SA Haters

[Daxk]

I love it when this gets brought up, along with a few other lines,
so seeing this Forum does'nt have an Introduce yourself thread let me try and answer a few pertinent Statements.

"What are expats doing on Forums like these when they no longer have a stake in the country and live somewhere else,why dont they get on with their lives"
Common question.

I am a South african Citizen who still owns business and investments in South africa, I pay my Income taxes and Rates and taxes on time and have every right, in fact more right than some of you living in SA tocriticise where I see fit.

"Why do they hate SA so much"
I, and I'm sure I speak for many critical posters dont hate SA how can you hate a Country?
I think SA had the greatest promise of all and I personally welcomed the new
Democratic SA in 1994.
It was wonderful, at last we could go forward, without a civil war, without further bloodshed!
I think Nelso Mandela's speech was fantastic as was the promise, "Never again!"
Our New Constitution wss fantastic, another world leader!

So no, I dont hate SA!
I do hate whats being done to it.
I do hate the fact that greed, Corruption and a new groupof Grasping Criminals have replaced the old apartheid regime, but are doing pretty much the same.

"Why dont they stop harping about Crime, we can all read the media"
I have a mother and family and friends that still live in SA.
The Multi-Racial Govt of SA, the ANC, have failed to maintain Law and Order in SA.
The only thing that forces them to something about a problem is International exposure of their shortcominings,especially in terms of Crime and crime prevention and Justice.
So if we all shut up about it, tell me what makes you believe they will do more about it than they have done in the past, which has been such a spectacular failure.

Now the worst insult you can offer a South African.

"Am I a racist?"
What colour am I?
What gives you the right to call me a racist?
Show me a single posting that gives you grounds for that insult?
because I am insisting on an apology.

Lastly, you guys amuse me.
ybarnes and Americano, I lived in Sa for 54 years, for 44 of those I had one car stolen, one burglary, a couple of irritating stolen car radios etc...

As to the rest,The fastest way to show your lack of knowledge is to post as you do, wow! yank,3 weeks and no crime! golly gosh!
If any of you really want to discuss the issue. do so, but try and be adult about it, keep personal insults out of it.

[Martinw]

Seeing that I was "ordered"not to reply on the other thread(which I sort of disobeyed" here is my take on "SA Haters"

Just like I will maybe never really be a true Aussie( my kids prob will) and can not really understand how they think, so will a lot of other foreigners never really be South Africans and know how "WE"work. And yes that includes people that are sitting in another country. My own personal opinion:
No-one else loved their own country like a South Africans loved South Africa( you know the one where every moms baby is the prettiest)Now in saying that. Do people really think that the majority of “South Africans” want to sit in a foreign country? A country where nothing is the same where you grew up all your life; A country that is not as pretty a South Africa; ( Lets face it Australia is a good country, but look at a satellite image and the truth is quite obvious about the red outback!) No none of us would probably not have been here or there had not been for a reason. That reason:
Do we hate South Africa? NO X100000 Like Daxk said. We hate what it has become, and what is happening there. South Africa will always be in our blood. It is who we are. But we all felt that there was no future for “our children” We were tired of locking ourselves up at night(and day) and the criminals has free reign to terrorise. Tired of making sure of this, that and all the other. Don’t know about other countries, but although a lot of people say the “filth in South Africa” is in the cities and no one has to go there. Well you now what, our suburbs here are clean and the cities – not covered in filth. Is your city not part of your life and not just the “maintained” outskirts( I still have my doubts about that one)
So for any one to come on here and call us SA HATERS has got no idea, clue what they are talking about. Majority of people on this forum are on here to tell people the truth, give them the other side you never get to see on the news, and just maybe if someone listened, thought about it and hopefully make a better, decision perhaps, or are more aware of what is going on than some “SA LOVER” that has only been there for a while, “and will never prob be a TRUE South African” telling them that all is well. There is no crime, there is no filth and all these wonderful things, that might give an unsuspected person the WRONG picture of South Africa.

We don’t hate South Africa, but what People has allowed it to become. Accept the truth for what it is.

