Any reason other than “anti-Zionism” (I’m using a euphemism here)
Any reason other than patriotism?
You still need to explain (to me at least) what the difference is.
Not that I’m aware of - and that is speaking as a white male South African, according to you, the target of all this prejudice, discrimination and disadvantage. I’m doing OK thanks - living with my family in a middle class suburb, in a comfortable three bedroom house, working at my middle class job, much like my parents did before me
Be careful about changing people usernames - he is MrDibble - warnings have been issued before where it has been deemed to be derogatory (as I would read this instance to be.
And I think that is a gross mis-characterisation of his position - he has quite clearly stated that he is opposed to many of the ANC policies and actions, as demonstrated by his voting against them.
Cite?
Yeah. I like living in a country that isn’t a hypocritical warmonger, for starters. And I like living in one where there is no death penalty and gays can get married nationwide. Little things like that.
[QUOTE]
It’s on a scale or continuum. The AA policies of the U.S. are drastically different than that of South Africa. That part should be obvious. I can’t walk into a federal office and say, “I’m of a disadvantaged race and this is my country. Give me some $$$ for (insert cause here).”
Here’s the thing: When you have two dirt-poor South Africans and one is black and the other is white, the black one now has a significant leg up.
If I decide to invest in South Africa and start a business there, I have to be careful about how many white people I employ.
It’s what I gathered from SA government websites. I thought that if you were white, you didn’t check “African”? I’m curious…?
Thanks to the oppressors before you!
Just because you are not poor off does not mean that you are not the target of racism or discrimination.
These people probably don’t feel like you do.
I’ve been reading it as “Mr Dribble” the entire time!
Well, I’ve seen him quite clearly state, “fuck em” and apologize for all of the ANC criticisms I’ve put forth.
That he’s criticized the corruption of the ANC?
RE: The original premise of the thread:
South Africa Fails to Meet Land Claims Target
Dibble asked how I measured failure or success. Well, there you go.
Where do you live? Clearly not rural South Africa. It’s not like gays aren’t discriminated against in South Africa!
…Or the government hasn’t supported questionable regimes, like Iran and Libya. I’m sure South Africa would be all over Palestine, liberating everyone and taking back East Jerusalem if they had the military power to do so.
:rolleyes:
edit: I would call Zuma’s criticism of Libya weak moreso than ‘being supportive’.
Neither is that the case in South Africa - land claims are tortuously slow for example, many lie unresolved after 17 years.
And yet unemployment is over 40% among black people and only 6% for whites (Cite).
As MrDibble has explained, that is only the case if you are a very large company, a very wealthy company or if you base your business upon getting tenders from the government - and even then, if you were a bigot, you could up your BEE score by employing lots of white women and disabled people.
Ironically, the government still uses the broad racial classification developed under Apartheid, so you are asked to classify yourself as white, asian (indian), coloured or black - the reasoning behind this is that it is the only way to measure whether the upliftment policies are working - if you don’t know how many people formerly classified as black are in poverty now, how do you know if anything has changed?
How true this is - because of the colour of my skin, the government spent 10 times as much on my education as they did on a black persons, I had access to subjects like Mathematics, Science and Latin, they were taught gardening and needlework, my teachers all had four year degrees, some had PhDs, Black teachers mostly had a Training College Diploma, some barely had High School certificates. It is no surprise that I was able to qualify for and afford a University Degree and ended up in a middle-class job.
I don’t deny that there is some discrimination - some companies, especially in the late 90’s did incredibly stupid things to be seen to be promoting racial equality, appointing people who did not have suitable skills to promotion positions where they screwed things up and moved on to the next company desperate to have a black face on the board.
The “fuck em” was directed at the big bosses of big companies that profited from exploiting the black population under the Apartheid government - and justly deserved in my opinion.
Your claim was “Nelson Mandela has accused the ANC of being as racist as the former apartheid government” not that he thinks they’re as corrupt or that there is racism amongst blacks.
So, because South Africa is taking its time, treading carefully and ensuring fairness in its land claim process and it is therefore taking longer than expected, it is going to end up like Zimbabwe?
Grim
That’s not how euphemisms work. In the future, please don’t imply other posters are anti-Semites.
Grim, calm down. I never said that Africa would ‘end up like Zimbabwe’, but I did note the failures of land reform. You can extend that deadline all you want, but at what point does it fail? The failure of land reform is what some may cite as reason for this new (renewed?) fear. I don’t object to trying to redistribute land, but as some have pointed out, not all sellers were willing and not all prices were fair. I’ve also objected to the way in which it was done - giving land to unskilled workers or not paying out claims is just bad bad bad.
