WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-07-10 Time: 12:00:16 Posted By: JanOlifant
WHO ARE THE REAL SOUTH AFRICAN ICONS?
At a concert held before the Fifa World Cup, a prominent churchman announced to the audience that another old gentleman – often called an icon -“made all of this possible”. The churchman gestured expansively to encompass not only the concert but the whole World Cup spectacle. We were assured that some iconic “magic” would be behind the hoped-for wins of our local team.
Numerous spokesmen from the new order have taken credit for the successful running of the World Cup and the beautiful, modern South Africa the world is now seeing. This is the current tone in the country, but it is not the reality.
It is the non-icons who made the World Cup possible, and who were responsible for the fact that Fifa even considered South Africa as a realistic contender in the first place. The millions of non-Africans in South Africa was the reason why SA was chosen. This is the REAL reason, the unspoken reason, and credit must be given where credit is due. Many commentators talked of the cup being played “on African soil”, but it was on South African soil, and that fact made the difference. Three hundred and fifty years of European settlement, with another 150 years of Indian settlement and the hard work of many others made the Fifa World Cup games possible. The present government cannot take all the glory. In fact, it was because of the ANC government's abysmal record over the past 15 years that doubts about SA's capacity to hold the games were raised in the first place!
Fifa came and saw and decided. The main roads are still good, the hospitality industry is world class. There is an excellent private health service and a new train (expensive enough to be safe for passengers!), new buses, beefed-up security services and top-grade stadiums built by non-iconic engineers.
Nobody wants to be churlish about efforts to make the Cup a success by those who were instructed – and paid – to do so. But exception must be taken to those who have taken credit for something that had little to do with them!
Who were the people who structured the sound and the staging of the pre-World Cup above-mentioned concert? What about the farmers who provided the food for the visitors, and who were at the hospitality industry's beck and call when extra supplies were ordered (and who incidentally feed 48 million people every day!)? Who were the engineers who presented the world with the magnificent stadiums, with the newly-built roads and the sky train. Who was responsible for the emergency medical services? Who initiated the – in many cases – private clean-ups of the streets and the parks?
“We did it”, cried the newspaper headlines. Well, who are these people, the “we”? Certainly not the ruling classes who were pictured in the stands courtesy of R50 million worth of tickets paid for by the taxpayer, greeting foreign visitors, attending lunches and dinners and generally taking credit for the whole spectacle. And certainly not the BEE gentlemen whose only role in building South Africa was to parasite on the hard work of others. (Why don't the billionaire black businessmen start up trade training schools for young blacks instead of buying R30 million wine farms?)
Who runs the hundreds of bed and breakfasts throughout South Africa, known world wide for their wonderful food, cleanliness and charm? Who created the new state-of-the-art High Definition Television broadcast TV studio that beamed those spectacular games pictures to the world? Who runs the scores if not hundreds of charity institutions throughout South Africa who regularly provide millions of rands worth of food and clothing to indigent communities, year after year?
South Africa's soccer pitches were “top quality”, declared experts from the British Sports Turf Research Institute – they were of “exceptionally high standard”. We doubt if any icons were involved in this. Who provides the volunteer veterinary services to townships throughout South Africa year after year, with no reward or even recognition? And who paid for the whole spectacle? The direct cost of the World Cup to South Africa's 5 million odd taxpayers exceeds R40 billion. (Sunday Times 6 June 2010)
POST APARTHEID
There is no doubt that the World Cup would not have been granted to South Africa during the apartheid years. But what price did we pay to host the Cup now that apartheid has gone? The price is in fact what the icons have bequeathed to South Africa. What is the legacy of the new South Africa, the rainbow nation that isn't?
The SA Institute of Race Relations' (SAIRR) Anthea Jeffery has comprehensively set out the general decline in the effectiveness of the SA government in many spheres of South African life in her just-published book Chasing the Rainbow. She discusses the growing dependency on the State (read taxpayers!). She says the real need is to empower the destitute to escape poverty in the same way as everyone else – by earning their own living. (Italics ours).