[Zimtony]

Like Daxk, I still have business interestes in South Africa, regularly visit "home" both to visit friends & family and for business. These forums are areas that people visit to gain opinions on South Africa from people who have experience. If those of you who have recently moved there, think that living in SA is fantastic - well that is just fine! However, because some of us who have lived through some of the more traumatic times, happen to think the opposite is true, well that is our stance! The readers of the forum will have to make their own minds up.

You can't hate a country - that is a pathetic thing to say. We all hate what has been done, what is being done and what will be done to a great country.

[Zimtony]

For those of you who think that this forum is doinated by SA haters, read the following article, published in the UK Mail on Sunday, by Peter Hitchin - a renowned UK journalist. And when you have read it, maybe, just maybe, you will wake up and smell the coffee. The full transcript can be found by following the lnk at the bottom.

By PETER HITCHENS
Last updated at 3:21 AM on 29th March 2009


Imagine how you would react if Gordon Brown opened and closed his election rallies by bursting into a song called Bring Me My Machine Gun, swaying and jigging to the hypnotic chorus of this menacing ditty.
And how would you feel if the Prime Minister were alleged to be taking campaign money from Colonel Gaddafi; faced 783 counts of fraud, racketeering, tax evasion and corruption which somehow never came to court; and had been acquitted of rape while his fearsome supporters mobbed the courthouse?
Then ponder how you would despair if, despite all these things, Mr Brown’s party was certain to win the election whatever he did or said.
If you can picture all this happening here, then you have an inkling of the horrible process South Africa is now going through. Except it is much, much worse.
This fast-approaching catastrophe is a source of shame and apprehension to millions of honest people, white and black, in South Africa itself.
It is also a tragedy for Africa as a whole, a continent hungry for any reason to hope. And it is grave news for the civilised world, which needs no more failed states.
Yet I can promise you I will be accused of alarmism and pessimism for saying so, and quite possibly of ‘racism’ too.
Why? All the soppy admirers of Nelson Mandela - especially the BBC - gave the new South Africa a free pass when apartheid ended 15 years ago.They wanted to believe this complicated and important nation had become a sort of heaven on Earth where all tears were dried and all problems solved.

Mr Mandela himself, personally decent but politically ineffectual and naive, served as both figurehead and figleaf for the new order. The world ignored or forgave his continuing friendships with the world’s worst despots, and the fraudulent bungling that surrounded him.

Once, South Africa dominated the nightly news for weeks on end. Now the liberal media barely mention it. Why not? Because post-apartheid South Africa is a failure.

You don’t hear about the terrifying crime. You don’t hear about the pestilence of corruption, or the absurd purchase of needless submarines and aircraft for a country with no serious enemies except its own elite.

There is a little about AIDS, but nothing like as much as there should be, given the acres of graves that commemorate the government’s moronic policies, of denial and folk remedies (including beetroot).

Electricity blackouts - the invariable sign of a country on the slide - are now frequent.

In the coming weeks, South Africa seems to me to be taking several definite steps towards its cold, shocking awakening - as a full member of the Third World.The man who will lead it there is called Jacob Zuma. Remember the name. You are going to hear a lot more of it.

On April 22 he will become President of one of the world’s most important countries. Comrade Zuma, as his supporters know him, certainly is not dull. And South Africa will not be dull either when he takes over.

Many fear it will rapidly become a lawless kleptocracy when he comes to power, which he will do after a hopelessly one-sided and rather crooked election

A picture dated 14 February 2003 shows Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, ex-wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela, in Cape Town. Winnie Madikileza-Mandela, was found guilty 23 April 2003 of fraud and theft involving about one million rand (131,000 dollars / 119, 000 euros)

The grisly Winnie Mandela, a convicted fraudster with a creepy past, is number five on the ANC’s parliamentary election list, despite the fact that as a criminal she is legally banned from being an MP. She is expected to be a minister in any Zuma government.

Zuma’s old friend and business partner, Schabir Shaik, has just been released early - on medical grounds, although almost nobody believes this - from a 15-year sentence imposed in 2006 for fraud and corruption, including a payment to Zuma himself.

Jackie Selebi, the National Police Commissioner, is famous for asking, ‘what’s all the fuss about?’ when taxed with the country’s appalling levels of crime and violence.

