Economy
The economy, after growing by an average of 5% in the past four years, is slowing down this year. The Economist estimates that economic growth in South Africa in 2008 will be between 3 and 4%. Experts estimate that growth of 4.5% between 2005 and 2009, and 6% between 2010 and 2014 are needed to reach a target of halving a near 30% official unemployment rate and rampant poverty. About 50% of South Africans live on less than 3,000 rand ($400) a year, and between 25% and 40%, depending on definitions, have no job, even though the country is Africa’s economic powerhouse and contributes about 25% of its gross domestic product.
South African Mail and Guardian writes that the country will battle to reach 4% growth in 2008 “on the back of a crippling national electricity crisis.” South African mining companies, the country’s main industry, have warned that the shortage of power could force them to cut thousands of jobs.
Until a few years ago, South Africa was producing more electricity than it needed and exporting the surplus to its neighbors. But now, the country is experiencing blackouts on a daily basis that will be a fact of life until at least 2012.
Government officials revealed that they knew a decade ago that more electricity would be needed to support economic growth. But, as The Economist writes, the government got stuck in a policy debate about the role for the private companies in electricity generation, so it was only recently that Eskom, the state-owned monopoly that generates 95% of the country’s electricity, got permission to start building new power stations.
Black Empowerment
The goal of the Black Economic Empowerment Act, signed into law in January 2004, is to help those who were previously disadvantaged under apartheid.
It is estimated that the black middle class grew to over 2.6 million over the last few years, representing 12% of South Africa's black adults who make around 180 billion rand a year ($26.2 billion), or 28% of the country's buying power.
But critics say that black empowerment has resulted in wealth being taken from the hands of a few white people and put into the hands of a few black people.
The South African Nobel Peace laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, thinks that “attempts to boost black economic ownership are only benefiting an elite minority.” He believes that “grueling, demeaning, dehumanizing poverty experienced by millions of South Africans is the biggest threat to the country’s security.”
Politics, Power Struggle, and Corruption
Article comments
1 - RJ Elliott
Great article.
In ten years, South Africa = Zimbabwe. (Maybe five.)
2 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I agree with RJ in his assessments here.
Excellent article - South Africa is headed to be worse than Zimbabwe in less than five years.
I would note that with all the problems you have outlined above in South Africa, along with what you've noted about Darfur elsewhere, the UN is planning another anti-Israel Jew-hating hatefest in Durban next year and that is where its attention seems focused.
From the two articles I've seen you write, I'd get out of South Africa if I were you. Some ANC goon is liable to kill you because you are too honest and too forthright for their tastes.
Cry the beloved country.
3 - STM
There is no way that South Africa is headed down the same path as Zimbabwe.
Things are pretty grim in some quarters, but not that grim overall.
There is one factor that changes the equation when you compare it to Zimbabwe.
Many blacks are now part of the new elite of South Africa, and that elite also has a lot of whites.
The middle-class is now made up of both blacks and whites in significant numbers, and both these factors work against Sth Africa going down the Mugabe route.
BEE may seem like it sets the platform for that, but it actually has spread the wealth around a bit.
And the more wealthy blacks and whites you have living together in affluent suburbs, the less likely it is you will see the kind of racist policies perpetrated by the Mugabe regime.
Don't ignore its problems, but please look to the giant strides South Africa has made in the past few decades,
In terms of its coming together, as in Mandela's vision of a "rainbow nation", what's happened in modern South Africa in two decades couldn't have happened over a period of 1000 years in most countries.
There's always a darkness before the dawn, and let's face it, it was a very long night from the time the British influence declined and the Afrikaaners took control and implemented apartheid to the undoing of that cruel and flawed ideology.
That there wasn't immediate widespread bloodshed was a miracle and a testmaent to the determination of the black majority to forgive and rebuild and the white minority to place their trust in that process.
Give credit where credit's due ... and take comfort in the fact that South Africa is still the continent's economic powerhouse and its food bowl.
In my view, it is a shining beacon not a fizzling lamp doomed to go out.
4 - Dr Dreadful
Especially while it possesses citizens like Mandela and Desmond Tutu - who, BTW, is the living person I most admire.
