Agriculture Trade Performance Review Q4 2010:
Figure 1 in the document shows that the only year in the last decade in which South Africa was a net importer of food was 2007.
Not relevant. They’re building them now. And power plants are the sort of major infrastructure projects that have decades-long lead times.
Increased industrialization, increased urbanization, increased electrification of the poor, increased standard of living of the not-so-poor. Several stations put in mothballs at the end of the Ancién Regime. Simple.
Wiki is your friend. ETA: or ctnguy.
There’s nothing ad hoc about those reasons. They’re all commonly acknowledged.
Well, if it wasn’t the fault of the old regime, then it would be only in the last 16 years, right? That* is* overnight in hydrological terms. And I (and every other geologist on the moines) knew AMD was a problem for Rand Water in the late 80s already. That “old regime”-enough for you?
Not at all. I don’t like the ANC even a little bit.
It’s perfectly relevant when the whole thread is about what a “unique” set of fuckups SA and Zim are. Pointing out that water supply is a worldwide problem is not a case of tu quoque, it doesn’t lessen the extent of the problem, it only addresses the needless fingerpointing.
And I notice you ignore the even more relevant point about new dams.
I think you’ll find that the majority of *everything *is still in the hands of middle-aged White men, actually, from companies to farms.
I disagree that the disparity is growing. South Africa has always been a fundamentally inequitable society, but a rising Black middle class is making it less so. You’re flat-out wrong.
They do a better job than the nats. As I’ve pointed out in these threads before, South Africa is measurably better off in every way - economically, socially - except AIDS and some sorts of crime. And getting better every year, even in those fields.
It’s better on every level.
They are not.
I’m not hung up on Apartheid. Apartheid is a very real fact one has to take into account when explaining the situation in SA. Anyone who glosses over it as a reason for most anything to do with SA is the one not being objective.
Don’t know. Possibly PL is a disgruntled White South African? I dunno his connection.
I’ll follow suit and summarily dismiss your entire post as not relevant, even if it was, like the point I made.
You wish! I can just as easily say I don’t know your connection to the ANC, but maybe you’re a high-ranking party member. You claim otherwise? So what, you’re claiming a bunch of other bs as fact too, and it isn’t, but you can’t get around your hatred and argue facts without emotion.
What do those labels mean?
The capacity of power installed post-Apartheid is irrelevant to the point that they’re building the plants now, which was my point. You said 16 years was long enough to build a couple of power plants. I pointed out that it really isn’t. You came back with a question on how much power had been installed post-apartheid. How is that relevant to my point? I never claimed that they’d built them, only that they’re building them now, and that 16 years really isn’t a long time for major infrastructure.
No, I really, really don’t.
So, if not a disgruntled White South African, are you a disgruntled Black South African? Any kind of South African at all? A recent immigrant? Anything?
Except I’ve explicitly stated otherwise, and my location and relationship to SA is open record on this board. Your beef, not so much.
Let’s say it’s not a casual past-time on the Dope to pop into Southern Africa threads and spout off the lingo without some connection to the place. It’s usually people with questions (like Brainglutton), people who I know live here (me, ctnguy, grimpixie), others with some connection (evensven’s coming out here soon, AT maintains an abiding interest in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe), and then the serial race realists like Chen and that lot. But you’re not one of those groups that I can tell. And you don’t post very frequently, yet this topic interested you and you seem to think you know about the place. So either current or ex-resident springs to mind.
Are you calling me a liar? Show where I’ve lied, then. Point to the “bs as fact” that I’ve claimed.
What “hatred” would that be, pray tell?
The old Apartheid government? Well, yeah, I guess I hated them, but they’re hardly relevant anymore, and the ones that mattered are dead.
Or did you have a more general object of my “hatred” in mind? I can’t help but feel that you’re hinting at something, but I just can’t put my finger on it…:dubious:
BEE=Black Economic Empowerment
AA=Affirmative Action
EE =Economic Empowerment(I guess?)
Then we disagree I guess.
I don’t see the relevance. Our skin colors need not come into this discussion any more than apartheid.
I am not in the habit of disclosing personal information on forums, not about to start now.
Spout off lingo? Some abbreviations? I think you’re connecting dots that aren’t connected. I’m sorry I don’t fall into some easily categorizable group for you to recognize and stereotype.
I apologize for:
having been bored at work yesterday
having previously read about Southern Africa
You made several claims about improvements in South Africa which are arguable, yet you stated as fact. Including the OP matter, which I think only time will reveal.