He is currently suspended, accused of having - yes - a ‘generally corrupt relationship’ with a convicted drug smuggler and also ‘defeating the ends of justice’.

The once-admired Scorpions, a police anti-corruption squad symbolising the country’s determination not to follow the rest of Africa into corrupt squalor, have been disbanded.

So the approaching enthronement of this sinister, populist one-time Zulu herd-boy really ought to mark the moment when South Africa has to stop dreaming about rainbows and miracles, and recognise that experience is usually a better guide to the future than hope.

Zuma is attractive in some ways. He has made his way up from utter poverty. He is a fighter, a keen and hypocrisy-free lover of women and a cunning charmer.
He makes no pretence of being Westernised, and delights in wearing traditional Zulu dress, leopardskin, loincloth and all. He has an excellent singing voice, as I can testify.

South Africa’s largest tribe are a proud fighting people, and Zuma will not be a mild leader, as Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, his two forerunners, were.

At first sight he is the jovial double of the Michelin man, bald, bespectacled and wide-mouthed. As he campaigns, he wears a Nelson Mandela T-shirt (his aides sport Jacob Zuma shirts) and a bizarre black leather cowboy hat.

I watched him electioneering in and around the bleak and stony town of Springbok, in South Africa’s remote and conservative North West.

He arrived for a carefully staged visit to Elizabeth Cloete, a 49-year-old who dwells on an arid hillside in a hovel made of plastic sheets, and lives by scrabbling through rubbish dumps looking for saleable scrap - a trade that brings her about £6 a week.

Her neighbourhood is the bitter end of rural South Africa, many of whose inhabitants exist, in a permanent haze of cheap drink or drugs, defeated and without hope.

Zuma must know that places like this, and their still crueller and more violent urban equivalents, are evidence of the ANC’s failure, in 15 years of unrestricted power, to keep its ambitious promises to the poor.

He actually admitted later that day: ‘We came here to see the conditions. The conditions are extremely bad.’

But when I tried, courteously, to speak to him on the spot, having failed to obtain an interview over several weeks, he brushed me aside. Worse, I was menacingly reproved by an ANC apparatchik, outraged that I should dare to question the next President.

I was also upbraided by a smug, dreadlocked member of the Johannesburg Press corps who sneered at me, ‘This is Africa, man, we do things differently here.’ They certainly do.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...rticle-1165473

[TheLastBaron]

Well, maybe instead of griping so much from afar about what RSA has become, wouldn't the responsible thing be for all of you to return to your country and start fixing it? If RSA is as bad as all of you claim (mind you, um, all 3 or 4 I have found so far here), then why are many, many people moving there these days? Perhaps, to put it in a nutshell, it's because things are not rosy anywhere anymore. And throwing up your hands and saying "it changed" is a cheap shot. If you tried to change it and were made to leave (like I was the U.S. under Bush) or if you tried to change it and were met with apathy and total resignation (as here in Germany), then fine. But to leave, then sit back and take cheap shots from afar at everyone else willing to go to the RSA and give it a whirl is cowardly, low, and deserves no respect.

All of life is a series of trade-offs, and if the trades include "total security" (as many of us experienced first-hand under Bush) at the cost of everything that made life worthwhile, I'll be happy to move to a place with a good climate, an acceptable standard of life and yes, problems such as crime, sometimes dodgy politics (but actually on a par with both Ozzie and U.S. politics), comparatively low pay and other inconveniences, problems and challenges.

I have experienced a number of fun things in the oh-so-secure U.S. ranging from being completely robbed by a room mate referred to me by an agency which collected a stiff premium for "screening" all applicants (but which somehow managed to miss the fact that the guy had a criminal record and had been in and out of 4 cocaine-addiction treatment programs in the three years immediately preceding their referral), a car jacking in broad daylight in urban Boston, several breaking and enterings in various U.S. states and cities, to four car break-ins and thefts as well as vandalism in the smallish city I currently still live in in Germany, which used to be a safe place, too. My uncle was beaten to death in his own apartment in Berlin by a Russian immigrant looking for money. A cousin was raped in a city park in Cologne in broad daylight. In Germany, murderers serve a "life sentence" of 15 years. Crime is rampant all over these days - not just in RSA. And, as my father used to tell me over and over again, statistics can be laid out any which way the beholder, publisher, analyst or reader chooses to. And Germans say Papier ist geduldig - paper is patient...

