New Year, New Fear

It's one month into 2009, and only now are the big manufacturers trickling back to their plants.

With production hitting all-time lows late last year, holidays were extended with a month, instead of the usual few days stolen while knowing the rest of the world steams ahead full blast.

The year has started off slow, with bated breathes and worried creases. But this balances out the fevered rush which heralded last year. And look how that ended up! In tears, with thousands internationally landing in the unemployed queues. As far as I can see, this hesitant beginning can only bode well. We're set to look more carefully at our tallies, our needs, our wants, and work harder to keep what we have, while encroaching the market shares at a more realistic pace.

While we have positive reports on South Africa's standing in the global economic market, we have our naysayers shouting from the sidelines - 'The only reason South Africa looks so good is that we didn't have that far to fall!'
A bit heartless, a bit comedic, a tad exaggerated.
Petrol prices have fallen, interest rates are down, housing is slightly more affordable, cars are cheaper... surely this is for the good of the common man? After all our complaints on the fast escalation of costs, surely we'd like to throw a couple of thank-yous at the feet of the powers-that-be.

Well, it seems that the spirit of Christmas was stingy last year, and there was little enough good-will to get this year started.
Perhaps a bit of love from the Day of Valentino will put the smiles back on our faces.

Crime in this country is related to so many different aspects of South African society, that I think it is futile to blame one person and hold him accountable.

All people, all South Africans, are to blame for the way our world has become.

It is not only misappropriated funds that should have been bolstering law enforcement salaries, or indecent expenses that should have been securing universities or even changing the names of little towns and streets, resulting in millions of taxes being shunted into a cosmetic achievement: It is the turning a blind eye to a friend taking a little more than belongs to him, or admiring another for slipping one over the tax man, it is in the lack of a community that supports the poor and elderly, or the young and hungry.

Wouldn’t it be nice to say that one man held all our lives in the palm of his hand? To say that twelve ministers were really at the heart of our problems. It would be nice to lay all the blame for today’s situation on a government that has followed the leaders of our past. It would be wonderful to hold them accountable for our future. But we can’t. It is impossible for one government to lead a country out a bleakness it has created, and holds onto with both hands.
You argue that not every one is corrupt, that not every one shuns this responsibility, and you would be right. There are exceptions to every generalisation. But it is not the exceptions that are the problem, or even the solution. The problem is the general public.

We have engendered a righteous wrong, and in suffering the consequences, search for some one else to carry the blame.

The only person to blame for crime, small and big, fatal and merely life-altering is the person that is reading this article, the person that wrote it, the person that can’t read, and the person next to you.

We are not sheep, blindly led along. We have always had our say, have always stood up for what we believed in. Perhaps, instead of removing our problematic figure heads, we should practice what we preach, and grow them into the positions. I believe the best starting point for reformation of corrupt personalities would be volunteer work in Baragwanath’s Hospital. Helping out Hillbrow’s horrifically understaffed admin desks. Spending a day standing in the middle of the road trying to sell a trinket so that you can get back home that night – with nowhere to relieve themselves, people shouting abuse, cars swerving to hit them, the sun beating down, and the rain drowning their clothes. Only when they understand these problems, can they maybe find a solution.

As a growing nation, with growing problems, I think the last thing we should be doing is considering adding two more bodies to the unemployment equation.

But in no way can we conscionably say that it is their fault we are sitting with such high statistics of crime. All of us are to blame, or no one is. Reality and democracy have decreed it so.

In plainer language, if you keep on doing what you’re doing, you will get what you’ve got. Removing public figureheads didn’t change anything in the past, and it isn’t going to be the miracle we are all hoping for this time round.

Why South Africa is crap and the sky is blue

The violence in South Africa doesn't need to be curbed - it needs to be focused on and targeted, and stood up against. But as with everything in life, there are two sides to every story. The only way you can get people to hear both sides of the argument, is to have an argument with two sides. Only then can you see the underlying reasons, the cause to the effect, and perhaps even a solution.
Every country has it's problems. South Africa is not uniquely South African in this.It might not be a completely 1:1 ratio, but we do have good things happening. Corruption and death occur everywhere - South Africa is just... more diversified in its main aspects of corrupt organisations.

Even if every report is accurate, which it might be (it might also be exaggerated or false), the real point is that the people have a reason to be like this.
There is an old South African saying 'die appel val nie ver van die boom af nie'. And in this case, you have to look at the forefathers of our great country, and our present benefactors, to understand that truly, the sons will take after their fathers, and the daughters their mothers.

The Real Realist of Blogspot is to be applauded for his astute ability to recognise disaster and herald it loudly. But he is a cut and paste doomsayer. Every nation has it's drawbacks, it's downfalls, it's sins and shame.

Let's not let forget that just as children grow up imperfectly and in fits and starts, we will also grow past this time.