pdohr

just came across this website: http://www.africancrisis.org/Home.asp

I´ve never been in South Africa and can´t assess whether the information
on this site is authentic or not.. But if it is, then anyone wanting to
emigrate to SAR must be a nutter... uuuuurrrrrrgggghhhhh!!!!

Sweet Chilli

When you've finished reading all the negative reports on South Africa try reading some positive ones. Like any country South Africa has some good points and some bad points:

http://www.sagoodnews.co.za/search/quick_stats/

TouristTrap

All a bunch of bullocks that came off the Homecoming Revolution site when it first started, and has been disproven over the years.

pdohr, everything and more.

I posted a thread last week. The Vice President of S.A. last week told people that S.A. has learned much from Zimbabwe on how to get rid of commercial farmers. She might as well have said that this is a sure-fire way to plunge the country into civil war, bringing famine, basically, as that is what it amounts to in the end.

Sweet Chilli

Izibear, you're extremely tiresome, everyone knows that if a country was in as bad a situation as you always make out then there would be no foreign investment, people wouldn't travel there as tourists and South Africans living abroad wouldn't go back and visit their families. Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but when you sound like a scratched record and don't offer a balanced opinion you're just not being realistic.

Yes there is a crime issue (predominantly in the townships), yes there is an AIDs issue and yes it might be difficult for a white male without good skills or qualifications to get a job. How "rosy" is the USA?

Pablo

...No, that just doesn't follow.

Pablo

Sweet Chilli

...meaning?

Pablo

Ok, let's pick it apart. But before we do that let's note that "everyone knows that..." does not constitute an argument. Furthermore, it is manifestly untrue, since presumably you do not believe that Izibear, for example, knows what you claim everyone knows.

Your argument, such as it is, also presupposes that the "bad situation" a country might be in is known by everyone - and not, for example, concealed, either deliberately or by chance.

So a foreign investor, or a tourist, may well have a false opinion. They may, in other words, be conducting their foreign investing, or tourism, out of ignorance of the true facts.

So what matters is to establish what the true facts are. But let us say that I, or you, know what the true facts are. That does not mean that everyone will be in possession of those same true facts.

So we need to find out for ourselves - not by being browbeaten by claims that "everyone knows" x, y, or z, but by investigating the facts. We may then disagree about the facts, or their relative importance, but then that can be discussed, no?

Quite apart from that, you will find investors and indeed even the occasional tourist going into the most appalling tyrannies. What does that prove, other than that there might be a fast buck to be made by a wily or corrupt investor, or an interesting sight to be seen by an ignorant tourist?

My experience of tourists is that the popularity of a place as a tourist destination doesn't have much to do with the viability of that place as a country. In general the tourist's only concern is for his personal safety. As long as he feels (rightly or wrongly) that he is physically safe from harm, he will not concern himself with the wider questions of, e.g., agricultural policy, economics, social issues in his chosen destination.

I have never seen Izibear claim anywhere that tourists to SA have 100% probability of violent death, or that no foreign investor can ever make money for himself.

Pablo

Sweet Chilli

...exactly... so if you refer back to how this thread started and see exactly what I said, you'll see that I was offering an alternate view on South Africa, the positive view rather than the negative. And as you rightly point out, for less informed to make a fair judgement of a country they need to read several views... so go rant at someone else!

Pablo

What matters is not whether the view is "negative" or "positive". What matters is whether the view is correct, no?

Anyway, I'm glad you agree with me, and I'll ignore your silly ending comment "go rant at someone else."

Pablo

TouristTrap

Pablo, I've found that apologists for the new and not improved S.A. would rather throw ad hominens around than actually discuss the facts.