Face it - crime is a problem everywhere, whether in RSA or aboard a cruise ship sailing towards the Suez Canal or in your own home in metropolitan Berlin, Boston, Cologne, or, or, or.

What I was trying to say in the other thread I started where I told MartinW not to bother posting his vitriol was simply that I am aware of the crime "statistics" and facts, I am aware that RSA is not perfect (having several RSA friends on active duty in H.M.'s Rhine Army here in Germany whom I've spoken with at length first-hand about it) and I am still willing to give it a try. After all, I have been given a contract and will be able to continue working - something which as a (nearly) 53-year-old I am unable to do in either Germany or America anymore... if the young leave RSA, fine. More jobs for us "old farts" who still would like to work rather than living on the dole or from the handouts of friends and relatives.

If you are happy with Oz, power to you.

I may be unhappy in RSA, time will tell. I'd just like the chance to make up my own mind without dire warnings and scare tactics you three or four seem hell bent on using all over this forum. If, in time, I come back here in time to join your chorus, you may all chide me with "we told you so's" then, but until then, stow the negativity and answer constructively. Thanks very much.

[Daxk]

Well Fritzy, you have once more proven how little you know.

What use is it to return when the very reason you left is unchanged and has in fact become worse?

there are a lot of people moving to SA from other Countries because there is a Skills shortage
as in excess of a million of its citizens have left as they strongly believe its best for their children.
And the skills that are coming in all have a skills transfer clause in their Contracts
So as soon as you have trained enough , you can then leave as SA's are the most Xenophobic Nation on Earth.
The SA Govt is spending Millions through its Tourism department to promote SA, to get skills to come in, pay tax, teach and not have the vote.

As to changeing it and the attitudes of its people, lets talk about that one again when you have lived there for a year or two.
you are'nt just getting it from 3 or 4 on this forum, you are getting it from most of the SA expats you have met, the expats in HM Rhine Army for one, do you really think we are ALL exagerating?

"I may be unhappy in RSA, time will tell. I'd just like the chance to make up my own mind without dire warnings and scare tactics you three or four seem hell bent on using all over this forum."

If you come on here with an open mind and ask constructive questions,you will get constructive answers.
If you post on here with with a preconcieved stance that its alll Bulls!t,overblown by a bunch of Cowardly racist, then you are going to get nailed in return.

if you ask a question about crime and you dont like the answer, dont shoot the messenger.

I've said it before, I dont give a sh!t wether you go there or not, but having holidayed there a couple of times does not make you an expert on what goes on.

[TheLastBaron]

Originally Posted by Daxk

Well Fritzy, you have once more proven how little you know.

What use is it to return when the very reason you left is unchanged and has in fact become worse?

there are a lot of people moving to SA from other Countries because there is a Skills shortage
as in excess of a million of its citizens have left as they strongly believe its best for their children.
And the skills that are coming in all have a skills transfer clause in their Contracts
So as soon as you have trained enough , you can then leave as SA's are the most Xenophobic Nation on Earth.
The SA Govt is spending Millions through its Tourism department to promote SA, to get skills to come in, pay tax, teach and not have the vote.

As to changeing it and the attitudes of its people, lets talk about that one again when you have lived there for a year or two.
you are'nt just getting it from 3 or 4 on this forum, you are getting it from most of the SA expats you have met, the expats in HM Rhine Army for one, do you really think we are ALL exagerating?

"I may be unhappy in RSA, time will tell. I'd just like the chance to make up my own mind without dire warnings and scare tactics you three or four seem hell bent on using all over this forum."

If you come on here with an open mind and ask constructive questions,you will get constructive answers.
If you post on here with with a preconcieved stance that its alll Bulls!t,overblown by a bunch of Cowardly racist, then you are going to get nailed in return.

if you ask a question about crime and you dont like the answer, dont shoot the messenger.

