South Africa is a mess

Which golden age in particular?

www.history.com...

7 Influential African Empires
From ancient Sudan to medieval Zimbabwe, get the facts on seven African kingdoms that made their mark on history.

Your quite right though. South Africa has always been a bit of a write off, nobody wanted it until the farmers began using the land.

a reply to: incoserv

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

My personal opinion is that S. Africa is a preview of what they want to do here.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn

originally posted by: paraphi
South Africa was a brutal place with Apartheid, and a brutal place after that way of government was rightfully removed.

I have two anecdotes.

1. A friend visiting SA was advised not to stop at traffic lights due to the chance of carjacking.
2. A nurse I worked with, who was a white SA, left after members of his family were murdered - this was ten years ago.

South Africa is a deeply unpleasant, corrupt and frightening country.

It is hard to grow anything useful in a land that has been salted. It can be done with time, a regular influx of fresh clean water, and a salt tolerant crop.

Low fresh clean water availability, salt sensitive crops, and continual re-salting, will only produce a desert.

I don’t know what I would do if I came from an area where strangers showed up on our land, took over everything, enslaved my people, killed us, tormented us, and then claimed they did not understand why we hated them.

I would hope that I would understand that the past experiences should be learning experiences, and that some things should be warnings of things that should not be repeated. But I guess that would come with time, and trial and errors.

Wait, I live in America.

My bad.

Hey, every place on this planet has had the same problem. Your past experience is not what it really is. Mainly because you did not experience it. Please stop. Why are you and so many people diseased with toxic altruism? What can you do to cure something bad happening before you were alive? NOTHING. STOP IT. Your mentality is annoying. Instead of worrying about things that happened before you were alive, how about worrying about what is happening now, while you are actually alive?

I seem to remember a lady here when I first joined that said she was white and her family couldnt get out of SA and they were trying to figure out how to do a murder/suicide when they came for the kids rather than have them tortured and killed.

Lost track of her, dont know what happened.

a reply to: greendust

Maybe it is easy for you to dismiss it because you did not live it.

Unfortunately, I did live it.

It really did not happen that long ago.

I find it borderline humorous, though really sad, that you would command me to “STOP IT”. When that was exactly what I was requesting at the time.

I never questioned altruism, I did wonder why so many people were so full of hate, bigotry and racism. It didn’t stop, so I guess that is why I didn’t stop.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: greendust

Maybe it is easy for you to dismiss it because you did not live it.

Unfortunately, I did live it.

It really did not happen that long ago.

I find it borderline humorous, though really sad, that you would command me to “STOP IT”. When that was exactly what I was requesting at the time.

I never questioned altruism, I did wonder why so many people were so full of hate, bigotry and racism. It didn’t stop, so I guess that is why I didn’t stop.

Well then here is a bone for you to chew on. Was your fix of the situation a fix? It is evident that it was not. If you expect altruism in this scenario, I have seen too many actual murders by black south africans on white south africans to care anymore. Your solution is turning into outright murder. Maybe you should be looking toward your creator to explain these horrors instead of an internet bulletin board.

The status quo of humanity is horror and anguish. The more people ignore the nature that applies to human nature the more they behave like animals. The more people behave like animals the more that humanity suffers enmasse. Its a simple equation, but it seems its an equation that is impossible for far too many to solve these days. I will pray for you and your kind and I hope that my pathetic hope will change you and others that have confusion and murder in their hearts. Sadly I doubt it will help.

a reply to: greendust

You seem to be making a lot of assumptions.

You don't know anything about me or my life.

I will never reject prayer, however, I suggest you pray for yourself and your kind while you are praying.

a reply to: GAOTU789

more like brICs. and Argentina wants to join up badly

a reply to: TheToastmanCometh

Toastman,

Off topic, but you have a unique cockpit to view the world from "down there". You might consider putting up some threads about the scene in S America; it is practically a blank slate for the northern hemisphere in the sense that we hear very little about the daily life and perspectives.

Cheers

originally posted by: Dalamax
Africa has also hosted some quite powerful and advanced civilisation.

Kind of... Mainly because Egypt is the reason you can say that. Also, the Phoenicians created Carthage but once again really on the upper edge of Africa. Once you drop below the very top that had influences from trading with other empires north of Africa the advances drop off.

a reply to: Xtrozero

The geography of Africa is rather lacking in features that seem to go with the development of advanced civilizations. While Africa seems to have them at first glance, they really aren't the human friendly versions the other continents are blessed with.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: anonentity

I think we don’t have to go to the continent of Africa, to witness the collapse of our society.

