Post-apartheid South Africa still struggling

The Augusta Chronicle ^ | Tue, Apr. 22, 2014 | Damon Cline

[MinorityRepublican]

This week marks the 20th anniversary of democracy in South Africa.

You may remember the United States was intensely interested in South African affairs during the years the Afrikaners, the country’s European-descended population, ruled under a racist policy called apartheid.

Then, on April 27, 1994, after years of international pressure, South Africa held its first open elections. The black majority population overwhelmingly chose Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid activist and former political prisoner, as the nation’s first black president.

America soon lost interest. It was as if a war had ended, and we could concern ourselves with other things.

Twenty years later, America is essentially the same. South Africa, on the other hand, transformed from an imperfect-but-stable society into the most dangerous place on the planet.

A few statistics on the “Rainbow Nation”:

• With a high murder rate and widespread HIV/AIDS (one in five are HIV positive), South Africa has the world’s No. 1 death rate at 17.3 per 1,000 people.

• The average life expectancy is 49.4 years – the world’s second-lowest – down from 64 years in 1994.

• It is the rape capital of world, with 132.4 sexual assaults per 100,000 people. Statistically, one in four girls will be raped before age 16. (Many African men believe sex with a virgin cures AIDS.)

• Roughly half its 49 million people live in poverty.

• Its United Nations’ Human Development Index ranking – once higher than all of Africa and most of Asia – is now below average at 121 out of 187 countries.

• The unemployment rate is 25 percent, double from 1994.

[doc1019]

Gee, wonder who is in charge?

[ClearCase_guy]

America soon lost interest

Conclusion: the problems of South Africa are due to white people and their racism.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Name me one country in Africa ... just one, that is doing well. I’ll wait.

[QuisCustodiet1776]

“Still struggling”?

More like - “turned into a total sh**Hole”.

[doc1019]

Only if you consider Israel part of Africa.

[2ndDivisionVet]

It isn't.

[MinorityRepublican]

Google “Fall of Johannesburg”.

[doc1019]

Thank you, wasn’t sure. Geography not my long suit.

[Hogblog]

8th largest economy turned into an Obamanation..... our future is clear....

[fhayek]

And yet Nelson Mandela is regarded as a hero. There are parallels between South Africa and another country, the name of which escapes me for the moment...

[Bulwyf]

I regard Nelson Mandela as a communist... well I won’t finish it, it’ll be bad.

[Billthedrill]

Perhaps a sweeping change in governance can make things better.

That, or a flock of good fairies sprinkling peace dust all over the countryside. They're equally likely.

[Steely Tom]

They’ll still be “struggling” a hundred years from now.

[Busko]

Welcome ot the reality of this mess. Dertroit is a mess and so is Chicago and Philadelphia. Thug culture and no way to fix it wihtout a total military intervention. In the states this is what happens from years of liberalism.

[blueplum]

“Democracy, in and of itself, is no solution,” he told World Net Daily recently. “What is important is checks and balances, separation of powers, which has virtually vanished. We now have basically the executive doing everything – writing the law and adjudicating ... And we don’t have real law ... we have discretionary power, which is the main reason why we have this corruption.”

In other words, Africa has reverted back to pre-colonial tribal status of running around killing and enslaving each other, a nature that the colonialist farmers managed to curb and curtail.

[wetphoenix]

~“Democracy, in and of itself, is no solution,” he told World Net Daily recently. “What is important is checks and balances, separation of powers, which has virtually vanished. We now have basically the executive doing everything – writing the law and adjudicating ... And we don’t have real law ... we have discretionary power, which is the main reason why we have this corruption.”
In other words, Africa has reverted back to pre-colonial tribal status of running around killing and enslaving each other, a nature that the colonialist farmers managed to curb and curtail.~

It is a lesson to learn for neocon nation-builders. It is pure Bolshevism to make backward societies advance by “democracy”, instilled from the outside by force of deception.

[Cowboy Bob]

I remember watching the World Cup final (on television) when it was in South Africa. One of the announcers got so emotional by the end of the game that he pronounce that South Africa had become a “First World” nation. This was all the result of having hosted a soccer tournament.

I guess Brazil will be invited to join the G7 at the completion of next month’s World Cup? /sarc

[Cowboy Bob]

You see, if they would only elect a black man as president, all their problems would go away! Oh, wait a minute...

[OldNewYork]

That’s particularly short-sighted of the announcer, because it had the standards of a first world nation until shortly after 1994.