5 - Gogo
I dont think apartheid is important anymore.the past is done and we are moving forward.Why should white people always be reminded about it on a daily basis and my generation had nothing to do with the regime
6 - Jordan Richardson
"Especially while it possesses citizens like Mandela and Desmond Tutu - who, BTW, is the living person I most admire."
Good call!
7 - STM
Gogo: "I dont think apartheid is important anymore.the past is done and we are moving forward"
True. Which is why I for one don't believe that modern South Africa is going the way of Zimbabwe.
8 - RJ Elliott
South Africa is gr-r-reat:
The term is familiar by now, but the "necklace" is so benign a description that it barely hints at the horror of one of the world's most savage forms of execution. This is how it happens. In the townships of South Africa, militant black youths first capture a victim. Next they chop off his hands or tie them behind his back with barbed wire. Finally they place a gasoline-filled tire over the terrified victim's head and shoulders and set it ablaze. The melting rubber clings like tar to the victim's flesh, while flames and searing fumes enshroud him. Within minutes the execution is over. By the time the police arrive, the charred body is usually burned past recognition. Horrified family members, who may be forced to watch the killing, are often too intimidated to identify the murderers.
...
Winnie Mandela, the wife of jailed Black Leader Nelson Mandela, caused a furor last April by declaring, "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces, we shall liberate this country." A.N.C. leaders later told her to stop making such statements, and at the group's 75th anniversary celebration in Lusaka two weeks ago, A.N.C. President Oliver Tambo declared, "Of course we are not in favor of necklacing. We don't like necklacing, but we understand its origins."
It's an old article, yes. But the ANC has power now, and Mandela has his Nobel Peace Prize (just like Yasser Arafat). Meanwhile, over 50 people are murdered a day in SA, and the power is going out.
The World Cup should be fun. I predict more tourists will be robbed/raped/murdered than goals scored.
But hey, it's progress!
9 - RJ Elliott
The future of SA rests in the hands of this man:
Jacob Zuma is the president of the governing political party, the African National Congress (ANC).
As probably the most prominent Zulu African National Congress politician and a leader for leftist constituencies within the ANC, he has rallied the support of many even after his dismissal from the party in 2005 due to allegations of corruption. He remained popular, especially amongst Zulus, and the youth league of the African National Congress (the ruling party of South Africa) argue that Zuma has served The struggle well. Though his political future appeared more clouded during his rape trial, his most vocal supporters stayed faithful, gathering outside the courthouse to support him during his trial and celebrate the not-guilty verdict.
Zuma became the President of the ANC on 18 December 2007 after defeating incumbent Thabo Mbeki at the ANC conference in Polokwane.
...
Zuma is an economic populist, who has occasionally described himself as "socialist." He has received support from trade unions and from the South African Communist Party.
...
According to The Guardian and The New York Times, he has spoken of redistribution of wealth, and he has allied himself with socialists and communists that seek to redistribute wealth to the poor.
...
[He's corrupt and a rapist...]
...
Jacob Zuma is a self-proclaimed polygamist and has been married at least four times:
1. Sizakele Khumalo, whom he met in 1959. She lives at his home at Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal. They have no children.
2. Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, with whom he had four children, but from whom he is divorced.
3. Kate, with whom he had five children. She committed suicide on December 8, 2000.
4. Mantuli Zuma married Mr Zuma five years ago. She has a five-year old daughter and a seven-month-old son with him.
5. Nompumelelo Ntuli, the mother of two of his children, married on January 8, 2008.
...
Fiancées
1. Zuma paid lobola [dowry] to the clan of Thobeka Stacy Mabhija, 35, with whom he has two children.
2. Zuma paid 10 cattle as lobola [dowry] for Swazi Princess Sebentile Dlamini in 2002.
3. Lobola [dowry] has been paid for Bongi Ngema, with whom he has a 3-year-old son.
...
Mbeki has never publicly criticised Mugabe's policies ...
...
In a 2006 interview with Der Spiegel, Zuma expressed sympathetic sentiments towards Mugabe and implied that Western criticism of Mugabe was partly motivated by racism, saying"
"The Europeans often ignore the fact that Mugabe is very popular among Africans. In their eyes, he has given blacks their country back after centuries of colonialism,"
and
"The people love him, so how can we condemn him? Many in Africa believe that there is a racist aspect to European and American criticism of Mugabe. Millions of blacks died in Angola, the Republic of Congo and Rwanda. A few whites lost their lives in Zimbabwe, unfortunately, and already the West is bent out of shape."
