You know, I was born in South Africa and have been proudly South African all my life, I refused to pack up and leave when things got rough, I wanted SA to remain my home, sure I travelled but came straight back to SA because I missed it, the people, my family and friends.

I put my faith in the new government and decided to give them time to adjust and iron things out.

12 years later however I not only have my doubts, I am beyond disgusted.
There is something seriously seriously wrong with South Africa and we are undoubtedly heading tobecome another banana republic.

The problem is that South African’s have become so complacent with problems that affect every single one of us.

I realized this last night at 8:30 when the electricity died (while I was in the middle of an online poker game) and my father shrugged and said “oh well, off to bed”

and THAT is the exact thing that pisses me off, we accept it because there is little we can do about it and we just accept it as being normal. Soon its going to get worse, Water is next.

Let’s just take a look at the entire picture.

* Starting with the load shedding, yes I blame the government. Stop supplying neighboring countries with power they can’t afford to pay in the 1st place and look after your own. Charity starts at home.
* Crime - Let me not even get started with this, maybe if you stop employing criminals to be policemen and comissioners we may be in with a chance.
* Wasted Money - Why on earth is the government so focussed on changing the names of roads, cities, provinces and towns when the MILLIONS of Rands that are spent on changing these things should be better spent on the infrstructure of South Africa, like, I dunno, maybe another power plant?
Thank God they haven’t realized that the word for our currency, The Rand, is actually an Apartheid Era Afrikaans word, or we’d be spending BILLIONS of Rands so we can have MILLIONS of Pula.
* Unemployment - Maybe with tougher border control and harsher deportation laws, we’d have less illegals in the country, making it easier for our people to find jobs. in 1996 it was reported that we had nearly 5 million Illegal immagrants living in South Africa, that was 12 years ago, that number has easily tripled by now. Hell, we have more Nigerians living in Berea than there are living in Lagos.
* Presidential hopeful is a criminal - JZ is without a doubt, guilty of a lot of things, maybe he got away with Rape, but he is corrupt and rotten and is spoiling the rest of the barrel of apples.
* Ignorant Leaders - JZ, the anti Aids shower, need I say more? Manto Babalas Msimang - Beetroot and Onion anti aids diet? These people are ignorant beyond comprehension and yet we have them as leaders? Sure, they may have a bit more savvy than most Black South African’s but then again, in the land of the blind - the one eyed man is king.
This is not a racist remark, it is a “Who is the best person for the job” remark.
Why not put the best people for the job, in the job? I am not saying employ more white people in goverment positions, not at all. But put educated, savvy people of any colour into meaningful positions.
Cyril Ramaposa or Tokyo Sexwale would run this country like a business - if a particlular part of a business is failing, you don’t get rid of the people at the bottom, you start at the top. Without smart _LEADERS_ any organization is in for a world of hurt and by leaders I don’t mean popular people who can pull the wool over the eyes of just enough people to be voted in, but I mean people who can lead by making an example.
* Telecommunications - another ignorant”leader” Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri has no idea half the time waht she is talking about, we are without a doubt the most expensive country in the world when it comes to telecomms. She fails to act on behalf of the masses and I’ll out and say it, CORRUPTION! Maybe if Icasa and Telkom stopped slipping her a few bucks to shut up and say what they want her to say, we’d have someone on our side.
* Drunk Judges - but he claims he was “drinking tea”
* Reverse Racism - AA policies are nothing but reverse racism, fucks sakes give the best person for the job the job.
* Politics in Sports - hoo boy… why is it that there exists a policy to enforce more players of colour in our cricket and rugby teams but there exists no policy to enfore more non-black players on the SA soccer team? Smells like hypocrite bullshit to me.
* Important Jobs pay the least - this was carried over from the old regime, but if anyone had any insight, they would seek to change this. Let me put it into perspective, Police and Teachers are 2 great examples of important jobs that pay shit. In my most humble opinion, these should be the jobs that pay the most, thereby forcing a strict policy on who can become a teacher or a cop. There’d be less corrupt cops, less criminals becoming cops and less cops likely to be bribed. If its a sought after well paying job, people will queue to become a cop.
Teachers - no disprespect to those people who want to be teachers, i think this is great, however the number of people who started out studying that wanted to become teachers is far less than the number of people who became teachers by accident because they did not get sufficient points at varsity to go onto other fields and they settle for teaching. So essentially what we have are people who maybe scraped through varsity, some with crap marks that are going to be teaching our kids. Now I ask you, would you want a less than qualified person to teach your children ?
Or would you prefer that teachers get paid a fortune, thus making the qualifications to be a teacher rather stringent and again people will queue to go for these positions and thus meaning that our children are taught by the best minds in the country? Those that don’t make it as teachers can go and do some other arb job, like become a rocket scientist or something.
* Aids - we have a fucking problem people, excuse the pun.