Yes. Nothing more, I’ve seen posts from you before on this forum and I think you are an intelligent poster capable of arguing very well, but on this particular topic you seem to be including more emotion then it requires.
If we wish to conclude that life in SA has been a bowl of peaches and cream since apartheid ended, fine. But I don’t think it’s constructive to approach the OP in the way it was done.
If I hear somebody who might be South African badmouth the ANC, the first thing I think of is “opposition.” At present, the main opposition party to the ANC is the Democratic Alliance.
Ya know, I’m not South African and I don’t know either you or Mr Dibble but in this thread I’m seeing a lot more emotive responses in your posts than in his.
I’m just sayin’.
And your experience with big infrastructure projects is…?
I was only going for completism. The real question was: what is your experience with South Africa?
Pffl. You’re willing to lay your lovelife all out in the open on public fora, but when it comes to a simple question about standing, you get all coy? It’s your prerogative, I guess, but it certainly doesn’t reassure me as to your motives.
BEE is a very SA-local term.
I don’t need to do that. Your posts stand for themselves.
Like I said, I’ve previously cited the economic facts etc. As to the power plant thing, you still haven’t shown where I’m wrong.
Time isn’t needed. All that is needed is to note the differences between SA and Zimbabwe.
Hating Apartheid =/= defending the ANC regardless of facts.
No-one’s said that. What has been said is
a) it’s not as bad as people overseas might have read
b) it’s getting better all the time
c) it’s not exclusively (or even mainly) the ANC’s fault that it’s not
d) it was measurably worse under Apartheid.
Those are all things I said, and I stand by them.
What, with facts and the view from the actual country under discussion?
You should note* I’m* exclusively a DA voter.
Why? That is, from a South African voter’s POV, what’s the difference between the two parties?
Less corrupt politicians, generally smarter politicians (note that the common “Politician = Lawyer/Businessman” part of US culture isn’t as prevalent here. Helen Zille, DA leader, was a journalist, for example) and a proven track record of service delivery in my home province and city.
Any differences in fundamental goals, ideology or political culture?
And what do you think are the DA’s future prospects? Is there any conceivable scenario where the ANC could lose a significant part of its 65% vote share? Or split into two or more parties? SA will be a one-party democracy (like Mexico under the PRI) at the national level until one or the other happens.
The ANC already spilt a year or two ago when Zuma forced Mbeki into early retirement. IIRC some long standing members felt that the Zuma’s ANC was too left-wing and started a whole new party. Meet the Congress of the people (COPE) an economically liberal (center right) alternative to the ANC and the third biggest party in South Africa.
Edited for concision.
It is sad to say, but the ANC is basically a black party and the DA is basically a non-black party. In the recent municipal elections, the DA increased its percentage of black voters from 2% to 5%. They got around 23% of the overall vote, which is coincidently close to the percentage of non-black voters in the country as a whole.
Using broad brush strokes, I would say that the ANC is leftist, while the DA is rightist - the DA believes in a meritocracy with equality of oppurtunity and access, while the ANC believes that policies such as BEE are needed to redress the inequalities of the past. The DA is generally pro-business, while the ANC is pro-poor (at least in their rhetoric).
COPE has been a major disapointment - it has turned out to be a refuge for ANC members with an axe to grind and has been plagued by in-fighting and court battles between it’s two figurehead leaders.
Historically ANC voters have preferred to boycott elections rather than vote for other parties, and I think it will take a long, long time for this to change.
Grim
Oh yes. The ANC is still at heart strongly Leftist with some moderates, largely run by relatively uneducated men, and has its strongest base in the poor. The DA is Center-Liberal, has a less-man-heavy leadership, and is generally a party of the middle class. It’s also more technocratic.
I think they will grow as the middle class does, which seems to be the current trend. If they take another province in the future, they will be set.
Severe economic hardship might do it, I think.
It’s not so much the ANC itself splitting that’s likely (COPE is really just a small splinter group, not a split per se) as the ANC-CP-COSATU alliance splitting. Like I’ve said, the strongly leftist COSATU contingent really, really don’t like the corrupt, self-enriching demagogues like Malema. But on the other hand, the ANC “Youth” League is strongly in the demagogues’ pocket.
SA is not a one-party democracy now. Just because one party has a consistent majority does not make a country a one-party state. It misuses the idea in an obfuscatory fashion. IMO.
That’s why I called it a "one-party democracy" and compared it to Mexico under the PRI, not Cuba under the Communists. The PRI could be, and very eventually were, knocked out of power by an ordinary election.
But it’s not. “clear majority” =/= “one party”