Alright, I didn't want to ruin the Cape Town thread with our new conversation going on, and it is a good conversation too. Cape Town is a great looking city, and our conversation was taking away from the photos.

We started talking about the media, and how they make South Africa look bad. They do so because the bad news sells. Its true. As bad as that sounds, its true. Someone commented on the Georgia conflict, now that it is over and no more destruction is going on, no one wants to hear about it. Same goes with Israel and Palestine right now, once it is over, the news will stop talking about it. There are no bombs being dropped, what is the point...:ohno:

It shouldn't be like that. We should see what is going on positively too. I feel that bad media really triggers a lot of the problems in this world.

I would love for a program to broadcast the great news going on in South Africa. It is not like South Africa is some war-torn nation. They can make it interesting by showing off the different stories of success, the booming cities of South Africa, how the nation is getting ready for the world cup, and South Africa's beautiful countryside.

In this thread, we can talk about South Africa and how it is perceived throughout the world. We can talk about its strengths and yes, its weaknesses.

I know South Africa is a great nation, and its about time more people start seeing that too.

It really is a shame that the world thrives so much on bad press. Unfortunately it's very hard to do anything about it, because it will involve changing the perceptions of very many people.

I think our best hope is that the world cup goes off extremely smoothly and that the media as a result will have nothing to complain about when the time comes. It will be a way of proving our metal.

guys please keep this thread civil, i dont want going the way of the emmigration, hate SA, crime, politics and other threads....please, thanx

It really is a shame that the world thrives so much on bad press. Unfortunately it's very hard to do anything about it, because it will involve changing the perceptions of very many people.

I think our best hope is that the world cup goes off extremely smoothly and that the media as a result will have nothing to complain about when the time comes. It will be a way of proving our metal.

There are many people who believe that the World Cup 2010 is the only reason why things haven't fallen apart in our country as yet... that a 'good image' is being held to let that pass first.

In my opinion South Africa is a new country starting in the 90's, its just getting to its feet. However unlike other new countries alot more is expected of SA - i.e. needs to take charge of southern africa, needs to be an example of economic success, it needs show how democracy can work in Africa aswell as taking centre stage amongst international players.

The problem is that SA isnt completely starting from scratch, infact it has one of the worst recent histories in comparison to most middle-income nations, racial and social diverson along side economic breakdown. SA is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world with races having to live along side each other even when ethnicity is such a sore subject and where race is a huge division especially economically.

In the space of the last couple of decades, SA has accomplished great things - a baby democracy with heavy burdens has managed to lift many out of poverty, provided electricty and ammenties to those who didnt have them, pushed education to the deprived, expanded the economy and its global status both politically and in terms of tourism. SA has many problems crime, AIDS, corruption and discrimination but so does everywhere and after everything that its come up against, everything it will and of everything expected of it SA has achieved extrodinary things, and dealt with and is dealing with problems (especially the after effects of apartied) that have and would of pulled most societies down!
Its nowhere near perfect, but if they want to crictise let them because the fact SA has survived let alone flurished is a miricale! Heres to the prosperous future of South Africa!

lol ive had my essay now

^^ Well said. People tend to forget that SA has only been a democracy since 1994 and was hectic Fascist up until 1990. It takes time to be a global leader and a model nation, yet SA has become a major player amongst the middle-income nations and is the leader of Africa. That indeed says a lot. Let for example the USA have tried to do that just 15 years after their civil war under Lincoln.

There is a lot of pressure on SA, but some challenges are lost, but many more are being won.

Well.... I don't think there are only bad news..

For example.. the last week I saw in a TV programme of International Relationships lots of bad news.. and only the good news were of South Africa (about proyects of the government to build lots of houses for homeless people)
...


And South Africa is a beautiful country! :lol: (I had to say that!)

Well stated, Auckland.

guys please keep this thread civil, i dont want going the way of the emmigration, hate SA, crime, politics and other threads....please, thanx

The intentions were to keep it calm, and just talk about South Africa and what is represents. You can't sugarcoat everything. It truly is a great nation though, and more people need to see that.

Yes we understand, but threads such as these have resulted in some hectic flaming in the past, hence the warning :)

Good effort Auckland. Thanx.

Yes we understand, but threads such as these have resulted in some hectic flaming in the past, hence the warning :)

I understand it is a topic that can go nowhere fast, and I completely understand if it needs to get closed. Lets just hope people can stay calm and just stay on the issues.