...
He [Zuma] said same-sex marriages were "a disgrace to the nation and to God" and "When I was growing up, an ungqingili (a homosexual) would not have stood in front of me. I would knock him out."
Oh, and here's a picture of the future leader of SA:
LOL
Feel confident yet???
10 - Dr Dreadful
here's a picture of the future leader of SA
Sneakers and man-boobs. What's not to love?
;-)
11 - Silver Surfer
Well, at least he doesn't appear to be celebrating Kwanzaa
12 - Silver Surfer
BTW, how many of the negative commentators here have actually been to South Africa?
.... thought so
13 - Savo Heleta
STM, I completely agree with you that "in terms of its coming together, as in Mandela's vision of a "rainbow nation", what's happened in modern South Africa in two decades couldn't have happened over a period of 1000 years in most countries." I truly believe that the largely peaceful transformation from apartheid to democracy was a miracle that should be an example to follow.
Dr Dreadful and Jordan Richardson, how much influence Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu have on the current South African government and politics?
For example, Mandela asked the government to do more to combat HIV/AIDS catastrophe - they denied links between HIV and AIDS and promoted garlic and lemons as the best medicine. When Tutu said that "too many of our people live in grueling, demeaning, dehumanizing poverty... we are sitting on a powder keg," President Mbeki said that "it would be good if those that present themselves as the greatest defenders of the poor should also demonstrate decent respect for the truth".
14 - STM
This begs the question.
What do you do with the garlic and lemons.
Eat 'em, or what ... ??
15 - Savo Heleta
The health minister believes that building up the immune system through good nutrition is the best way to combat HIV/AIDS.
16 - RJ Elliott
Also, showers after rape.
17 - akon
you white people are losers always compaining about everything. where are youe leaders who were spearheading the so-called white reign(apartheid), you guys are suffering, settling for second best and your leaders have deserted you in a black whole,catch my drift? oh zuma ain't nothing,wait till i'm president. i will mugabeniuse your kind!
from blaqmale
18 - Ruvy
Akon,
Hi there!
I'm one of those "whining losers" you talk about. Got a "necklace" for me to wear, eh? Well, you'll have to come here to deliver your little gift, you know. I have enough sense to stay away from South Africa, with folks like you on the loose.
Looks like you've gone from a near "saint" (Mandela) to a fuckin' street thug (Zuma) for a leader. It's truly a shame that Mandela is still alive to see what his beloved country has degenerated into. When he doesn't close his eyes, I'm sure he cries.
Good luck stayin' alive in SA, with all the AIDS, murder, crime and police corruption you have to live with. Looks like the best you can hope for is the BEE not stingin' you in the butt. The Afrikaner régime was a nasty bunch, I'll grant you, but at least they kept a patina of civilization on the place. Now?
You couldn't get me to go there for a million euros - for any reason.
19 - strooge
i just don't understand how you people are, some of you have never been to South Africa and yet you are quick to judge. for example, what were you saying when george Bush was on a killing spree in Iraq? as soon as an incident of this sort takes place in poor lil Africa, oh there you are!i'm a christian and a firm believer in equality,i'll be the first to admit that what happened in South Africa recently was immoral and maybe South Africa is not the ideal place to live in right now because of all the crime and HIV rate going up rapidly. South Africa does not look like the ideal place to be in but what about America, the rest of the world? i'm sure you know the saying "it is not about loving that perfect something but about loving that imperfect something perfectly" and yes i love Sth Africa and yes i am worried about everything that's happening in my country but that's only because i care a lot about Sth Africa.so don't stand there and point out our faults.
20 - Truth
SA is a friggen mess. Stop making excuses for it, stop living with blind hope for the future.
DEMAND better than you have, fight for it... remove every corrupt person there is from power.
HIV is a precursor to AIDS, if your leaders cant deal with that simple scientific fact remove them in any way you can.
You moved past apartheid only to squander and piss on the promise it gave you.
For the love of God and the future stand up and fight.
21 - Same Here
America will undoubtedly suffer this same fate. It is clear that the black man cannot exist without the white man, at least in a civilized form. Just look at the social programs and "free money" that has doomed our financial markets.