Campbells

Three questions please.

1. What suburb do you live in ?

2. Do you have a six foot wall around your property, with razor wire, spikes or electric fence on top of that ?

3. Do you drive in Jo’burg CBD with your car windows open and / or doors unlocked ?

Thanks

Campbells

Welcome to BE, your first post.

Perhaps it would be good to say where in SA you are talking about ?

So where would you say is the right areas ?

Define how much money you are talking about that will make it fine ?

Where in the UK are you making your comparison to ? Are you a SAer returning back to SA after backpacking in the UK ? Please expand.

Why is that – please explain ?

So what is * not impossible* please explain. Do you mean that whites will have to accept less salary because of their race, is that what you are saying ?

whalewatcher

Very subjective statement. Depends on what kind of lifestyle you enjoy.

Tegwyn

Yup, truly! I think I need to go hang out at Homecoming a bit more and catch up on my reading. I spot some interesting patterns here.

TouristTrap

It doesn't take an Einstein to see it, now does it Tegs?

It's deja-vu for me. I think I went through it 10 years ago on the Zims boards....

NTS

Wow, so many replies! I am new to this and enjoyed reading your last post. It is nice to hear other peoples points of view besides my other colleagues from UK & France. We have heard each others views 100 times now but always makes an interesting discussion.

My views come from having been here 1 year. I am 30 and have moved here for 2 years with my wife from the UK. I am talking from a perception built up from a short period of time. Also my frame of reference is comparing to UK

I have loved my time here so far, and no-one would disagree that the natural part of SA is incredible, its the city life that is open for debate.

Firstly I would be really interested to see some analysis of SA crime stats, to seperate the crime within gangs & tribes, from the crime likely to happen to someone in a standard job, not usually driving anywhere they shouldnt etc etc (i.e. me!). - I even made it alive out of Alexandra the other day

My feeling is that the chances of me getting shot in SA are not massively different from the chances of getting stabbed or shot in England. Relatively low.

Secondly, Lifestyle. I am not an exec, so on a relatively modest middle management salary, I can afford a lifestyle that is superioir to UK, in terms of size of house, quality of restaurants (kilo steak for £10 in a nice restaurant... 1 year on and I am still excited about that), holidays, and of course the weather.

Thirdly, is that I am surprised you questioned SA education, from what i see it is miles better than UK in terms of value for money, sports etc, teacher control. My sister is a teacher in Sheffield and the Police are in the scool most days beacuase of a violent incident (admittedly, it serves her right for moving North ) ... but may be you are not comparing to UK ???

I would see the education for the kids here as a major reason to be here and not the UK.

Anyway, we are currently deciding whether to stay on here or return to UK. I am torn, but think I will return to UK for 1 main reason (not fear of crime). I am not confident in the long term stability. Clearly corruption is endemic, and I just suspect that it is only a matter of time until a real nutter gets into power, and in that way we may not be more that 10 years away from another ZIM.... I always did love a conspiracy theory though

Macc

I had absolutely no intention of trying to discredit anyone. I was making a generalisation and my comments were based on a trait I was noticing having looked at several South African forums. Any similarities in my 'for example' to your own life were entirely coincidental.

whalewatcher

Are your kids are in a state school in SA, and is your sister working in a private school in Sheffield? I suspect that might be the case...or even the other way round.

Campbells

No just talking abut the education *system* but also the education of exposing a child to this mindless violent culture that is rampant in South Africa.

I recall seeing two black guys fighting in the street and the one got the other’s head locked in his arm and took his head, bashing his skull into the brick wall repeatedly and the blood was starting to gush out of his head but it was not enough, he kept going, probably to the death. Probably fighting over R2 or something. As life seems to be so cheap in South Africa as a part of this South African SICK CULTURE. :

This is the school of life (excuse the pun) that I refer to and I certainly do not want my child growing up in surroundings where this mindless barbaric violence is happening every day all around. You can send your kids to the most expensive schools there but they will still be exposed to the sicko culture outside the school.

I have heard it said many times that life in Africa is cheap but I don’t agree as comparing Zimbabwe for example, even with the poverty and history of that country it did not / has not the mindless barbaric violence & killings that seem just to be allowed to continue to happen in South Africa. In that environment there is zero stability for your life let alone instability of a dictator power such as Mugabe.

For example: ---- Johannesburg - A group of 21 children in Grade 0 were scheduled to receive counselling on Tuesday, after witnessing an incident in which two policemen allegedly beat up a pair of housebreaking suspects in front of their school on Friday.

http://www.24.com/news/?p=saa&i=495554

South Africa has become this sad / sick dump. The saddest thing is that it is such a beautiful country with such great prospects but the mindless killings and barbaric culture is sinking the place, like it or not.


Johannesburg has been titled several times the most violent city on the planet. Not a title to be proud of or a country to bring up kids.

The country has gone nuts and the big question is - will it ever recover ???

