"If modernising the educational system means excluding jihad from the curriculum, then the US must understand that it is asking Pakistan to negate a basic concept of Islam that has also been part of the motto of the Pakistan Army since Independence"
"extremism in Pakistan would automatically come to an end if the West stopped action against Muslims. This is a reminder to the USA that extremism can only be eradicated by focussing on its underlying causes and just resolutions of the political disputes that lie at its root."
Posted by: john ||
08/21/2005 17:03 ||
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#1
In other words, if we don't give them everything they want Jihad will never end. So let's break it down: 1-Destruction of Israel, we can't seem to get past this.
2-worldwide caliphate, I'd just as soon be dead as see this happen.
3-All westerners, business,influences off the arabian peninsula.
otherwise it is war, huh? Well I think we can accomodate you assholes.
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, South Africa's recently appointed vice president, has a sense of humour, so maybe she was just joking. But it was the political equivalent of shouting âFireâ in a crowded theatre, and it has severely shaken confidence in the good sense of the government she helps to lead. What she said, at a conference in Johannesburg last week, was the following: âLand reform in South Africa has been too slow and too structured. There needs to be a bit of âoomphâ. That's why we may need the skills of Zimbabwe to help us. On agrarian and land reform, South Africa should learn some lessons from Zimbabwe â how to do it fast.â
As investors hit the panic button and the people who run South Africa's economy tore their hair out in despair, Mlambo-Ngcuka's spokesman Murphy Morobe insisted that her remarks were made in jest during a âlight-hearted exchangeâ during the conference. Perhaps. But if not, then she was suggesting that South Africa destroy its agriculture, and subsequently its entire economy, by emulating Zimbabwe's example.
Zimbabwe was, until the end of the 1990s, a repressive but modestly prosperous country ruled by an ageing leader of the independence struggle, Robert Mugabe. It was only after voters rejected his plan to make the country a one-party state (and thereby assure him the presidency for life) in a 2000 referendum that he turned to extreme measures in an attempt to rebuild his popularity. Primary among them â and a sure crowd-pleaser â was a plan to confiscate land from prosperous white commercial farmers and âredistributeâ it to poor, landless blacks.
It was indefensible that a few thousand white farmers owned most of Zimbabwe's best farmland. Land reform was long overdue, and if Mugabe had set about it seriously 20 years before, when he first took power, it could have been done gradually, legally, and without any grave damage to Zimbabwe's economy. But it was bound to be a delicate operation, because the white farmers grew the cash crops that were the mainstay of Zimbabwe's economy, and the landless blacks who took over their farms would initially lack the skills and the capital to fill that role. Mugabe may not have understood that, and in any case he didn't care. This was about politics, not the economy, and so he sent out gangs of armed youth to expel the white farmers and seize the land. Almost all the white farmers are now out of business â and so is Zimbabwe.
About half of the seized land went to Mugabe's cronies and political allies in the ruling party and the military. Some of the rest did go to poor peasants, but they had neither the tools nor the skills for large-scale commercial farming, and about half of Zimbabwe's best farmland now lies fallow. The national economy has shrunk by 30 per cent since 1999, average income per head is now lower than in 1980, and half of the population now needs emergency food aid. Is this what Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka has in mind for South Africa?
The African National Congress government has been walking a tightrope ever since it took control of South Africa 11 years ago. Most black South Africans still vote for it, but they expect rapid action to narrow the shocking gap between their living standards and those of the non-black minorities. The trouble is that those minorities â whites, Asians, and mixed-race âColouredsâ who together account for only one-fifth of the country's 45 million people â still own most of the businesses, and possess most of the skills, that South Africa needs if it is to remain a modern industrial economy.
This must change in time, of course, but change can only be gradual if the economy is not to be destroyed. The pressure for change is urgent, however, and only politics can span the gap. The ANC has walked the political tightrope successfully for a decade, but at least another decade of the same performance lies ahead of it if South Africa is to make it into stable prosperity as a multiracial democracy. Occasionally the leadership panics and decides a populist gesture is necessary â and that is the charitable explanation for Mlambo-Ngcuka's remarks.
Eighty-seven per cent of South Africa's farmland was white-owned when Nelson Mandela took over in 1994; 85 per cent still is today. So late last month the government announced that it was abandoning the market-based âwilling buyer-willing sellerâ programme of land redistribution because it is too slow. White farmers say there are plenty of âwilling sellersâ, but that they cannot get the government to buy their land. It doesn't matter who's right. It doesn't even matter all that much if a âfast-trackâ programme of taking land from whites and handing it to blacks destroys South Africa's position as one of only six net food exporters in the world. Unlike Zimbabwe, South Africa is a mostly urban country with a fully developed economy, and agriculture is not a very big part of it.