I could go on and on.

What other countries are there in the world where power cuts are the norm? where there is a task force to look after the police force? where the heads of police are linked to criminal activities? where the minister of health embarasses themselves due to their ignorance? Where the police are corrupt and will let you drive on if you slip them a few bucks? Where Accused rapists and corrupt officals are heads of political parties?

This has stopped being a joke.

Sad but true

yea, unfortunately south-africa is becoming Zimbabwe II

You named it : attitude

Stop complaining and start acting ...

Eskom is pissing me off so hard now - each and every day for at leas 3 to 4 hours no juice.
Not only is it damaging the equipment, but when it starts up again, the antennas providing internet have at least another hour before they are booted and k( at )k

Its easy hey, stop paying your bill ... and don't allow them to sue you, SUE THEM .. pull them in front of a court ... you are paying for services not received, they are the lead group in false advertising, even sue them for the fish in your aquarium that died and the meat in your fridge that went bad ..
Get yourself one of those legal aid lawyers and go to court ..
Maybe your case alone is not going to make a difference, but if everybody does the same thing, Eskom will have to open their eyes or SA will have to open the market for other players.

Politics : absolutely true, i often ask myself the question if these people know what a school looks like from the inside ? but do you think it is that much better somewhere else ?
Where there is power, there is corruption .. .praise yourself lucky that our politicians know how to make a complete fool out of themselves ... gives us some comedy on TV ...

The only point where i will dissagree with you is the immigration.
I still believe that these people are not the cause of the high level of unemployement .. they do offer a nice excuse however.
If we take the Zimbabwe scenario now ... these people will have a VERY hard time finding a job and IF they would find one ... it would have been a job that no South African in the world wanted to do ... They didn't want to arrive in this mess, they didn't want to struggle to find food, and believe me that most of them DO want to go home but that psychotic retard is making life pretty hard there. Thabo must get onto his taxpayers money payed plane, fly to Harare and kick some Mugabe ass instead of taking his lame ass position of "lets wait and see" ..
Plus, just imagine how these people must feel ... having the run from their own country and not being welcome somewhere else .. pretty desperate situation don't you think ?

The Nigerians ... their presence doesn't bother me at all .. if you punch them in the face they will bleed the same blood as i do so they have the same rights as i have.
What bothers me however is that they are importing and selling all kinds of fake crap and for some reason they are being left alone.
I got fined for having 1 fake DVD in house (copy of Meet The Robinsons which i bought from a Gauteng seller om Gumtree) ...

Anyway .. point of it all is ... this is democracy ... and democracy is NOT the answer

Hmm... We really ARE too accepting of shit in this country. In France, I heard once that truck drivers go on strike in order to oppose ridiculous petrol price hikes. And the government gives in.

Like Paul, I have also given things a chance, but if a corrupt oke like JZ becomes the next prez, I dunno man... I'll probably have to jump ship and move on up outta here...

Ja, a lot of people will have to make a plan and get out of here.
A couple of days ago I also realized that I either know people, or have been a victim of some of the following crimes.
Armed robbery
BRUTAL Murders
Rape
Hi Jacking
ect ect,
Sick sick shit
The sadest part, most of the people here can relate!

people = power

the only thing we are lacking of is UNITY ... cos we couldn't care less about our fellow people ...

In France, the government had to give in to the public transport sector as well (yes, there it is safe to take the train or bus) .. what started out as a strike from the bus-drivers for a wage increase turned out to be a complete shutdown of the country, with even pilots from Air France joining the strike.

And because it was a peacefull and informed strike, they had the support from the people as well ... Chirac had his balls squeezed by the same people that elected him ..

I am actually quite sick of hearing that.

Why do I have to take action on something that I pay dearly for?

I pay taxes to have police, power, water, roads to drive on, etc

so why should I now also have to become a politician, policeman, councilman, electrician ?






easier said than done, ontop of it, theres some disclaimer that prohibits you from suing eskom


Theres scarcely enough power for us, now we got illegals, illegally taping into power spurces to get free electricity that you and I have to pay for.
We are battling as it is to fight our government for things we want, now we have to fight battles for illegal aliens too?

I think not.

Let them trek back to Zim and assisinate Mugabe and live happily ever after.