Just remembered a song from Ruud Gullit (I really hope you know his name) about South Africa. I actually forgot that he sang too.

JEBdCczyPFQ

Hey !! The song was not that bad. :lol:

This article certainly puts things in perspective for those who think we have things bad in SA. Although the writer gets a few things wrong (no potholes on SA roads, 90% criminal apprehension rate etc), he does make interesting points on things that South Africans don't usually appreciate and take for granted.

----------------

Are We Really The Giant Of Africa?

Sam Nda-Isaiah
January 11th, 2009

I have just returned from a vacation in South Africa that saw me traversing Johannesburg, Cape Town and the magical Sun City. South Africa is a First World country built by the whites but which has been maintained, improved and constantly renewed by the black ANC-controlled government since 1994. They were lucky to have had Nelson Mandela as the first post-apartheid black president and not Robert Mugabe or Olusegun Obasanjo. Mandela who once declared that "courageous people do not fear forgiving" laid a rock-solid nationalist foundation based on the principles of true democracy, predicated on free and fair elections, rule of law and justice. He insisted on spending only one term as a sacrifice for the growth of democracy and statecraft in the country he loves so much. That is why when the man (or to him, the boy) he groomed to succeed him got too close to Obasanjo and in the process picked up a few bad manners and wanted to remain in power and reckoning beyond his brief, he was humbled at his party's convention and subsequently thrown out as the nation's president. And everything was done according to the rule of law and due process.

There are still crimes and hooliganism in the country. In fact, South Africa is renowned for its violent crimes, but the difference with Nigeria is that you could see the government spending sleepless nights trying to solve the problem. These days, there are installed cameras and CCTVs everywhere, especially in the crime-infested areas, to spot criminals. And, in more than 90% of cases, those who perpetrate crimes are apprehended. Robbers and assassins are taken into custody almost on a daily basis. In Nigeria, a serving minister of justice was assassinated seven years ago but, as I write, the authorities are not even looking for the criminals. Bola Ige is only one of numerous examples. There are also the cases of Sa'adatu Rimi, Marshal Harry, Aminosoari Dikibo and a host of others. Maybe, another difference between the reality of crime in Nigeria and South Africa is that the people that are supposed to be searching for and apprehending criminals are the same people that are perpetrating the crimes.

Another thing. There is no large water source in Johannesburg, so the city sources its water supply from a neighbouring country. In spite of that, all the taps gush with water with the kind of pressure that we in Nigeria can only imagine. There are no potholes at all on any of their roads, and, everywhere you go, there are ongoing new projects. Less than two years ago, the government decided to build a new rail line. By June this year, it will be completed and you see the efforts to complete it everywhere you go. They are constructing larger and more sophisticated stadia – bigger than the disposal one Obasanjo built in Abuja, but at even less the cost. They are constructing the stadia in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, and you see work going on day and night. There are no abandoned projects in South Africa and contractors are not owed.

And, as we all know, a black majority government has been in place for 15 years. Since then, the economy has grown exponentially so much so that the Rand, the local currency, has not only maintained its convertibility, it has even become stronger. Their priority in education is covetable. Less than two weeks ago, the results of their secondary school certificate exams were released and the entire country has been engrossed with the progress or otherwise that their leaders of tomorrow are making. Newspapers and TV stations are discussing the results on a daily basis. They are currently busy assessing the performance of their children in critical subjects like Mathematics and the sciences. As a Nigerian onlooker, I was both impressed and depressed. Impressed at the purposefulness of a fellow African country, and depressed that my country has not even enlisted in the global race for the future.

A few weeks ago, South Africa's minister of health was ill and had to seek medical attention, but she dared not attend her regular private hospital much less travel to Germany or Saudi Arabia for treatment. In Nigeria, the president travels out on a regular basis to seek medical attention in hospitals in foreign countries without the slightest courtesy of even informing Nigerians. Meanwhile, all the public hospitals in Nigeria have now become places people only go to die. And why not? For almost one year last year, the nation had no minister of health.

In South Africa, every day you read the newspapers you see how the government is frantically responding to the global financial crisis. Nigeria is doing nothing because those in power are living under the self-delusion that Nigeria is "not affected by the crisis". Meanwhile, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has all but collapsed.

