South Africa

For me, europeans and maybe americans don´t understand, what life in african countries might mean.
No tourist going to africa or other poor countries must expect that he is welcome. I saw so many times, how "rich people" in these countries move. It is in my eyes many times like suicide.

Southafrica has its problems, of course, average income around 250US/month, townships, poverty, HIV rate around 22%, around 30% are jobless.
But it´s still one of the most safe countries in Africa (in my eyes).

When you cannot feed your children anymore, what would you do?

I was travelling through many african countries.

Uganda, Kampala, for example, a small kid, maybe 4 years old, was overrolled by a pick-up. We were just passing by on the way to the airport. We stopped, try to do anything. The father was running with the child on his arms on the street to the pick-up, put the boy in the car. We followed them with the thought we could do anything. After driving around 40 min, we arrived a "hospital". We put all our money together to pay for medical help.. What help...no medicine, no instruments. We were standing there, watching this small boy dying...

DRC, Kinshasa. I am sitting at a café, outside, when I was wondering what´s at my feet. I look down and see a woman crawling at the ground. Looking more as a skelett than a human being..

Tell me, what would you do?

 

That's powerful Christine thank you for sharing it. I can say with all honesty that nothing justifies rape though (as discussed in the article from the OP).

 

Exactly.
The economic problems in Africa are horrible of course, but the statistics amongst West African/East African men when it comes to rape aren't anywhere near as shocking as they are with South Africans.
I'm not saying all South African men are like that, of course they aren't. But many are and I've been unfortunate enough to have a bad experience with a guy like that first hand.

 

For sure, raping, what shall I say... horrible imagination, horrible experience, horrible memory?

African countries need to solve their problems by themself.. What can we (the whites) do? Many african men use raping of a virgin or child, not only girls,as healing from HIV...and raping is not the worst, what can happen to you as an african woman. It sounds crazy? It is sad and a different world.

To be honest, the imagination to be an african woman is a nightmare, not only in south africa, in may countries..

 

What I was gonna say...

 

I have been to SA twice. Did I feel safe? Yes and no. In certain areas yes...and in certain areas no.

It is a different world that is difficult to understand. I know I don't. Poverty is rampant and desperate people do desperate things.

That does not excuse anything but it is just a totally different world.

I am grateful everyday that I was born in Canada with free will, choices, and the means to make them happen.

 

Well, regardelss if any of those things are true or not...I will say that it's great to want all of that. Of couse. But, they take money...and when government corruption is taking that money, then there isn't enough to go around to programs and people that need it.

Might I remind you that SA is resource rich and it has also had a "democratically" elected government for 15 years now which is majority indigenous. That is all well and good - so, where is the positive change? 15 years is enough to start the process at least...put the building blocks into place.

The ANC is ruining the country. I wonder what Nelson Mandella thinks of it all now? Jacob Zuma is a joke of a man and I am not surprised, but still disturbed, by the fact he is the president.

 

Everyone is all for themselves and cares little about the collective good...sure you embezzle money and buy Rolls Royce's for you and your wife and send your children to Oxford and Cambridge and live in palatial houses because of your political savvy and Western education....the environment breeds loyalty to self (and maybe family)...but never to country and people. Having a handful of people control the natural resources means less bargaining power when Europe and the U.S. come knocking for the diamonds every Western woman wants to see when her boyfriend proposes marriage. Until the people learn to agitate for black leaders that benefit EVERYONE...they will continue to see their nation sink.

Unfortunately, they are starting to make the Boers and English feel justified in controlling the nation for 100 + years.

 

There is another side to this as well.

A number of upper middle class & wealthy African Americans from Chicago go to SA to retire. I know several, and they have lived there for years, and haven't had any problems.

It seems to me that we only ever hear about the negative over here.

 

It was just as bad when they ran things, it's just that all the victims were Black, so in their minds it didn't count. Two wrongs don't make a right, but they don't make just one wrong either.

 

Yea, it's the white led media that controls...or the Jews...or whoever controls the media, they have a distinct obligation to keep blacks in their place.

I wonder if you can provide any good news that comes from Africa, rather than the UN or some other country stepping in to stop a corrupt dictator or the mass rapings or the mass genocide that happens there on a daily basis....

Or I guess that's just the media lying to me..

 

Poor whites in South Africa

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Poor Whites/Rich Blacks - South Africa


[YOUTUBE]e5jJSjpztmA[/YOUTUBE]

 

-Guinée- Conakry, for example... read something about it...
(absolutly top, what happens there at the moment), but the media is sometimes also very negative

or
-Namibia, in Namibia they have online newspaper

For me the major point is help in education, the rest, africans must solve by themselves, it´s their country.. but one fact the journalists always forget, the african heart is hurt very deeply- and the west world is much too impatient...

 

Well it will all depends on what your idea of good news is. But you may want to check this site that provide constant positive news and images of the world second largest continent.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=665

And to my knowledge, the mass raping were happening in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country that is bigger than Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the UK combined! When there were riots in Paris, people in the South of France were safe, so people in other regions of the ex-Zaire are totally safe.