What does matter is that both South African and foreign investors continue to see the country as a place where it is the law, and not mere party politics, that makes the rules. Get that wrong, and you lose everything. She really should mind her mouth.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/21/2005 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Matt K. ||
08/21/2005 0:26 Comments ||
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#2
IMO
The "good intentioned" social engineering, carried out under great pressure [from the outside]to transform South Africa away from apartied, may actually result in a failed state.
This area is ripe for more terrorists, thugs, and pug uglys.
If South Africa starts to fail, we should be prepared to save lives and lift the nukes, essential equiptment, and feedstocks.
For all South Africans I hope things turn around soon.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
08/21/2005 1:52 Comments ||
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#3
apartheid
Posted by: Red Dog ||
08/21/2005 1:53 Comments ||
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#4
Another country in the Dark Continent reverting to the bush after the departure of European and Asian settlers? The sad reality of Africa is that the true exploiters of Africans are millennia of African leaders that have produced nothing but misery for their people. It looks like a new generation of black exploiters stand ready to exploit the heck out of their people with promises of economic nirvana that will never materialize, and will certainly make the lives of non-elite blacks much more miserable than they are today. However, skin color solidarity will ensure that these schemes go through with solid approval from blacks, even as they pave the way for economic suicide.
#5
Land reform was long overdue, and if Mugabe had set about it seriously 20 years before, when he first took power, it could have been done gradually, legally, and without any grave damage to Zimbabwe's economy. But it was bound to be a delicate operation.....
Ah, yes. If only they had nuanced the redistribution of wealth, they could have been a contender. Take heed believers - though socialism/communism seems to be a completely discredited and totally failed ideal, it's not the ideal - it's just the process. (note to investors, FIRE! RUN!)
#10
Question: is there ANYPLACE in Africa that would be worth investing fifty cents in? I was just in SA in December and I can vouch for the fact that everyone I talked to said crime was through the roof and all the whites I encountered said they were going to emigrate as soon as they could. The biggest obstacle to leaving, for them, was the government's restrictions on taking wealth out of the country. Sad as it sounds, I think Kim DuToit is dead on with his assessment of Africa: let it sink. When, fifty years from now, people can rationally look back at Africa, they'll see that the best years most of Africa ever had were from 1900 to 1960--the major era of European colonialism.
Posted by: mac ||
08/21/2005 8:38 Comments ||
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Botswana is pretty much a success story, Mac.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
08/21/2005 10:07 Comments ||
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#12
When I was a kid Rhodesia and South Africa were prosperous, powerfull economies. Now they are buckets of shit. And everyone knows why.
#14
Tanzanite and Conflict Diamonds. DeBeers is based in South Africa I do believe. Yellow Cake. Bush Meat, including dead Pygmies. Witch doctors and occasional cannibalism.
The only story in the whole Africa (muslim north included) are, in my modest opinion some insular nations like Mauritius, Sechelles and above all ... Cape Verde Islands, a candidate to ... European Union(!).
http:/www.afrol.com/articles/16293
Regards...
Posted by: Matt K. ||
08/21/2005 15:31 Comments ||
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#17
Botswana was a success story 25 years ago, but not anymore.
#18
The interesting thing about migration trends from South Africa is that there is no real difference between races or between english and afrikaans speakers. A large proportion of people of all races with the skills to be accepted as an immigrant in other countries want to leave because of crime and social deteriation. Also of note is that SA has a similar problem as the Europeans with large numbers of low skilled immigrants increasing crime and social problems. It just happens that whites are disproportionately skilled and unskilled immigrants are disproportionately black. SA government demographics.
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Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, South Africa's recently appointed vice president, has a sense of humour, so maybe she was just joking. But it was the political equivalent of shouting âFireâ in a crowded theatre, and it has severely shaken confidence in the good sense of the government she helps to lead. What she said, at a conference in Johannesburg last week, was the following: âLand reform in South Africa has been too slow and too structured. There needs to be a bit of âoomphâ. That's why we may need the skills of Zimbabwe to help us. On agrarian and land reform, South Africa should learn some lessons from Zimbabwe â how to do it fast.â 
