Moving to majority rule is only “cutting your own throat” if you are selfish, uncaring, tribalistic and generally not a nice fucking person.
Huh. Turns out they just made it worse for themselves. If there hadn’t been UDI and the Bush War, if instead, the White Rhodesians had been content to share (like fucking preschoolers can share) I doubt things would have gone the way they did.
Heads up - IT"S NOT!! Zimbabwe is a real country, and Rhodesia didn’t have a right to exist, because it was a racist undemocratic police state run by plague-bearing murderers. Good riddance, may North Korea and Saudi Arabia and all others go the same way.
I have no love for the United States, no. But that’s not why, the current US certainly seems to be trying to make up for the past. It doesn’t *still * actively oppress the Native Americans by government action, to the best of my knowledge.
When non-property owners got the vote, people who owned property had less power. When women got the vote, men had less voting power. When the rights of black voters were guaranteed in a real way, they took part of the voting power whites and others had had. You’re welcome to try to convince me that each of those groups decided it was in their own best interest to give up a significant chunk of their ability to enforce their interests, but I don’t think you’re going to succeed. It probably served the interest of justice and fairness much more than it served their interests. In any case the example still disproves what Argent Towers said. If the U.S. could do it, the white people in Rhodesia could have done it. They didn’t.
It’s only been 20 years. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
What, exactly, is wrong with the ANC? It was almost solely responsible for the end of apartheid. That sort of goodwill goes a long way.
Yes, that’s a problem - but since nobody else has managed to figure out AIDS, it’s a bit unfair to lambast a developing economy for not doing it.
I don’t have the slightest fucking clue what you’re talking about here. It’s a failed state because you don’t see it on TV? Really? How often do you hear about Switzerland on TV? How about Belgium? Malaysia? New Zealand?
Look at them and… what? It’s not a particularly rich country, sure. Perhaps you forget that it was under UN sanctions for 30-odd years? 25% unemployment? Education? Well, of course; the government is still rebuilding a segregated school system that wasn’t very good to begin with.
Huh? The ANC is behind the land reform stuff, mostly. And where not, they don’t have it their way, see my earlier post.
Crime is decreasing. So’s HIV rates
Treatment is free. Call me when that’s the case elsewhere.
Fucking diamonds? You have to be joking!
Think chrome, steel, platinum, rare earths. South Africa is a frigging resource powerhouse. Diamonds are so last century.
Errrm, you’re aware that *every *adult Swiss is in the Army, right? The manage one just fine.
How often do you see Liechtenstein? That’s a stupid criterion to judge a country by.
So what? The unemployment % doesn’t mean the same thing here as it does in the States or Europe with our large informal sector(and hey, how’re some of those economies doing, anyway? Spain? Portugal? Greece? Macedonia? Kosovo? Bosnia?)
Mostly, I’m reminded of the humans in Animal Farm who kept going on about how the animals were starving and wouldn’t last a season…
No-one’s kicking white folk out. There are at least 3 other Cape Town dopers, and they’re all White and they’re all here. Ask grimpixie why he came back from the UK, or ask **ctnguy **why he’s still here.
I can differentiate just fine. And I do that based on behaviour.
One of my best friends is ex-Zimbabwean. Dad lost his farm in the recent troubles, too. But I would never call her a Whenwe or anything like that. You know why? Because *she *isn’t a racist apologist and knows the previous regime was evil.
I don’t. I call them “states” (or “commonwealth” where that applies)
But you don’t call it that now, and “British Mandate of Palestine” shouldn’t have existed any more than Rhodesia.
I’m aware of this, and I, myself, have used Rhodesia in that sense many times in this thread alone.
But saying “the former Rhodesia” rather than “Zimbabwe” is just confrontational and, frankly, patronizing, bullshit. At best.
No. I don’t. My life, and those of my countrymen, has been made measurably worse by the direct activities of the United States and its agents in its misguided proxy wars.
Well, there’s no reason to sound all proud of it.:rolleyes:
Just to chime in with regard to kicking white folks out. I know some temporary and permanent migrants to South Africa from here who absolutely love it over there. To a European at least, South Africa has a buzz about it right now. The 2010 Soccer World Cup was held in South Africa. That in itself refutes CitizenPained’s point #6.
I’d like to clarify the use of “whenwe”, as some people seem to have misunderstood. It refers (in the case of Zimbabwe) to those who left in the early 80’s because of the onset of majority rule. Not to those who were driven out in more recent years because of actual adverse action by Mugabe’s regime. MrDibble is not acting callously to those people.
