by what were termed terrorists a few years before.

    The issue isn't just terrorists, it is Africa.

    Nearly every single country in Africa that gained independence, has ended up in dictatorships, tribal warfare and tribal rule and civil wars of some kind.

    Yes the West and Soviets used it as cold war battle ground, yes multinational companies tried to reap the resources, but Africans have to fooking take a lot of the responsibility for themselves.

    Zimbabwe for example.

    As for reporting our mainstream media in this part of the world are now just mouth pieces for vested interest groups, are always pushing a non nationalist and almost an anti native viewpoint.

    We are as good as often lectured we should be ashamed of just being ourselves.

    Inconvenient truths and stories that do not fit the modern leftie narrative are ignored, hell even buried and instead we are fed propaganda that affirms the supposed rosey picture that they want.

    Whites, christians, straight people, men are all fair game for negative stories, but some home truths about others are totally ignored.

    Anyone that dares discuss them are racist, islamaphobic, mysognistic, anti trans or some other label.

    And there is a hierarchy of victimhood.

    Black trumps brown, yellow and most definitely white.

    Trans trumps gay and straight which is at the bottom of totem pole of victimhood.

    Islam trumps hindu, buddists, sikh, Jew and christian is almost a modern untouchable in some media circles.

    I am not allowed discuss …



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    I don't want to put words in your mouth or misconstrue you here, so I'll allow you a free shot on goal, what point are you wishing to make about apartheid?



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,806 ✭✭✭take everything


    What gobsmacked me over the past couple of weeks was how little was reported about the recent chaos in South Africa in mainstream media. There was one perfunctory report from RTE and then nothing.

    News stories from every other part of the globe and nothing about South Africa despite dozens dead. I'd genuinely like to know what is going on there and I'm not going to find out from the mainstream media seemingly. I have to rely on stuff like Reddit's the real South Africa all the while wondering about if these sources are reputable (and not some dodgy white supremacists).

    I knew South Africa had a reputation for crime but genuinely never knew crime was so bad there. The wiki page on crime South Africa is shocking. It reports that 25% of men have admitted to rape (that can't be true surely). Road signs warning of hijack hotpots. And a murder rate of 20000 a year.

    Crazy country. Not going to hear about it from the MSM unfortunately.



  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 12,771 Mod ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    Wow...just wow. Threads like these bring the armchair racists - and that's what yiz are lads - unabashed, complete racists - out of the woodwork.


    Yes, SA has huge social.and economic problems and a shed load of white Saffers are leaving in their droves - largely thanks to corrupt and inept governance. There's no doubt that the country is heading very much in the wrong direction.

    But to suggest that things were better under apartheid is really disgusting.



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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,783 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    Maybe you just didn't see it? It was top headline on the BBC. I don't follow rte so much but they had articles on it

    https://www.rte.ie/news/south-africa/



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