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How long does white South Africa have?


pap
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And on a slightly different note, the pap/verbal spat is getting a little tiresome now. Not every thread needs you to goad each other constantly. You're both intelligent posters with interesting things to say, not sure why there is so much animosity, but you're beginning to turn each lounge thread into the same bullsh*t we read across the rest of the forum where the same usual suspects just prod and provoke for no reason (and please ignore my prodding of delldays, above, he's a different case who deserves it)

 

Indeed; hard not to bite back when someone is always nibbling though.

 

Perhaps this is another case where I need to be selective about what I reply to. Soz, peeps.

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Here too. My wife desperately wants to go but is put off by the thought of the violence. Cape Town alone would do, should we be worried?

 

Tourist Cape Town is absolutely fine from a security perspective, as would be pretty much anywhere you'd want to visit. My parents live half the year in the area and mum thinks nothing of popping out alone for a pint of milk at night. The overwhelming majority of crime in the Cape is within the sprawling informal settlements of the Cape Flats where you'd really have no reason to go.

 

South Africa is a brilliant holiday destination and you really oughtn't allow security concerns to put you off any more that in would in New York or LA.

 

As I mentioned in my earlier post I am there a lot and I'd be happy to give you any information you need if you're thinking of heading down. PM me if you have questions.

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Tourist Cape Town is absolutely fine from a security perspective, as would be pretty much anywhere you'd want to visit. My parents live half the year in the area and mum thinks nothing of popping out alone for a pint of milk at night. The overwhelming majority of crime in the Cape is within the sprawling informal settlements of the Cape Flats where you'd really have no reason to go.

 

South Africa is a brilliant holiday destination and you really oughtn't allow security concerns to put you off any more that in would in New York or LA.

 

As I mentioned in my earlier post I am there a lot and I'd be happy to give you any information you need if you're thinking of heading down. PM me if you have questions.

 

Thanks. You read so many different stories that its difficult to know the true situation. It's the same with the US, I know many people who wouldn't go because if the fear of violence. It will be interesting to see what does happen when the Old Man finally does leave us. I suspect there will be some diet of power struggle for a while.

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Here too. My wife desperately wants to go but is put off by the thought of the violence. Cape Town alone would do, should we be worried?

 

I've tour around SA and have family there and you'll be fine with a bit of research of the do's and don'ts, just like any other place you visit really. One area you don't go into is the flats.

 

 

 

The biggest problems there are the inequality and the poverty which hasn't really been addressed, no doubt with a power makers and those in power making sure they are alright. I remember the transistion of power and the effect it had on business, people training others to take their job, not the best candidate moving up the corporate ladder and other corrupt practices etc.

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This absolutely,

 

I have lived in the SA winelands for 8 years and while there are places in cape town and the big cities i would avoid and certainly not walk at night, in Paarl i can walk to and from the pub (quite often half cut) and i have never had a problem.

 

As for Mandela the man is a saint, focus less on why he went to prison (he started the armed uprising, which i aplaud) and more on what he did when he came out. Imagine if you had been imprisoned on portsea island for 27 years and then when released urged your own race to calmly and peacefully move to a multiracial society, i am in awe of the man.

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This absolutely,

 

I have lived in the SA winelands for 8 years and while there are places in cape town and the big cities i would avoid and certainly not walk at night, in Paarl i can walk to and from the pub (quite often half cut) and i have never had a problem.

 

As for Mandela the man is a saint, focus less on why he went to prison (he started the armed uprising, which i aplaud) and more on what he did when he came out. Imagine if you had been imprisoned on portsea island for 27 years and then when released urged your own race to calmly and peacefully move to a multiracial society, i am in awe of the man.

 

Great post.

 

It took me some persuasion to get the wife to S Africa who was scared of the violence but once there on holiday she loved it. I am envious of you living in the winelands. That seemed to be a great area but we visited Paarl and considered it to be one of the few places in the winelands which was disappointing. Perhaps we missed the best bits.

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Anyone done the great white cage diving?

 

Yeah, quite a buzz. You have to watch the seasons before picking Simons Town or Gaansbaai.

 

There's a lot of debate as to whether chumming to attract the sharks is a good idea from an ecological or safety perspective but I haven't seen much hard evidence either way.

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I am pleased to read some balanced comments in the last few posts compared to the original scaremongering !