I've said it before, I dont give a sh!t wether you go there or not, but having holidayed there a couple of times does not make you an expert on what goes on.

Okay, Daxi (since I am apparently Fritzy, although that is my brother's name and just as offensive as if I called you a boorish transplant potato-eater, which I would never do)

I had no preconceptions when I joined this forum. I expected clear answers on clear questions (note other threads). What I got was the same three or four people repeatedly all telling me the same boogyman message - "don't go, don't go! Crime! Crime! Crime!" And that in response to any question asked, regardless of how off-topic it is or was.

My signed, sealed contract has no skills transfer clause, as it is a German-based contract and such a clause would be illegal here.

And the assumption that many of you are cowardly racists is still not one that has been effectively or in any way disproven. Even cowardly racists can hide behind children, claim all sorts of achievements in life and spout off nonsense, by which I do not necessarily mean you.

So before you ride off on your high horse again, please review your own actions - all of the "advice" the three or four of you give everyone here is tainted with the attempt to only instill fear and not with the honest, sincere attempt to help people find out what they seek to learn, and that is not helpful in the least, despite whatever your own personal motivation may be. In the "is there a crime problem" threads, sure - let it all hang out. In others, where constructive help on individual issues is asked for, belt up on the crime thingy, okay sweetheart?

As for my friends and expats here, all of them go home for extended periods (often 6 months or more) every other year, most plan to go back there to retire, and those I have met in the Rhine Army also say that crime is an issue, but find it no worse than any big city they have been in anywhere else in the world. So who's exaggerating here? Not they, not I. Remember, when you point a finger, three point back at you, honey.

[Daxk]

Your First Post I believe?"Hi, I suspect you moved to Oz because you are a racist. Many whites fled SA after Apartheid ended and Oz was a preferred place to resettle. You seem to have nothing kind to say about SA, no matter who posts, who asks what and how intelligent a question may be. I think you may want to cease and desist and go find something else to should about, Martin. No one is buying what you are selling anymore. "
4th Post when no-one had commented negatively on the thread you asked us not to.

"Thanks for your reply. Positive is the way to go. I just find it strange that nearly all the negativity about RSA comes from expats who have left to Oz and still find the time to shred RSA... "

Cowardly racists??

In the same way that pommy b@stard is not an insult in Oz, ,SA's large German Community are often teased about being Fritzy as Afrikaners are about being called Van, learn to live with it.
Of the large number of German friends I have its actually amazing how many of them are over the top racists,(and the Dutch too) we're'nt born that way, just became.

tell me ,in your criminal incidents in the US and Germany, your hi-jacking, cocked gun at the head? did they start dragging your wife towards some bushes?when they got caught and came out on bail did they come and visit you and point to your daughter and make suggestive movements as to what they were going to do to her?

and when you discussed this with the police Commissioner for the area, did he tell you their Dockets were "lost" so they were out on Permanent bail, the 7 Hi-jacking and two rape charges they were on still have'nt come to trial. Thats 4 years now.

Your Uncle,did they catch the killer? lock him away?
in SA the difference between Murder cases and Convictions is staggering, you dont like stats?
its only 11% conviction rate. (9% for rape)

The Advertising sells SA as paradise, and it is, problem is they dont tell you about the poisoned apples.

[Halo]

Originally Posted by TheLastBaron

I may be unhappy in RSA, time will tell. I'd just like the chance to make up my own mind without dire warnings and scare tactics you three or four seem hell bent on using all over this forum. If, in time, I come back here in time to join your chorus, you may all chide me with "we told you so's" then, but until then, stow the negativity and answer constructively. Thanks very much.

Dear Baron von Munchhausen.... How can someone like myself who have had family members killed (and this is not just a botched robbery - Hijacked, beaten, ending up in a black bag) seen the deterioration..... sit back and not tell those (especially with children) that SA is a good place to migrate to.

Truth is truth... perhaps you're not affected and for this I am grateful. Others on the other hand are not so lucky.

[Daxk]

Baron:"My signed, sealed contract has no skills transfer clause, as it is a German-based contract and such a clause would be illegal here. "

So you wont be asked to mentor and train someone up to take your place in case you should decide to leave?
There is no Training or assistance in your Job description?