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Most South Africans, both black and white, believe the country was better run under apartheid and say unemployment and crime are the government's top challenges, according to two new polls released this week (2002).
Overall, the polls showed that about 60 percent of South Africans felt the country was better run under apartheid, with both blacks and whites rating the current government less trustworthy, more corrupt, less able to enforce the law and less able to deliver government services than its white predecessor.
But black respondents were also beginning to wax nostalgic, with 20 percent now giving a positive rating to certain aspects of life under the apartheid regime, compared with 17 percent in 2000 and eight percent in 1995.
Mattes said the rise in pro-apartheid sentiments among blacks could reflect both the growing income inequalities within South Africa's black community - where many have actually grown poorer since the end of apartheid - as well as difficulties in dealing with government bureaucracy.
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'Things were better in the bad old days'
By Andrew Quinn, IOL
December 11 2002 at 04:35PM
 Durban Beach during Apartheid  Durban Beach After Apartheid (Xmas/New Years Day)  Durban Beach After Apartheid |
Most South Africans, both black and white, believe the country was better run under apartheid and say unemployment and crime are the government's top challenges, according to two new polls released this week (2002).
The polls, part of the "Afrobarometer" series of public opinion surveys, found South Africans had generally positive assessments of how their country was governed, and were growing increasingly optimistic about the future.
But they also revealed a growing sense of "apartheid nostalgia" as South Africa grapples with high crime rates, increasing corruption and rising joblessness following the end of white rule in 1994.
‘They moan and grumble about all its faults.’
"It's not that they want to return to apartheid, but in retrospect it was a time when trains ran on time," said poll director Robert Mattes on Wednesday.
"It was a harsh, repressive, but seemingly efficient government."
Overall, the polls showed that about 60 percent of South Africans felt the country was better run under apartheid, with both blacks and whites rating the current government less trustworthy, more corrupt, less able to enforce the law and less able to deliver government services than its white predecessor.
 ANC South Africa ‘Communication’ & ‘Work’ Ethic: “‘Come to friendly South Africa’ used to be the tourism slogan. More accurately, the invitation should be to visit what is one of the most deceitful countries extant.” -- William Saunderson-Meyer, Weekend Argus, 12 August 2006  ANC SA ‘Safety & Security’ Ethic: “Must we close the courts, sit and twiddle our thumbs and do everything in Africa time to accommodate a national police commissioner who doesn't do his job?” -- Judge Arrie Hattingh, a Free State circuit court judge presiding over a fatal stabbing case in which a DNA report was still outstanding after 5 months; 29 Aug '06. |
The surveys also found respondents giving more positive assessment of apartheid-era policies.
Whites had the highest levels of nostalgia, with 65 percent now identifying positive elements to whites-only rule compared with 59 percent in 2000 and 39 percent in 1995.
‘It was a time when trains ran on time.’
But black respondents were also beginning to wax nostalgic, with 20 percent now giving a positive rating to certain aspects of life under the apartheid regime, compared with 17 percent in 2000 and eight percent in 1995.
"This suggests that as time has passed and memories of what life was really like then become dim, people tend to positively emphasise the things that they do not see under the present system and de-emphasise the more harsh aspect," said one poll.
Mattes said the rise in pro-apartheid sentiments among blacks could reflect both the growing income inequalities within South Africa's black community - where many have actually grown poorer since the end of apartheid - as well as difficulties in dealing with government bureaucracy.
Despite growing nostalgia for the past, the poll found South Africans becoming more positive about their government and its direction for the future - although they rate unemployment, poverty, crime and Aids as serious challenges.
A total of 54 percent gave positive marks to the country's current system of government, up 18 points from 1995.
Among whites, 46 percent gave the current government positive ratings, compared with just 12 percent in 1995.
 New ANC South Africa: ‘Cleanliness' Ethic: Durban Yacht Club Basin, by Snowy Smith, Death of Durban. See also Death of Johannesburg |
Seventy-four percent of respondents expressed optimism about how the country's political system would develop over the next 10 years, with long-term optimism among whites rising to 44 percent from 24 percent in 1995.
"As people, especially racial minorities, become more accustomed to the new order, they seem to be coming to terms with it, even as they moan and grumble about all its faults," said the poll.
The Afrobarometer polls are conducted as a collaboration between the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, the Centre for Democracy and Development in Ghana and Michigan State University.
The latest South African polls, which interviewed a racially representative sample of 2 400 South Africans in September and October, had a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.
Source: IOL (PDF)
Who Killed More Black Africans?
Apartheid Nationalist Whites, or Apartheid ANC Blacks?
Allegedly authored by Vusile Tshabalala, in 2001
but according to TRC Transcripts Vusile was an ANC Activist who died in 1998.