I visit Cape Town every year and travel around quite a bit as well, whilst taking only reasonable and sensible precautions, I have never really felt threatened and consider it to be a pleasure to be there !

The 'Mandela Effect' has been largely discounted as the world knows he is on his last legs and the political fallout in the aftermath is likely to be minimal !

Personally I see no parallels with Zimbabwe and feel pretty optimistic about the future of SA !

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Some interestingly one eyed views all round here. Starting with the OP lets remember that the article come from the Daily Mail and is based around interviews in the Afrikaaner separatist bubble that is Kleinfontein.

 

Speaking as someone whose parents live half the year just outside Cape Town and who has made perhaps 50 business and holiday trips to Cape Town and Joburg in the past ten years I'm struggling to identify with this vision of besieged whites huddling in their fortified compounds while, outside, the AK47 blacks rampage around in a post apocalyptic orgy of rape, murder and (for all I know) queue jumping. It just isn't that way.

 

Sadly South Africa does have a lamentable rate of violent crime, social imbalance. endemic AIDS and all the rest of it. But unsurprisingly in a wildly unequal society this tends to be found in the most disadvantaged communities. And they ain't the ones populated by Europeans.

 

I've, as mentioned, spent a lot of time down there and, whether in Sandton or Soweto, Newlands or Nyanga never received anything but the warmest welcome or felt remotely unsafe. The only crime I, or my family have experienced there was when I was dumb enough to leave my mobile in my shoe on the beach and go swimming and to get a beer. I came back and it was gone. Tell me that wouldn't have happened in Weymouth or Bournemouth.

 

I've found South Africa, for the most part, a country embracing its new identity. Go to a bar in Camps Bay, the V&A or Sandton and you'll see young people of every background relaxing, comfortable in their mixed groups.

 

This is all fact based on my own observations. Now, I suspect that if you move into less fortunate corners of ZA society - whites whose previously privileged position, artificially maintained under the old regime, or blacks whose poverty and lack of access to education, healthcare and the means to secure these things may well find it easy to see the New South Africa as being for the advantage of a fortunate few, very possibly those who don't look like they do. In such circumstances there is always going to be an audience for the views of extremists and bigots, be they Terreblanche, Julius Malema or Nick Griffin, but this isn't the majority view down there.

 

And even if there was a big groundswell of political support for an anti-white message South Africa just isn't like Zimbabwe. The whites account for about a quarter of the population and by and large control the economy - unlike Zim where a 2% minority, mostly farmers. Could be marginalised.

 

So to answer the question, no, I don't see an end to White South Africa, whatever that is. With the passing of Mandela we will see the loss of. Totemic leader and considerable moral authority. It'll feel odd not to know the old man is there. But life will go on.

 

Regarding the man himself, it's dead easy to over simplify. He was a huge figure and revolutionary leader who overcame one of the great social and political injustices of our era, and managed to avoid a bloodbath in the aftermath. Against that it does have to be remembered that it was Mandela who, in face of opposition from other major figures in the ANC, took the decision to make the struggle an armed one.

 

Was this decision justified? Does the end warrant the means? Is it acceptable to take arms against tyranny?

 

For me Mandela is one of the great heroes of our times, his cause just, his victory one to inspire us all. That doesn't mean that it is wrong to question his ideas and actions. But on the whole you only need to compare what he leaves behind to what he fought to change to see that what he (and others) fought for made for a better, if imperfect, South Africa.

 

A little late to this thread, but having visited South Africa (CT, PE and Durban) in the last 2 months and spoken to many people from all backgrounds about life, society and politics I feel qualified to point out what a brilliant post this is.

 

There is a divide in SA, but its not about blacks and whites. It the divide between people that want a united country and people that don't. How that will play out after Mandela passes away is anyone's guess, but the image I have is that despite being haunted by its past, South Africa is a country that wants to move forward together.

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One thing that takes some adjusting to is the vastly different crime rates in South Africa.

 

The murder rate is 1.2 deaths per 100,000 in the UK and 32 deaths per 100,000 in South Africa. SA also has some of the highest rates child and baby rapes in the world, and about a quarter of all South Africans men (by survey) have admitted raping someone, and nearly half of those have admitted raping more than once. SA has, not surprisingly, the highest recorded rate of HIV infection.