A sense of entitlement is but one hallmark of the post-1994 government, as is crime, incompetence, corruption and nepotism. The icons have a lot to answer for!
WHAT HAVE THE ICONS WROUGHT?
(43)+ Close to a million jobs were lost in 2009 while government labour laws continue to price the unskilled out of work.
(43)+ Nearly one third of the population lives on welfare – more than 14 million. The child grant alone (going up to 18 years!) will increase to 11,5 million by 2013. This amounts to more than 4,8% of GDP. Expenditure on “social protection” (welfare) is now the second biggest budget item. (By 2012, this figure will be one sixth of the country's entire budget). Yet only 5 million odd out of a population of 48 million pay income tax..
(43)+ The government turned a blind eye to the carnage and destruction in neighbouring Zimbabwe, embracing (physically and figuratively) the tyrant Robert Mugabe, while millions fled to South Africa across unchecked borders, resulting in huge squatter slums surrounding South Africa's cities, housing other African refugees as well.
(43)+ The integrity of South African passports was debased to such an extent that even the British government demands a large payment for visas to the United Kingdom. The bribery, corruption and fraud within the Department of Home Affairs is known throughout the world, and SA citizens' visa applications are so onerous as to be like a criminal seeking work after prison release.
(43)+ More than one million whites (and hundreds of Blacks, Indians and Coloureds) have left South Africa to sell their skills where these attributes are appreciated. Under an Employment Equity Policy, government and business do not function effectively because of a skills lack, laziness, corruption and a culture of entitlement.
(43)+ SA spends more than 5% of GDP on education but gets little for it. (Fast Facts 5/2010) The Department of Education Budget Review for 2010 set aside R2,7 billion for workbooks in all eleven official languages. (Wasn't home language education an apartheid policy, lambasted by the icons of yore?) Some students enrolled at Further Education and Training Colleges are getting 0% in a range of subjects. The current pass rate of literacy and numeracy skills is 25% to 40%.
(43)+ Despite huge transfers of productive commercial farmland to black beneficiaries, there appear to be no successes if these are to be gauged on tax payable as going concerns. The government itself acknowledges that 90% have failed. (It will take 60 years to reach the government target of 30% of land for redistribution). The government's declaration that there is a huge pent-up demand for farming land among the black majority “simply does not exist”. (Sunday Times October 2009).
(43)+ Under the iconic ANC government, more than fifty new crimes have appeared in police dockets, ranging from ATM and cash in transit heists, supermarket gang robberies, baby rape, large-scale theft of electric and copper cables, torture with residential and farm robberies/murders, the growth of crime syndicates, human trafficking, drug cartels and drug labs in suburban houses, restaurant robberies by gangs during business hours, squatting in unused buildings and on private land, endemic theft of luggage at airports, large-scale bribery of civil service personnel from the Departments of Home Affairs to the Police, hospital staff, morgue staff, magistrates and in some instances judges; fake passports, birth certificates, ID certificates, matriculation certificates, university graduation certificates and tradesmen's certificates. There is no border control resulting in uncontrolled illegal immigration from all over the world and especially Africa.
(43)+ According to Interpol's statistics, a woman is raped every 17 seconds in South Africa. South Africa has the largest number of reported rapes in the world, with half of these rapes the rape of children. One out of every two women will be raped in her lifetime.
(Solidarity 28.6.2010) South Africa is one of the world's top crime capitals.
(43)+ From a first-world health service, South Africa's health care has descended into disarray. SAIRR Fast Facts (June 2010) reveals – perhaps inadvertently – the huge gap between health care under private first-world control and that under the ANC government's stewardship. It is a sobering indictment, ranging from poor hospital conditions, poor management, nepotism appointments, the “mismanagement” of funds, poor organization, shortage of supplies and equipment, crime and theft and maternal and child mortality. It is harrowing reading.
Source: http://www.tlu.co.za/