Author Unknown; Quotes added for emphasis
“Apartheid is the color line that all too often determines who is rich and who is poor… who lives in luxury and who lives in squalor… who shall get food, clothing, and health care… and who will live and who will die.”
-- Nelson Mandela, founder of the ANC & uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK)
“[The activists who are active in the ANC today] are just out there to get money, to enrich themselves. In fact, ninety percent of them. I haven't met somebody who says, ‘There's too much corruption; I will expose something.’ Nothing has happened. So to say somebody is ‘active’ means ‘active’ to gain more money.”
-- Gordon Webster, 1998 after resigning from the ANC (During apartheid Gordon Webster aka Mark Mkhize was a very high profile ANC Activist. As a Member of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 'anti-apartheid' bombing, that killed a SAP police colonel.)
“My question is this: ‘Did Apartheid ever kill as many Africans as are now being killed by the deliberate neglect and looting of our tax funds by the current, supposedly democratic Mbeki regime?”’
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August 2001-- At the start of the year 1900, the number of African South Africans was found to be 3,5-million according to the British colonial government census. By 1954, our African population had soared to 8,5-million -- and by 1990, there were a full 35-million of us -- all carefully managed, closely policed, counted, shunted around in homelands and townships -- and all of us chafing and griping under the suppressive yoke of the Afrikaner Broederbond's rigid racial segregation system.
During apartheid, our population grew apace however because we also had the benefit of the Broers' medical knowledge and their excellent agricultural skills.
Our population growth and our average life expectancy in fact showed us Africans in South Africa to be in better than average health when compared to other Africans on the rest of the continent: in the decades prior to the official policy of apartheid, (which was started in 1948), the average life expectancy of African South Africans was only 38 years.
However, during the last decade of the apartheid era from 1948 to 1994, our average life expectancy had risen to 64 years -- on a par with Europe's average life expectancy. Moreover, our infant death rates had by then also been reduced from 174 to 55 infant deaths per thousand, higher than Europe's, but considerably lower than the rest of the African continent's.
And the African population in South Africa had by then also increased by 50% percent. (A Crime Against Humanity: Analysing Repression of the Apartheid State, by Max Coleman of the Human Rights Committee).
Deaths due to political violence during apartheid:
 “With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country.” - Winnie Mandela  Necklacing refers to the practice of summary execution carried out by forcing a rubber tire (tyre), filled with gasoline, around a victim's chest and arms, and setting it on fire. The victim may take up to 20 minutes to die, suffering severe burns in the process. The first recorded lethal lynching by necklacing occurred in Uitenhage on 23 March 1985: ANC supporters necklaced a councillor, for being a collaborator.  Necklacing was frequently carried out in the name of the ANC. An example of necklacing was the case of a young girl Maki Skosana in July 1985: “Her body had been scorched by fire and some broken pieces of glass had been inserted into her vagina,” Moloko told the committee. |
Max Coleman's authoritative book analyses all deaths due to political violence from 1948 to 1994 in South Africa and Namibia.
According to the HRC statistics, 21,000 people died in political violence in South Africa during apartheid - of whom 14,000 people died during the six-year transition process from 1990 to 1994. The book lists the number of incidents, dates, and those involved.
This includes SA Defence Force actions, for instance the 600 deaths at Kassinga in Angola during the war in 1978.
Of those deaths, the vast majority, 92%, have been primarily due to Africans killing Africans -- such as the inter-tribal battles for territory: this book's detailed analyses of the period June 1990 to July 1993 indicates a total of 8580 (92%) of the 9,325 violent deaths during the period June 1990 to July 1993 were caused by Africans killing Africans, or as the news media often calls it, "Black on Black" violence - hostel killings, Inkatha Freedom Party versus ANC killlings, and taxi and turf war violence.
The activities of the Civil Cooperation Bureau as outlined by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, were also included in these figures.
The security forces caused 518 deaths (5.6%) throughout this period.
And again, during the transitional period, the primary causes of deaths were not security forces nor white right-wing violence against blacks, but mainly due to "black-on-black necklace murders", tribal conflict between the ANC-IFP, bombs by the ANC and PAC's military wings in shopping centers, landmines on farm roads, etc.
After apartheid:
The present Aids-HIV epidemic -- against which the Mbeki-regime undertakes no action and still is publicly failing to properly acknowledge -- the World Health Organisation estimates that more than 6-million African South Africans will be dead within the forthcoming decade. And the Mbeki-led ANC regime, which could have undertaken a huge prevention campaign such as Uganda's a long time ago, has done nothing to stave off this terrible death rate.
SA hospitals "becoming places of death"
In November last year it was being reported in The Star that South African hospitals are becoming places for dying -- instead of healing. In June this year, it was reported that our cemeteries were filling up so rapidly that upright funerals were being contemplated to save space. Still, Aids is not being spoken about at our funerals, and the silence and utterly unscientific public statements about HIV-Aids from Mbeki's continue unabated while our people are dying.
