You paint an optimistic picture of SA. I don’t believe that SA will survive long after 2010.

You touched on some of the reasons that support the reason I believe such, but the crippling stuff, the stuff that darkens the light at the end of the tunnel, is:

EE, AA and BEE policies: The concept isn’t even all that great to start with, but the execution is even worse. Any non-AIC candidate who has taken a brief look into purchasing a franchise can tell you some horror stories. Why is it, that a Zimbabwe born emigrant of 3 years, who recently got their citizenship, is a more pleasing candidate than a white guy, whose family has been in the country for more than 400 years? The Zimbabwe born AIC candidate, can buy Multi-choice preference shares, by only producing 20% of the capital… the white guy, can’t do that. There are many stories like this. What would skilled white guys want to come back to? A country that they were born in, but they are not afforded opportunities because of their skin colour?

Corruption: I actually don’t know how to measure this one. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and what is corrupt these days? Really, I mean everyone, including members of parliament are always on about corruption, but who is corrupt? Why are they corrupt?
All I can remember about this topic, is that it hinders effect policy creation. Why do X, when you can do Y, and make a lot more money for it? That’s a simple definition I can understand, and when X is the right thing to do for the country and Y is not that bad, or even worse, we’ll have a string Y decisions, and not a single X. I don’t think your example of traffic control enforcing is a good one. I think you’re being way to optimistic. The threat of losing ones license and having to go through the red tape of obtaining a new “legitimate? license, is enough to turn anybody into a “lunch buying? citizen, the type that will gladly fork out R100 for “cold drink? to any officer threatening to deduct 4 points from his/her license. A more pessimistic view would be that the traffic department will be now loaded with a more effective tool for extorting motorists across the country. The “revenue inflow? will still be there, oh yes, even worse than before! I constantly try book an appointment for my girlfriend’s learner’s test, just a learner’s test. I am yet to be successful after 6 months of trying. The economic impact of this new AARTOA, will be that under the counter ‘legitimate’ driving licenses will go up in price, and “spot fines? will be increased by 40%.

Sheer number of impoverished individuals: The problem is that there are just fewer than 50 million people in SA. How many of them are impoverished? Considering that we have an unemployment statistic of 25-30%? My point is that every impoverished person, needs, health care, education, a place to sleep, food, drinking water, transport and safety. These issues need to be addressed on a mass scale and provided by the government, and they’re not being provided. The tax money that needs to be spent on these issues, are generated by a much smaller group of people who do not enjoy those government provided services and have to pay for those very benefits which are then provided by the private sector. Anyway, my point is that there are great deals of impoverished individuals that need to be educated to elevate themselves, they can’t be educated on empty stomachs or when they are sick… it’s a vicious circle, and the remedy is rendered useless by a larger vicious circle, one of “corrupt decision making?, and “skilled would be job creators leaving the country?.

It won’t take an “okay? government to keep this country “muddling? along; it would take an awesome government, just to keep this country a float.

I will say that I am uncertain where the country is heading. I have been living (mostly unhappily) in New Zealand for the past two years and have always been mulling a return to South Africa.

The things stopping me are

1. Affirmative action
2. Crime and more to the point, the government’s lack of action on the matter.

In my two years here I read as much news as I can about the country and it seems to be that there has been a significant increase in the brutality and instances of violent crime and am steadily losing any faith that the ANC government is transparent or fair. (Cape Town / DA issue, renaming of airport etc ad nauseum).

Whilst I try to remain positive and dearly want to come home, I fear that unless government gets a firm grip on crime for one thing, it will spiral out of control and take the FDI, prestigious events and skills with it.

I think that there is a culture of greed and materialism that has replaced the revolution.

The interview by Carte Blanche with the hijacker hinted at this.

He said that they hijack not for survival but for excess, greed, materialism and envy. They see a guy at a club with a fast car and smart suit and they want to be like him. He said the money he got from hijacking was all spent on ladies, brothels and ‘boogeying’. Survival? Our lives are taken in the pursuit of greed and materialism not survival.

The high rape statistics is just a different form of sicknesss that we suffer from. People dont rape out of poverty.