Nobody says that .. but since you are paying for it, you are entitled to some form of service to reach your standards and norms.
If you feel that these norms aren't reached, it is your right to complain and take action.
The public service sector is equal to the retail sector : if the quality isnt OK, bring it back and insist on something better ...
Without knowing it, you are putting yourself into a one-way-direction spiral ... and that direction is down.
The service isn't what it should be, you pay taxes and aren't happy, you don't want to complain cos you strongly believe that it has no use, thus the receiver will keep on charging taxes (since nobody complains), so your frustration will only grow bigger and bigger.

Nice practical example, the head of a policing forum from a Cape Tonian town (i think) had some months ago made notice of his frustration about the city not collecting the garbage on time (or not at all). No matter how much he complained, it didn't improve ... so one day he simply went to city hall and dumped all of his garbage in the middle of the building with the message : will somebody clean it up now ..
Service improved the next day





Its not because they put it in the disclaimer that it is legal.
If i have you sign a paper, with disclaimer, that you authorize me to shoot you .. i will still be charged for murder ...



Take any average township and you will have the source of power theft ... people are killed on daily bases because they try to mess around with the cable and trying to tap into power lines ... and those guys are South Africans ..
Start organizing those settlements and you will see that illegal aliens are just a small fraction of the problem

Crime is the main problem for me... and the bullshit that people can talk.

Yes, poverty will lead people to a life of crime... but when you're taking a R100 note out of someone's wallet that you just shot dead... was THAT because you were hungry? Did you have to poke out his eyes before you shot him? FUCK OFF AND DIE!!! The brutality and cruelty is fucked up!

We have the most un-educated people possible running our country. Just go and look at the qualifications that these people have... all honorary!

Yes, great stuff you were part of the struggle, that doesn't mean you DESERVE to be in parliament!

Unfortunately, i don't have an answer on this part.

Sadly i will have to agree with you, i'm puzzled on what pushes people over the limit to commit very often such inhumane crimes.

Breaking into a place is not enough, no, when all is stolen you go back and you torture the family.
Jacking somebodies car is apparantely not cool enoug anymore ... now you have to OR stab him OR shoot him ..
Where are the days where being a thief was still a skill (im not being pro-crime here ... just making a statement), where this artist tried to get into a house without anybody seeing him, where he went to steal that very precious necklace without leaving marks or waking up the people living there ..
Now, they drive into your house with a truck, kill everybody and will even steal your front door if it isn't attached properly.

I am however afraid that such levels of violence are very hard to fight.
Police has to act very strict and with a certain amount of controlled violence in order to fight such crimes, resulting in criminals simply arming them better !

You been watching way too many cat burglar movies ...

I admitt, i've added some romance ... because this topic was depressing ...

But you can't deny the fact that a thief in the past tried to avoid the spotlight ... now they do whatever it takes to make sure that the whole street is awake

This is another part of the problem. These okes fought for freedom for their people, but now that they are in power, they seem to have forgotten about them. how often do you hear about ol' Thabo doing some kind of outreach to the poor communities. The only time that there are some promises of change are during election campaigns, and afterwards, just about fuck all happens.

If you're face to face, odds being they've got a gun to your head anyways...

WTF We had no water this morning..... no warning, no notice, no advertisements... sweet f!#$%ng nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! not to mention being power shed last nite....

Phoned Ekhuruleni at 6am and no response phones are engaged......
The water pressure was so low that you had to wait half an hour to fill a cofee cup... someone genius musta realised its a working day and decided to give reduced pressure (around 6.50) No realising that everyone in the F!#$%ng area would be at the tap to get water... which means 2 drops per minute for each house

told you

Yeah, one of those cloned, copied BB guns which he would be trying to sell to you for a ridiculous price !

I can relate directly to the highlighted points...

But Unfortunately, I'll have to add the following on behalf of my family:

Aggrevaited Assault.
House breaking (6 seperate robberies in about 8 months - 2004, a dark time in my families history).
Sexual Intimidation (The threat of rape, but not the act itself).

Sheesh, I could go on and on.

I really wish something drastic would happen in this country.

Something like, a complete and unified 100% supported public protest by us tax payers who are just left to suffer at the hands of these bastard criminals while the big wigs in "Guvment" line their pockets.

We need to all show a united front that we are not happy with the state of our country and we are not prepared to accept this anymore.

How? I don't know.

But it needs to be something so big that it gets "Guvments" attention aswell as that of the world.

We are basically a very quiet and underplayed, humanitarian crisis.

And yes, I mean that with us living in the conditions we are, surround by such violence and brutal acts as infant rape, we are victims of a humanitarian crisis.

I for one, will NOT be raising my children in this country.

I keep looking for reasons to stay because I really love this country.

But then I read the news and remember why I am leaving.

Ever Changing times:



1948 - White Power.

1994 - Black power

2008 - No Power

rotfl