We can find enough examples right here.

I think if we spent more time correcting the ills of our country in our own backyards we maybe, just may be, a shining example for other countries.

We live in a country where we had advantages that many in other countries did not have, and look at the mess we made.

I don’t know how we can hold others in this world to such high standards, when we had so much more, yet we have places and people near comparable to those that so many look down on.

We need to work on the telephone pole in our own eye, before criticizing the toothpick in someone else’s.

Just my personal opinion.

What comparisons are you trying to make? What is that so-called mess we made here in America that in any way can be aligned with what is going on in SA?

After Apartheid the new government applied a little apartheid back on the Whites that had lived there for many generations too. They broke up the farms and gave people little plots of farmland for their own. This destroyed 100,000 of the livelihoods of Blacks and created basically a dust bowl where once fertile farmland fed the country. These little plots were not used since the people who now owned them did not know how to farm or really wanted to. All leadership positions were moved away from Whites who were once again the experts in their fields and so everything just evolved into layers of corruption. Then came the Warlord gangs to fill the vacuum and so they control small areas with violence and constantly war back and for trying to gain the upper hand on other groups while the population just rots in their own filth now with no jobs, no food, and no future...

Is this how you see America is messed up too?

originally posted by: Irishhaf
I seem to remember a lady here when I first joined that said she was white and her family couldnt get out of SA and they were trying to figure out how to do a murder/suicide when they came for the kids rather than have them tortured and killed.

Lost track of her, dont know what happened.

That was like 8 years ago too. I remember the first-hand stories they were telling back then and it wasn't good. I think it is safe to assume it is even worst today.

a reply to: Xtrozero

I am sure there are problems in many countries in Africa, just as there are problems in many other countries on this planet, if not every country on this planet.

I prefer not to go looking at, or comparing how bad it is in someone else's backyard, until I have cleaned up the mess in my own.

Just how I personally see it.

originally posted by: Asktheanimals
SA did the world's first human heart transplant and had a nuclear arsenal, now they can't even keep the power on. Sadly predictable and while nobody can say apartheid was a good system what has replaced it is no improvement.

Apartheid was basically created in 1910 within SA's constitution and ended in 1990, 80 years later. Where SA failed was their answer was to replace all Whites with Blacks and not come together finally as one. It was a kind of reverse apartheid, but those who replaced the Whites did not have the skills, knowledge, and experience to continue on as one of the most powerful nations on earth and just let it all rust into a pile of crap.

a reply to: Xtrozero

SA has been a basket case for quite a while, now.

originally posted by: incoserv
I'm reminded of something I heard years ago regarding the Middle-east that I'll steal and passphrase here.

Maybe we should stop thinking about it as corruption, incompetence, and violent lawlessness and just call it "their culture."

It is their culture. Warring tribes is what it is. The Dutch formed a small settlement Cape Town, but it was controlled by a few rich Dutch. What this meant was the poor Whites had to travel out to find their own lands and did exactly what the warring tribes there did for 1000 years with each other and that was to go to war with them over and over to gain farmlands. That is kind of SA's history in a nutshell.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: Xtrozero

I am sure there are problems in many countries in Africa, just as there are problems in many other countries on this planet, if not every country on this planet.

I prefer not to go looking at, or comparing how bad it is in someone else's backyard, until I have cleaned up the mess in my own.

Just how I personally see it.

That is all nice, but it doesn't prevent you from recognizing a hellhole just because your country isn't perfect. I have done a lot of traveling and I saw some really bad places. Have you personally experienced what some of these places are like? I don't think so. For many, they are just a topic of a post and not physically real to them, but they are physically real and you should be able to understand and agree just how bad life can be for others.

a reply to: Xtrozero

I have never been to Africa. I am not saying what you saw there was bad.

I have been to many places in America, where I saw living conditions that were deplorable. While I can accept that things may be bad in Africa, and I feel sorry for what is going on there, I am more concerned and I choose to spend my time and energy addressing the problems here.

Personally, I find that many that want to discuss how bad things are anywhere else, while ignoring what is going on at home, will do little to make things better, because at least it is not as bad as it is in some other country.

We choose where we want to spend our time and energy. I would prefer that our time, energy, and money, be spent here first.

A thread of mine from back in 2010.
Ostensibly about Zimbabwe but it touches on the situation in South Africa from back then.

Some great contributions from our resident Saffer holfoldman.

It would help if I included the link!

www.abovetopsecret.com...