The death penalty could certainly help reduce the crimes committed that are done for greed and materialism. I understand that the ‘survival’ crimes might not stop.

I used to be an optimist. But I am now tending towards the pessimist end of the spectrum. There is just too much crime to be optimistic. It just takes one incident to ruin your life forever.

Hi Derikboy, late response but nevertheless.

I can’t disagree with what negatives you highlight myself. Some of them are certainyl problems and major drags and I did admittedly move quickly over more pertinent issues, like crime, because they are so heavily discussed elsewhere.

However what I do try do is to assess whether the negatives and positives offset each other enough to come out with a positive. Admittedly I’m not sure about that anymore.

I’ll also admit that I am now getting tired of aspects like the crime and am losing confidence in the government’s ability to control it or to overcome crime lords infiltration of it. I’m young and I do have confidence in myself to endure or deal with crime or problems like BEE, however of recently I’ve crossed a certain age in my life and need to start thinking about what happens when I want to marry and have kids. And I do know that I do not want to have or at least raise children while living in Johannesburg because of the toxic social environment it presents for such children.

I’m not going to say that I have a great love for the country and all but it is difficult transplanting oneself in a foreign environment and culture. In some ways if they can get their act together on critical issues even if they don’t on others the country can still move forward but that takes proper leadership and management now.

It seems to me South Africans are waiting for something big to happen either way.

The optimistic ones are hoping for something amazingly positive to happen which will make the country great. The pessimists are expecting a couple of disasters similar to the Zimbabwean situation.

I personally think neither of these will happen, I think SA will slowly continue losing pace with the rest of the world over the next couple of decades.

I agree Dave. For most people it takes a serious taste of the crime in South Africa to say, “That’s it, I’m outta here.” But I still think that it won’t be a slow decline for much longer.

It’s like a debt trap, when you have to start borrowing money to make interest payments on existing debt. How do you get out of such a situation? In the same light, how do you deal with the cycle of problems in South Africa?

How do you tackle poverty off the back of crime, and then that off the back of poor education, and that off the back of non-existant health care, and that off the back of incompetent ministers, off the back of a corrupt government, off the back of… I spoke of these in my last post. It’s just a cycle of problems inside another cycle of problems. When things are as irreparable as this, the rate of decline will only accelerate. The only thing that is slowing the deceleration, is the pending world cup… after that, who and what be for South Africa?

And Wayne, that’s another valuable point you bring to light, what about when our generation wants to marry? Our wives will be protected by an understaffed and corrupt police department, our children educated by a lacking system, and raised in a society where they aren’t afforded opportunities by the majority due to their skin colour… that makes me smile for some reason, but it actually scares me to think about it, and I’m resolved never to get married in this country now as a means of defence. As Steve summarised “It just takes one incident to ruin your life forever. ”

Well, there are positives and negatives of all countries…this we tend to forget being very critical South Africans.
I now live in the Netherlands for the last 1.5 years, yes I have a job here and it is a nice county to live in with very little crime, and a well organised social system. However, I went to a doctor today expecting to be referred to a hospital for further investigation…no this did not happen. Returning to work and complaining to my collegue. He mentioned the fact that there was not enough money for this. Yes, this is a first world country and ye they also have problems. We have to make a choice and then make it work.
I miss South Africa, and of course there are problems. But problems need to be solved, this might take a long time, but patience and hope is needed.

Well it concerns me, Sue, when people abroad don’t compare apples with apples. We had a Canadian Economics lecturer once do a speech at some course I did a couple of years ago, and she got all upset about “South Africans” complaining about crime when they are content to “pay a spot fine to avoid traffic tickets”. So she was comparing THAT to the CRIME we complain about and emigrate over.

So when you say “there are positives and negatives of all countries” you can’t just group the negatives into one heep and say it’s a negative. You have to realise that you can’t compare “A shortfall on the medical budget” to “The murder of a woman, her mother and her 9 month old baby all in the same hi-jacking for a car”. It’s not the same thing. People are constantly telling me “Oh, there is crime everywhere!” but you can’t compare “Normal Crime” to “South African Crime”. Where else in the world do you find vitriolic crimes like in SA? Perhaps you may find them in one or two places where the country is at war or in the middle of an ethnic cleansing?