As far as genocide is concerned, there was one in Rwanda in 1994. There's the Darfur crisis, but Darfur is just one region of Sudan, a country that is even larger than the one I just mentionned. So where else in Africa there was mass genocide? There was one in the ex-Yugoslavia taking place at the same time the Rwanda genocide was taking place. So if you want to add the problems in Kosovo, the atrocities committed by the Russian army in Chechnya, you could argue that Europe seems just as bad, no?

And I don't know where or when the UN has ever stepped in to stop a corrupted dictator, but I could give you countless of examples of the USA, Belgium, France etc stepping in the remove a democratically elected president and replace him with a dictator in several African countries. If you want a list, just let me know.

So no, the media isn't lying, but rather exaggerating things through sensationalism and gross misinformation. Sarah Palin, a vice-president candidate, didn't know that Africa was a continent, she thought it was a country! So naturally when they give horrible news about one area in those countries, most Westerners would think that the entire "country"....sorry continent is that bad.

It's tantamount to me saying that it's not safe to travel in Europe because I just saw a movie or documentary about the IRA bombings in Northern Ireland. Or exaggerating the tribalism because the Flemings and the Wallons in Belgium hate each other's guts and the country was left without a government. What about the situation in the Balkans or in Spain?

Keep in mind that Africa is more than three times the size of the United States and there are 900 million people spread accross 53 countries. So what is happening in some African countries is not endemic to the continent, just like what happened recently in Georgia with the Russians isn't typical of the European continent.

 

Exactly!!!!!

 

You don't know how many times I've heard people say that Africa is a country. It is to be expected since most mass media in the West is designed to cater to white sensibilities. He who controls the media controls the images shown of himself and of others.

 

Eh I hear good news about Africa too. Basically all news is negative, whether it's British, American, African, Korean, Black, White... we all are more drawn to negative news. What do you want to read - about a kitten being rescued or a serial killer? It's sad but I'm more likely to read the latter.
I just looked on the UK page on BBC news and the Africa page - they both have the exact same amount of negative headlines.


I don't think anyone can argue that rape isn't widespread there (South Africa). Of course I'm not stupid enough to think Africa is one big slum and that it's all the same. You get good and bad everywhere. Those reports would make me wary to go to certain areas - just like reports from certain areas in Glasgow, London, where ever, make me wary of going to certain areas.

I'm really sorry about what that guy did to you Russia, sounds awful! It's sad that there is an attitude to rape like that over there. In some places to prove rape you need X amount of witnesses to prove it, so it's basically impossible to prove.

 

Anyone who thinks Africa is a country needs to go back to school, like Primary school with the 5 year olds. I never realised some people were so bad with geography til I met this guy when I was in New York. He didn't know what Scotland "was" for a start, then he kept getting it confused with Finland and asked me to speak to him in German. His friend came over really confident "ohhh I know where that is, it's right beside China"... urgh. He probably couldn't point the US out on a map, infact either of them. Needless to say our conversation was shortlived. It's actually pretty sad that someone of his age wouldn't know those things. People need to take school more serious.

 

What is this "the jews control the media" thing people always talk about? I always hear white supremicists say it and other fanaticals... what does it mean? I don't get it. No one really has this thing against jews over here like American's have.

 

I know that Africa is oftend portrayed as country and as a monolithic whole and most people can't understand that Africa is a very diverse continent. When Hotel Rwanda came out, I had to explain to people that I wasn't from Rwanda, that I couldn't speak their language Kinyanruanda. They seemed unastisfied and skeptical. So I hit the public librairies, google some infos and found out every I could about Rwanda, the Tutsis and Hutus and now when I talk about this conflict, people just eat my words. "He is from there", they figure, so he knows what his talking about

When Blood Diamond came out, I struggled trying to explain that Sierra Leone was slightly smaller than South Carolina and was located in West Africa, no way near I am from originally in Central Africa. One guy asked me "Is West Africa also part of Africa?"



In 1996, I went on date once with some white girl name Amber in Jerry Famous Deli in Beverly Hills. I will never forget because at one time during our date she asked me kindly" So did you see any tigers and stuff when you were in Africa?". I told her gently" Errr no, Tigers are in Asia". Her face turned white and she remained silent for a few seconds and then changed the subject. She didn't ask me anymore questions after that I could tell she wasn't comfortable anymore"

In Walnut Ridge High School in Columbus, Ohio, my Art teacher approached me once and asked me if life was so different where I was from. So I told her yeah, of course and then she asked me" Do you live in a tree". I had to call all my will not to laugh in her face. I kept trying to figure out how would someone who lives in a tree, in either the savanah or the equatorial forest would have access to a passport, the means to pay for a US visa and then just show up in the middle of the Western Hemisphere.

My favorite misconception is the Lions in the Jungle. Well, jungle in Africa is the rain/equatorial forest, so good luck trying to find lions there. The Lion's natural habitat is the Savanah, which is high grass land and an area that's very dry. So try Eastern Africa or South if you want to see lions.

Basically, trying to educate people without the help of visual aid to help dispel their misconceptions and ignorance is an excercise in futulity.