I do believe Dibble had some ‘fuck it’ comments regarding that issue as well. Like it or not, those white farmers (of which 3,000 have been killed since 94 is what I’ve been reading - is that true?) are still citizens of your country.
Six per cent of whites (the tiny minority here) are unemployed - but that’s also a rising number. My point is that the SA’s economic policies (BEE and otherwise) is just bad government and bad economics. It’s OK for foreign investors to have a say in arable land, but not white *citizen *farmers?
Egads.
The ANC does a good job of keeping racial divides…and pocketing cash for its elite.
Re: racism, to me, all racism is racism, so sorry if I appeared to mis-represent Mr. Mandela.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Eastern-Cape-ANCYL-backs-Malema-20110607
You don’t have to be El Jefe to have power.
You can’t do that here, either.
That must be why the Black unemployment rate is so much less than the Whites…oh, wait, no, it’s not.
Depends on the size of the business.
Of course, if you did your hiring colourblind, this wouldn’t be a problem as on average things should sort out along demographic lines. EE is there because hiring wasn’t colourblind. And frequently still isn’t. Apparently some people don’t want people who might “work black,” as another poster put it in another thread.
I haven’t “apologized”, I’ve corrected errors of fact.
And as for big corporates like the mines, yeah, fuck 'em. They were quite happy to use migrant labour, completely tear apart the rural fabric of the country, exacerbate the spread of AIDS and enforce racist jobs-for-Whites policies when it suited them. When I started out as a geology student, I wasn’t even allowed to work as a mine geologist if I qualified. By the time I finished varsity, that had only just changed.
You just don’t get it - B-BBEE isn’t being imposed on some sort of level playing field, as a punishment to Whites. It’s there to gradually get to a level playing field. The field is still very strongly tilted the other way, especially in business and industry. I go to my wife’s company (an engineering consultancy) and it’s middle-aged White men in all the corner offices. My current company, I’m the only non-White developer out of 20. B-BBEE isn’t how I’d choose to do things, but that’s not the same as saying it is something it isn’t. Check your privilege.
“failing to meet (your own damn internal) land claims targets” is not the same as “destined to become Zimbabwe 2” which is the actual premise of the thread.
A strawman that has nothing to do with my point.
Define “support”. I’m sure we don’t prop them up militarily, the way the US does for many dodgy regimes.
:rolleyes: I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t. We would make the Palestinian’s case in the UN. Like, you know, a civilized country. Never mind that there are lots of other threads for you to take your Zionist crap to.
Regime change at gunpoint is an American game.
Perfectly calm. The question asked in the OP is whether SA is heading in the same direction as Zimbabwe, so when you say “RE: The original premise of the thread:” and give a cite, it is reasonable to presume you are addressing the question raised in the OP.
I’ve said it before - there is much about ANC policy that I dislike, for example, I think BEE is mis-directed and has advantaged a few rather than the many. There is much that is still horribly wrong with the country - AIDS, crime, paternalistic attitudes, misogyny, etc. But none of this is insurmountable, most of it is being addressed at a national level, and my answer to the OP is “No, it isn’t”
So civilized you didn’t want to sanction Iran?
South Africa doesn’t have the cajones or the power to institute regime change. The ANC can’t even manage its own scum.
edit: Governments that rely solely on the U.N. for diplomacy are weak.
“Have power” =/= “in power”
Ah, see, I took “Zimbabwe” to mean the land reform issue, not a mass uprising against whites…I guess that’s been stuck in my head (redistribution v. restitution) as it was the topic for a few pages.
Q: Can the ANC ‘disown’ a party member? Why doesn’t it do so with Malema? I’m not familiar with the rules of party politics in South Africa. The DNC here is hard enough to keep track of…
Wait, your definition of “support” is “not sanction”? And sanction them for what, exactly? Not being in the US’s good books? You’d hate our support of Cuba, then.
So, not a warmongering nation, then. Thanks for agreeing with me.
Governments that rely on military might are thugs.
Mmhmm. Tell it to Americans who detest Karl Rove.
Whose payroll is this character on?
That article is about the internal politics of the ANC Youth League. I don’t see how it says anything about Malema having power outside the YL.
There are sanction rules in place, yes.
a) Because he’s popular with a large constituency
b) they have sanctioned him internally - more than once, IIRC.
But you feel free to tell us what it’s like to really live here :smack:
So you’re OK with Iran’s oppressive and bigoted regime of terror?
Spoken like a guy who comes from a country with a dickless military. Like I said: you don’t even control your own domestic front…so your government relies on fear and smoke screens to stay in power.