 

South Africa has always struck me as a rather sad place, outside of the tourist and wealthy colonies like Camps Bay in Cape Town. Cape town also has the largest slum in South Africa - Khayelisha. If you have the nerve to go there (and it is a pretty scary place) the scars of apartheid are still apparent - including the presence of the oppressive watchtowers/firing positions that the apartheid-era police used to suppress trouble in the township. Khayelisha is a fetid, dank horror of a place - created by the 'Group Areas Act' in the 50s and expanded massively by ANC local politicians in a cynical move to outflank the power base of the Democratic Alliance. Among many young township dwellers, the drug of choice is something called tik, a kind of super-potent crystal meth that keeps you wide awake, hypes up violent behaviour, and causes awful disfigurement (a kind of amped-up 'meth mouth').

 

Johannesburg is now a city of walls. Where once the wealthier neighbourhoods had lush lawns stretching down to the road, now there are high concrete screens around all the houses, many with CCTV and barbed wire. It feels like a city under siege. One of the oddities of the city - again probably a hangover from apartheid - is the absence of pavements along the streets, which makes all the roadside grass verges look like black-only areas. And the city's trains are no-go areas for whites as well as dangerous as hell for anyone who uses them.

 

I'm not saying you can't have a pleasant experience as a tourist, or as a resident in some of the traditionally white-only neighbourhoods. But even these little oases can be invaded with a level of violence that is hard to imagine, let alone describe.

 

Just an alternative perspective to that of the happy clappers... Personally, I'm not sure I feel particularly optimistic about change in SA. The ANC will dominate for years to come, but there are simply no politicians within it of Mandela's capabilities or vision - not even close. And what SA needs now more than anything is a group that are younger versions of Mandela, who can push the country further away from its terrible past. The issue of 'white South Africa' (!), or white flight as it's known there, is but a small symptom of the far larger problem.

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One thing that takes some adjusting to is the vastly different crime rates in South Africa.

 

The murder rate is 1.2 deaths per 100,000 in the UK and 32 deaths per 100,000 in South Africa. SA also has some of the highest rates child and baby rapes in the world, and about a quarter of all South Africans men (by survey) have admitted raping someone, and nearly half of those have admitted raping more than once. SA has, not surprisingly, the highest recorded rate of HIV infection.

 

South Africa has always struck me as a rather sad place, outside of the tourist and wealthy colonies like Camps Bay in Cape Town. Cape town also has the largest slum in South Africa - Khayelisha. If you have the nerve to go there (and it is a pretty scary place) the scars of apartheid are still apparent - including the presence of the oppressive watchtowers/firing positions that the apartheid-era police used to suppress trouble in the township. Khayelisha is a fetid, dank horror of a place - created by the 'Group Areas Act' in the 50s and expanded massively by ANC local politicians in a cynical move to outflank the power base of the Democratic Alliance. Among many young township dwellers, the drug of choice is something called tik, a kind of super-potent crystal meth that keeps you wide awake, hypes up violent behaviour, and causes awful disfigurement (a kind of amped-up 'meth mouth').

 

Johannesburg is now a city of walls. Where once the wealthier neighbourhoods had lush lawns stretching down to the road, now there are high concrete screens around all the houses, many with CCTV and barbed wire. It feels like a city under siege. One of the oddities of the city - again probably a hangover from apartheid - is the absence of pavements along the streets, which makes all the roadside grass verges look like black-only areas. And the city's trains are no-go areas for whites as well as dangerous as hell for anyone who uses them.

 

I'm not saying you can't have a pleasant experience as a tourist, or as a resident in some of the traditionally white-only neighbourhoods. But even these little oases can be invaded with a level of violence that is hard to imagine, let alone describe.

 

Just an alternative perspective to that of the happy clappers... Personally, I'm not sure I feel particularly optimistic about change in SA. The ANC will dominate for years to come, but there are simply no politicians within it of Mandela's capabilities or vision - not even close. And what SA needs now more than anything is a group that are younger versions of Mandela, who can push the country further away from its terrible past. The issue of 'white South Africa' (!), or white flight as it's known there, is but a small symptom of the far larger problem.

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PAP everybody thinks Mandela is innocent in this. He's not. The word Apartheid was made up by ANC, his ANC. He and others were jailed not for being black, but for terrorism. He was party to bomb that killed woman and children in the 60's. What people don't know is the ANC is a communist party, with far left communist views. Mandela has been photographed at meetings giving the clenched fist salute, and joining in songs, which call for the killing of the boare(whites). But the media don't show this, as it would show how they were duped for years, by this so called poor, black man. South Africa is going the way of Zimbabwe, but in a far BIGGER way. And I worry about the family that I still have there. And they can trace they're family back to the original settlers, before Zulu's and Xhosa's were in SA. It was just Hottentots then.