Pablo

So true. I'm old enough to remember the unbridled starry-eyed optimism about the new "free" Zimbabwe in 1980, and remember all the commentators confidently predicting that this time things would be different and that Zim wouldn't end up on the scrap heap like every other African country, reduced to penury and barbarism by gross misgovernment.

Now those commentators have fallen silent, except for the occasional ludicrous attempt to pin the blame on nebulous "racists" and "colonialists".

Did you hear that the British Foreign Secretary at the time, Geoffrey Howe, helped to suppress news of Mugabe's genocide in Matabeleland in case it put off white South Africans from supporting so-called majority rule. The information about Mugabe's butchery was considered "unhelpful" (to use that ghastly weasel-word so favoured by politicians).

Pablo

NTS

My sister is a teacher at one of the "OK" state schools (i.e. no fees). Value for money the fee paying schools here are better versus UK, I think. My friends kids pay aprox £3000 per year and the equivalent in UK is upwards of £12k per year.

whalewatcher

There's no doubt SA offers better value for money than the UK for a middle class lifestyle, whether it be meat or schools. But then SA has a huge pool of incredibly cheap human labour to keep costs down in production and supply chains. The downside of this is the higher risks associated with living close to that same impoverished population that allows one the lifestyle.

All these trade-offs to make, all these credits and debits, risks and rewards! Not to mention the moral fudging one has to do when one eats the Naked Lunch.

Tish11

I agree with what you have pointed out about schools. A private school in SA is affordable for most people with a decent job while UK private schools are extremely expensive when you consider that the London average is around £25kpa or so then factoring in the cost of accommodation makes it very inaccessible.
In terms of state schools I have my doubts as it is mostly influenced by were you live. If you are outside the catchment of a certain good school and can't afford to move there then you have very little choice. And generally, the good schools are in the more affluent areas ( I might be wrong).
When kids start "finking" and "was doing things"....and its not just slang You get worried but this is sadly standard vocab for some (I said some) of the kids in London.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../nskills21.xml
Teenage pregnancy also appears to be a major problem.

Karenwhe

Who the heck is Homecoming Revolution?

I am not even South African by birth or decent. I am a permanent resident. And for that matter I have no clue what are you talking about. But of course that couldn’t possibly make you happy. As you are forever convinced that if anyone loves the place they must be either brainwashed or working for some kind of organization.

If don’t want to look at the bright side, that is fine. But running down those that live the bright side, doesn’t make a lot of sense.

But don't bring any allegations that if someone loves the place for what it is, that they have to be working for someone or making some kind of propaganda.

If you don’t believe me that is also fine. If you live in SA in Gauteng I welcome you to come visit with me and come with me to JHB CBD where I work in property. I go to flats, I talk to low income earning people, I do inspections and evaluations and I can show you a different side of SA in the lowest income groups. I can also show you foreign US residents that invest in the place and guess what….. live in the CBD. I can give you their telephone numbers to talk to.

And when I am not in those areas I work in IT and I go to the corporates, I can show you that side of life as well. I have employees in both markets and what I do is voluntarily. I could always send someone else out and lock myself in some upper market area and ignore life. But I don’t. The reason I saw the light, is because I am out there living the life not hiding from it.

I invite you to see light in SA, that is all.

Karenwhe

Don't you have cable TV? I don't need to name them, they are far too many. The impoverished neighborhoods of NY are full of gang rapes, assassinations, shooting in the streets, dilapidated buildings full of drugs and drug dealers, and you name it. All you have to do is pass by and you can get killed for nothing... just by mistake.

So again where you live in SA does make a difference, but so it does in other countries. What about the shooting in the school in the US now that is all over in the national televisions? How safe was that? Who could have predicted that? (by the way, that is not the first time it has happened in the US).

Then maybe you want to live in West Hampsted in the UK where one day I went to the dentist and that exact day the shop I was working for was robbed at gun point? I was supposed to be in that shift, not the kids that was there (the way the kid that replaced in the shop for a couple of hours was only 17).

Or maybe you want to watch AU TV, I was there as well when a banked was robbed and some people got killed.

Or maybe you want to watch Israeli TV and live in Kiriat Shmona where they get bombed occasionally, but you never know when the occasion occurs. Or maybe you want to wait for that bomb in the shopping center to go off, or the bus station or anywhere else as you never know.

Ah, by the way, bombs, you get them in US as well and you get them in the UK and Spain and may othe places for that matter. Just that you can't really put wire and high walls to protect yourself from those, can you?

I don't expect you to become a positive thinker. But as a logical human being, I prefer to look at the big picture. And there are problems everywhere, just watch TV. If you watch SA TV you get plenty of it as well, just like everywhere else.

So, where do you want to focus again? On the negatives of life or make a life and focus on the positive wherever you are, because you are not safe anywhere, safety is in the mind not in the world.

The world is created by our collective thinking, and if all we can os is focus on negative, well then that what we shall see. But if we focus on the positive then we can live a better life with less paranoia.

That is why I said, I prefer to live my life and focus on the positive because in SA there are plenty, and there are plenty everywhere where else for that matter.