Throwing up a list stating that S.A. has one of the top telescopes in the world, or that Stellenbosch developed a microsatellite will surely resolve S.A.'s huge problems which are all courtsey of the current administration and the sheeple who are letting themselves be led to the slaughter.

bruce67

I think you all may be missing something.
We all know SA has its problems but if you click on the link at the beginning of the post and see some of the other claims/observations made on the site specifically about "blacks taking over the US" I would be inclined to take anything from that site as gospel!

bruce.

eliscolin

I have been reading African Crisis for around 2 years now and have often forwarded news articles from sites such as the BBC or British newspapers.

The website manager generally insists on URL's so that he can verify the article himself. In the unusual event of publishing something incorrectly he has always stated that fact.

As Izibear stated sites such as SAGoodnews and Homecomingrevolution are nothing more than ANC rubbish.

When Homecomingrevolution had a forum similar to this one encouraging people to return they soon shut it down because SAfricans themselves....not the newspapers were telling it like it is.

Literally every second or third story was one of rape, murder, hijacking or people losing their business to AA.

Pablo

You make a good point about HomecomingRevolution. It attracted a good deal of interest when it started up. As you say, it had a discussion forum. This forum was moderated. I stress this, because even with a *moderated* forum the discussion was deemed to be too "negative" and the forum was closed down.

It has lately become so superficial as to be ludicrous, and I cannot suppose that even people who are planning a return to SA can find it useful.

After a certain point of censorship (e.g., HomecomingR, or the Zimbabwe Herald) the supposed "good news" becomes as revealing as what is hidden or censored.

Pablo

eliscolin

I have just been in email conversation with the owner of The African Crisis site and told him about our discussion over here.

He never realized the the HCR (Home Coming revolution) Forum had been pulled and is very interested to have a discussion about this.

In regards to HCR Forums…..when the new sponsored version appeared it included a moderated discussion forum. It started off with all the sentimental *I miss home and come back it isn’t that bad* bullshit…..

Frankly from what I remember it was like dangling a red rag to a bull….

Literally hundreds of furious expats from different countries bombarded the site with all the reasons why they left and why they would never return. The forum clearly became a total contradiction and a major liability to the HCR sites its existence.

Apart from the usual crime stories I remember there being some *severely pi**ed off* people in various businesses who were obviously suffering under new AA/ BEE legislation and were in the process of leaving or had left SA.

They wrote extremely damming and damaging stories at times bordering on the slanderous. Many of them accused the HCR of not telling the truth about the situation in SA and stated that it was irresponsible for such a site to exist in the first place.

Pablo

Yes indeed. I recently put some of these questions in an email to HCR, and was told, blandly and fatuously, that they "reserve the right to say what they want", and that they aim to disseminate what they regard as good or positive news.

All well and good, one might suppose, but their tactics, in many cases, remind one of those predatory Christian evangelists who prey upon the vulnerable and emotionally insecure, swooping down on them when they are at their weakest and capturing them for their particular church.

They omit the *real* questions that need to be faced by any responsible person thinking of immigrating to SA, and dwell instead on "Don't you miss the sunshine?" and "Don't you miss your friends?" and that sort of thing.

Their forum was moderated, so they were already in a position to weed out comments that were needlessly offensive - or indeed to weed out any comments at all they didn't like. But even with this power in reserve, they still didn't find that they could sustain even a semi-open discussion on the pros and cons of returning to SA.

It was their heavy-handed censorship, and their silly branding of critics as "negative" or even "racist" that finally persuaded me that what the supposed doom-mongers were saying about SA was at least partly true.

I recall, not so long ago, Mugabe also used to blame all of Zimbabwe's ills on "foreign racists" and disaffected ex-Rhodesians. Well I don't think anyone belives that any longer. But there are plenty who still believe that any criticism of SA is proof that the critic must be a "racist." The term "racist" has been widened to encompass anyone who criticises anything about SA. If you happen to be black, they you're labelled an "uncle Tom".

In the end, just as with Zimbabwe, there comes a point where the truth can't be hidden any longer.

Speaking for myself, I certainly hope that things *do* work out well in SA. But I am not going to deceive myself. The writing is on the wall.

Pablo