 

Excellent post.

i fear for the future of the country, there will be ethnic cleansing like in Zim and a lot of the white south africans will head to places like Oz and NZ i reckon.

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One thing that takes some adjusting to is the vastly different crime rates in South Africa.

 

The murder rate is 1.2 deaths per 100,000 in the UK and 32 deaths per 100,000 in South Africa. SA also has some of the highest rates child and baby rapes in the world, and about a quarter of all South Africans men (by survey) have admitted raping someone, and nearly half of those have admitted raping more than once. SA has, not surprisingly, the highest recorded rate of HIV infection.

 

South Africa has always struck me as a rather sad place, outside of the tourist and wealthy colonies like Camps Bay in Cape Town. Cape town also has the largest slum in South Africa - Khayelisha. If you have the nerve to go there (and it is a pretty scary place) the scars of apartheid are still apparent - including the presence of the oppressive watchtowers/firing positions that the apartheid-era police used to suppress trouble in the township. Khayelisha is a fetid, dank horror of a place - created by the 'Group Areas Act' in the 50s and expanded massively by ANC local politicians in a cynical move to outflank the power base of the Democratic Alliance. Among many young township dwellers, the drug of choice is something called tik, a kind of super-potent crystal meth that keeps you wide awake, hypes up violent behaviour, and causes awful disfigurement (a kind of amped-up 'meth mouth').

 

Johannesburg is now a city of walls. Where once the wealthier neighbourhoods had lush lawns stretching down to the road, now there are high concrete screens around all the houses, many with CCTV and barbed wire. It feels like a city under siege. One of the oddities of the city - again probably a hangover from apartheid - is the absence of pavements along the streets, which makes all the roadside grass verges look like black-only areas. And the city's trains are no-go areas for whites as well as dangerous as hell for anyone who uses them.

 

I'm not saying you can't have a pleasant experience as a tourist, or as a resident in some of the traditionally white-only neighbourhoods. But even these little oases can be invaded with a level of violence that is hard to imagine, let alone describe.

 

Just an alternative perspective to that of the happy clappers... Personally, I'm not sure I feel particularly optimistic about change in SA. The ANC will dominate for years to come, but there are simply no politicians within it of Mandela's capabilities or vision - not even close. And what SA needs now more than anything is a group that are younger versions of Mandela, who can push the country further away from its terrible past. The issue of 'white South Africa' (!), or white flight as it's known there, is but a small symptom of the far larger problem.

 

One might argue that Mandela's passing away might be the fresh start that South Africa needs to kick onto the next stage in its development.

 

The ANC has ushered in many improvements, including a modicum of social justice and upward mobility for blacks. But it has basically left the economy it inherited from the apartheid untouched. That system is very statist and protected, organised around large state owned companies and powerful unions that take care of their own members rather than the broader working class -one reason for South Africa's declining competitiveness and high levels of unemployment.

 

The ANC stands behind the status quo, though it tinkers with it at the margins. Its legitimacy draws as much on its past accomplishments as its present competence. There is a reluctance to challenge the party that brought an end to apartheid. But its conceivable that as heavyweights, the original founding fathers retire from the scene, the political ground will loosen and there'll be more space for dissenting voices and the types of policy that successful local neighbours are carrying out.

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Ethnic cleansing - ffs?

 

had a business meeting with a couple of lads 5 years ago who had fled after their parents were killed in Zim , blacks "reclaimed the land" in the areaand they were warned they would be killed if they didnt leave. Zimbabwe is now devastated and the same thing could happen in parts of SA

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On a slightly different note. I was at a meeting yesterday and a manager who was of asian background called me an outsider

not once but twice during a couple of occassionas in front of other managers. should have seen the look on some of their faces.

I just ignored and took it in the context and the way the individual expressed themselves ibut had it have been the other way round. you know who would be in trouble today.

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Excellent post.

i fear for the future of the country, there will be ethnic cleansing like in Zim and a lot of the white south africans will head to places like Oz and NZ i reckon.

 

Ethnic cleansing - ffs?