Democratic Alliance spokesman Jack Bloom warned late last year that the 20% rise in deaths over the past four years among patients treated at Johannesburg Hospital could only be blamed on the high crime rate and the very serious decline in patient care. Why is our patient care so poor now, and our crime rate so high? The answer is simple: our public funds are being looted by the ANC hierarchy. And the police seem helpless to stop it.
Tuberculosis funds looted:
 “Yes, we black Africans are sex crazy! Yes, we black Africans are diseased! Yes, we black Africans spread the deadly HIV through uncontrolled heterosexual sex! In this regard, yes, black Africans are different from white Africans! Yes, we black African men abuse women and the girl-child with gay abandon! Yes!, among black Africans rape is endemic because of our culture! Yes, we black Africans believe that sleeping with young virgins will cure us of AIDS! Yes, as a result of all of this, we black Africans are threatened with destruction by the HIV/AIDS pandemic!” -- State v. Johnstone, Court Proceedings, 12 August 2009 |
On July 10, 2001, the SA health department announced that it was going to stop R6,6-million in annual funding to the SA National Tuberculosis Assocation because of the ongoing looting of its funds and the lavish lifestyles of its (African) executives, who award themselves R400,000 annual salaries and spend R5000 a month on cellphone calls alone... while millions of South African TB patients go untreated and are wasting away of a deadly, but curable disease.
During apartheid, please note that the SANTA executives were seen to be extremely frugal with the governments' funding -- that many thousands of patients were cured annually, and that many doctors and nurses even VOLUNTEERED their services free of charge.
The question is this: "why is this man still CEO of SANTA? Why has he not been fired on the spot?"
Violent deaths from 1994 to 2000:
And the SA Police reports this month that a total of 174,220 people died violent deaths, from crime-related violence, between 1994 and the year 2000.
So my question is this: “Did apartheid ever kill as many Africans as are now being killed by the deliberate neglect and looting of our tax funds by the current, supposedly democratic Mbeki regime?”
 Apartheid ‘Communication’ & ‘Work’ Ethic... |
“A recent analysis showed that out of the 135 annual audits conducted by South Africa’s Auditor-General on the key 34 government departments and public entities, from 2001-2 to 2004-5, there were only seven 'Clean Reports'. The worst performing entities (unclean in four out of four years) were Home Affairs and Correctional Services, but the bottom line is that nearly 30% of the national budget, running into tens of billions of rands a year, is being mismanaged. Nobody is being held to account, never mind prosecuted.”
-- Barry Sergeant, 18 August 2006
“Real police are as rare as rocking horse shit”
-- Barry Sergeant, 18 August 2006
“The SAPS blows over R60m a year on private security firms in efforts to protect itself.”
-- Barry Sergeant, 18 August 2006
Source: Minority Rights in SA
NATO’s [Apartheid] potty rules shut out Afghans
by Joe Friesen
Canada Globe & Mail
 [An Islamic Squatting Style Toilet, with Water Jug] |
26 Mar 2007: Kandahar, Afghanistan: Under a bizarre policy that echoes the days of segregation in the United States, Afghans who work at the NATO base at Kandahar Airfield must use separate toilets marked “local nationals only.”
Several Afghans told The Globe and Mail the practice is insulting, but they are dependent on NATO for their livelihoods and reluctant to speak out.
Lieutenant-Colonel Jack Blevins, the U.S. officer in charge of administrative contracts, said the segregated toilet policy exists because the bathroom habits of the Afghans are different from those of the North Americans and Europeans who work at the base. (Emphasis Added)
» » » » [Globe & Mail, Canada]
 A “No Squatting” Sign on the Door of a European Style Toilet, in an Islamic Country |
Comment @ Dear Kitty:I live and work at Kandahar airfield and I’ve been for 3.5 years. The reason that the locals have to use their own facilities is because no matter how many times we would try to explain and teach them why it isn’t right, we just couldn’t get them to quit pissing in the sinks where we brush our teeth, washing their feet in the sink, taking craps in the shower stalls, having homosexual intercourse in the bathroom stalls, and the list goes on…
It has nothing to do with racism or discrimination, I find the correlation that you have drawn between the race issues of America’s past and our situation here disturbing, it is quite obvious though that you are trying to be as sensational and outrageous as possible rather than honest.
Comment by Peter M. — September 4, 2007 @ 10:17 pm
Sources: Globe and Mail, Canada :: Democratic Underground :: Dear Kitty
2 comments:
Yet one never hears anything but praise for Mandela and his cronies in the Western press. One would think that he had brought prosperity to the people of South Africa instead of turning it into an impoverished nation.
Indeed Sameh. Well said! Reality is not a highly valued commodity, for most in SA!
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