But all that does not even begin to explain why I am sad at the moment. As our aircraft made to land at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos, at the weekend, the entire city was without power supply. And as we drove to our hotel to spend the night before leaving for Abuja the following day, only the few houses that had generators had power supply. The whole of Lagos was in pitch darkness. But that's only the beginning of the story.

When I called my friend who had also just returned from his own vacation from, of all places, Liberia to tell him my ordeal, he was even angrier than I was. Throughout the one week he spent in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, he said, there was no power outage, even though the country had just emerged from a devastating internecine war. He said on his way back, they flew across a few African countries including Ghana, and because it was at night, they saw the glow of light bulbs in all the countries they flew across until they got to Nigeria. As they landed in Lagos, the entire city, Nigeria's commercial capital, was without electricity.

Nigeria is probably the only country in the world that is still in pitch darkness and getting worse. And this is after Obasanjo had spent $16 billion in eight years on the sector. And, as if that was not bad enough for me, another friend who had read my column two weeks ago – where I said, "Nigeria is regressing and sinking so fast that many of us may soon be spending vacation in backwater countries like Niger Republic" – called me. He told me that I was not even current enough. He and his family had just returned from a vacation in Niger Republic where they had peace and a hell of a good time. And he added, "There was no power outage throughout the period we were there."

That also reminded me of Col. Dangiwa Umar's brilliant letter to former President Obasanjo a few years ago. He told Obasanjo in the letter that he travelled by land to Niger Republic via Sokoto. He knew he had left Nigeria when the road suddenly became smooth without a hint of potholes. That, of course, was after Obasanjo had spent N350 billion "constructing roads".

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines delusions of grandeur as "the belief that you are much more important than you really are". No, Nigeria is not the giant of Africa, unless we are suffering from a classical case of delusions of grandeur. But we have what it takes to become one in the shortest possible time. We are a relatively well-educated, sophisticated and confident people. We are indisputably the intellectual hub of Africa. But we have allowed crooks and rogues to take over our commonweal for far too long. And it is not the fault of those rogue leaders. It is our collective fault. They would not be in power, if it were not with our consent.

http://leadershipnigeria.com/news/124/ARTICLE/5217/2009-01-11.html

I was reading an old article in national geographic on Joburg.

And what did it say?

:weird:

Does this person smoke TIK or what? No potholes? A currency that is getting stronger? The Gautrain will be finished in June of this year???

Can we say PROPOGANDA?

Give me a break. :bash:

^^ I think you're missing the core message behind the article, which is that evidently we don't appreciate and overlook simple things over here that many others don't have the privilege of having.

^^ I think you're missing the core message behind the article, which is that evidently we don't appreciate and overlook simple things over here that many others don't have the privilege of having.

Then the core message should be just that. But making it look better than it is with some extra sugar on top which are lies, is just not on.

Let's not try to kid ourselves here.

Then the core message should be just that. But making it look better than it is with some extra sugar on top which are lies, is just not on.

I doubt the author intended to lie. I think he may have just experienced the best of what we have to offer. It's very likely he didn't come across any potholes in the roads, for example. As a result of that he may think that all our roads look like that, when it's obvious that they don't.

Considering he's from Nigeria, I see no reason for him to deliberately sugar-coat South Africa. It would be of no benefit to him or his country. It's simply a matter of perception in my opinion.

I doubt the author intended to lie. I think he may have just experienced the best of what we have to offer. It's very likely he didn't come across any potholes in the roads, for example. As a result of that he may think that all our roads look like that, when it's obvious that they don't.

Considering he's from Nigeria, I see no reason for him to deliberately sugar-coat South Africa. It would be of no benefit to him or his country. It's simply a matter of perception in my opinion.

Well this is exactly the type of nonsense that irritates me. Whether you intend to lie or not, if you publish something like this, you are telling lies.

As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Well this is exactly the type of nonsense that irritates me. Whether you intend to lie or not, if you publish something like this, you are telling lies.

As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

No offence, but I really think you're overreacting here. As I said, you're focussing on the details of the article without focussing on the core message behind it. It's logical that we have potholes etc, but the fact is that we're probably miles ahead of the other countries he mentioned in the article.

No offence, but I really think you're overreacting here. As I said, you're focussing on the details of the article without focussing on the core message behind it. It's logical that we have potholes etc, but the fact is that we're probably miles ahead of the other countries he mentioned in the article.

No further comments.