 

had a business meeting with a couple of lads 5 years ago who had fled after their parents were killed in Zim , blacks "reclaimed the land" in the areaand they were warned they would be killed if they didnt leave. Zimbabwe is now devastated and the same thing could happen in parts of SA

 

Yeah, that's not ethnic cleansing. I think you've got confused.

 

On a slightly different note. I was at a meeting yesterday and a manager who was of asian background called me an outsider

not once but twice during a couple of occassionas in front of other managers. should have seen the look on some of their faces.

I just ignored and took it in the context and the way the individual expressed themselves ibut had it have been the other way round. you know who would be in trouble today.

 

Maybe you are an outsider? Maybe the fact that you don't understand why you're being referred to as an outsider is an indication that you are an outsider? Maybe they all live in the area in which the meeting was held and you don't, thus making you the outsider? Maybe they are all employed as managers and you're not, making you the outsider? Maybe they all went to University and you didn't, making you the outsider? Maybe they were all Pompey fans and you were the sole Saint? You need to establish what they all had in common and what made you different. You've made some assumptions that I don't think are justified.

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The wonder of being anonymous is that it covers you for things like this. I've no reason not to take Verbal at his word, but he'll likely be unable or unwilling to provide anything in the way of photographic proof.

 

Of course, the beauty of not being anonymous (and having a relatively contemporary camera phone) is being able to produce such evidence at will, much as I did when Verbal suggested I was too stupid to be yanked over to the States on the whim of my clients. I expect those "pap in skyscraper" images still burn to this day :)

 

 

You are a hypocrite then as you have never apologized to me for wrongly accusing me of being someone else.

8 months and waiting pap, no class.

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How have I only just seen this thread, must be too busy in the muppet show or reading the main board.

 

I have lived in South Africa for the last 2 yrs and more specifically am typing this from my house 15kms south of Pretoria and have to drive into the Johannesburg CBD everyday for work, which is a soon to be deserted ****hole.

 

Like everywhere you need commonsense, don't take everything at face value but if you are a tourist you have nothing to fear as you are a valuable commodity and you should be safe as long as you aren't ****faced in the CBD past 7pm. Staying in Sandton etc you are fine as its a popular tourist lay over before heading off on Safari etc.

 

I choose to pay more to live in an big golf estate as I get little enough sleep at night anyway so want to be able to ensure I don't need to worry. My back door is always open (no pun intended) its that safe, the only estate incident we have had is a hippo walking through a 12000 volt fence (not Dubai Phil) and chilling out next to a golf hole in a lake.

 

As for impact of his death on the country etc, I don't think there will be big riots etc as the hyperbole suggests, I think as one of the other posters says his achievements on what he has done since he came out will bring pride to the country and it will be more of a celebration etc. The ANC have got to where they are through sheer weight of numbers but I hope and believe the cronyism that is prevalent in the party will soon be diluted due to their need to be a lean demonstrative party as a competing party called the Democratic Alliance (Helen Zille - impressive lady) leads them and they are making inroads in traditional ANC voting blocks.

 

The biggest issue Africa has generally is the historical association of race which breeds a sense of entitlement across some of the more extreme ends of the divide, until this changes, the corruption won't stop, the building of safe townships wont occur and everyone will still be in it for themselves.

 

Right I am off for a massive perfect steak dinner and a bottle of red wine that will only cost me 8 pounds so its not all that bad :-)

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Also I am predicting they will call him officially dead either on a weekend or on his birthday on the 18th July, if it happens can I be recognised as the African ITK ?

 

Its suggested here he's mentally gone already and they have him on life support. As is always the case it seems here, all his children etc are battling for everything they can milk from being in the spotlight including digging up 2 dead people and relocating them back to Nelsons village, his family (wife apart) are a bunch of self interested ****s who wouldn't do the right thing if it hit them in the face.

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Also I am predicting they will call him officially dead either on a weekend or on his birthday on the 18th July, if it happens can I be recognised as the African ITK ?

 

Its suggested here he's mentally gone already and they have him on life support.

 

Did I read this morning that the doctors have recommended switching him off?

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As is always the case it seems here, all his children etc are battling for everything they can milk from being in the spotlight including digging up 2 dead people and relocating them back to Nelsons village, his family (wife apart) are a bunch of self interested ****s who wouldn't do the right thing if it hit them in the face.

 

Sadly this bit is very much the case. It would appear that the big fallout from Mandela's passing will be an unseemly scrabble for his financial and political legacy from family and politicos (including our own rabble) alike.

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