I suppose I should admit that I’m planning to go to Europe next year to do my PhD. But that’s because there’s no-one in this country who could supervise it, and I do plan to return.
I’m pointing out the failure to address and then properly deal with the issue.
I was trying to highlight the image. Sorry. No need to get all fucking mouthy.
Dems de facts, is all.
And he still benefits.
Really? I’m history teacher and I don’t tell my students that the Louisiana Purchase was, you know, the state of Louisiana. I most certainly don’t reference Texas pre-war as “the state of Texas”.
But it did. For a long time. And the Ottoman Empire once existed, too. They are points of reference.
btw, I call “Burma” Myanmar in casual conversation, but reference Burma when I’m talking about it to a general audience. I say “UK” when I mean the UK and I say “Great Britain” when I mean GB. I also say “Northern Ireland” when appropriate…
No doubt.
It is if you have to take it that way. I wouldn’t call Zimbabwe “the former Rhodesia” when speaking to a friend of mine from Zimbabwe…unless we were talking about it in context.
What is that you’re typing from again?
I’d love to go kick it in South Africa. I’ve been in <3 with South Africa since high school. That doesn’t mean the rest of the world sees the country as having any kind of power or the government as being ‘legitimate’ in a political sense. I’m not saying that the current government wasn’t elected - but when you have a guy (Mbeki) denying the very obvious (like seeking the company ofAIDS denialists) its hard to take it seriously. Kind of like when Ahmadinejad was going on about how the Holocaust was a hoax. :dubious:
You’re misusing the word, then. “Legitimate” has a specific meaning that does not resemble the way you’re using it right now. The international community recognizes that the government in South Africa is legitimate. What you’re talking about is respect, I think. Mbeki didn’t get much respect because his stance on AIDS was batshit insane. That doesn’t mean his government was not legitimate.
Fine. There’s legit and there’s take seriously. There’s also legitimate government as in one you deal with or recognize and then there’s legitimate in the Lockean sense. The apartheid government wasn’t legit since it clearly violated rights and for a revolution, but the apartheid government was legit in the sense that it was the recognized government.
Now the new government is sliding into dangerous territory. Is the ANC still legit or is it just failing?
Except the people I’m talking about aren’t retirees who can live in a place somewhat innoculated from the economic status quo, they’re young, ambitious workers.
See, there is a point at which the goodwill runs out.
And that has fuck-all to do with the context here - the context being Zimbabwe.
It’s like talking about political trouble in, I don’t know, Kosovo, and always refrain from mentioning the word and insisting on calling it “the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija” as much as possible. It’s a political statement. A telling one.
A Chinese computer over the CERN-originated Web, carried over a European undersea cable, actually. Oh, sure, we use your ARPANET-originated protocols, so what?
I used to drive a VW, does that mean I should be grateful to Hitler, too?
**How the fuck, exactly, is the South African government not legitimate? It is certainly a definite amount more legitimate than the previous US regime (installed by loaded court fiat).
Or Bush was insisting Iraq had WMDs? Or anything to do with 9/11? Like that? Do you actually think Ahmadinejad *believes *what he says about Jews?
But it doesn’t matter -see, the point about a *real *government, a “legitimate” government, is even if you *do *get someone like Mbeki, who is clearly in the wrong on a big issue (not that he didn’t have “scientific advisors” who told him he was right, so it’s not *entirely *his own fevered imagining), Mbeki isn’t in charge now and the government has completely reversed its AIDS policy. See, that’s a real democracy in action - I’d say the AIDS issue was a big part of why Mbeki got ousted. So the system works.
Once again - ask the Brazilian, Russian, Indian and Chinese governments.
Or the World Bank, or the UN, or FIFA, or any number of businesses that have no problem operating here. I don’t think you know what it means for a government to be “failing”. Or is the US a failed state, because it has plenty of political nutjobs worse than Mbeki or Zuma. One of them was in the running for VP not too long ago, you betcha. Or was the UK a failed state because the Labour government collapsed?
Shifty McGoalposts anyone? My point was to address the idea that whites were being hounded out of the country. South Africa isn’t a demagogic, complete disaster, if it were, nobody (from Western Europe at least) would emigrate there.
Think of, for example, Italy under Berlusconi. Berlusconi is seen outside of Italy as a egomaniacal, corrupt, sex-crazed buffoon, yet his country for all its problems sits amongst the more powerful and influential in the world. One dodgy leader in a democracy doesn’t cancel out everything else good and great about it.
I most certainly don’t reference Texas pre-war as “the state of Texas”.