South Africa as seen by the world

[passionate saffer]

You know i have noticed that no matter all this fancy buildings and places (cape town thread, jo'burg etc) we show here on skyscrapper city, the world still sees us in a different way. i managed to show photos to some of my freinds here in london trying to tell them that SA is not what they think it is, it may have changed they attitude towards SA a bit, however, to other people SA is still just another developing country. As long there still poor people in their masses in SA, our image as a great nation will always be damaged or stay the same. we are hoting the world cup in 2010 but people dont want even to addimite the poverty problem. i had that during the tournament they wont show any bad places. i think this is good to a point however, it will appear to the outside world that we are stigmatsing against the poor.

furthermoer, Its like people on this forum live in another world, i understand we get carried away with all the good piece of the country, however, the poor in kaapstad are still living in terrible conditions. so, my point is that instead of showing the same fancy buildings more than 10 times, its better to show the whole south african experience we cant just keep a blind eye. lets embrace all the communities in our beloved country be it poor or rich, we are all just human. i know some people dont want anythng to do with the poor or they think that the poor embarace and shame our country but lets just feel comfortable with the poor in SA then may be we wont have anything to be embraced about. ( sorry for some of my spellings) if i piss u off sowie mate just come down and examine the real truth.

dedication to all on the SA forum.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCqqAs4al00

[willayster]

i hear what you are saying. but the thought of poor ppl in SA make me depressed, so i try to forget about it. try to drive routes where i dont see shanty towns and live in towns where poverty is minimal, heroldsbay example. i know is wrong, but that how i get by - suppose you have to put yourself first. anyhoo.

[Lydon]

My opinion is that the foreign media constantly show the bad side of Africa as a whole, so I see absolutely nothing wrong with dedicating ourselves to showing the good side. It's not a form of denial at all and it's certainly not covering up the truth, as the negative is what the large majority of people see on a daily basis.

[SA BOY]

Understood but remember this is not a social blog site, its a site dedicated to construction, towers in particular and developement in general and as such thats the bones of this site. We dont shy away from the reality of SA, Pule just posted pics of a shit part of joburg, we discuss aboyut the N2 shacks in CT etc but as a whole developmnet means new and towers measn just that.

[t-bang!]

Its actually the other way around, people will always be bombarded by images of poverty, violance and doom in the media about africa in general .enough has bees said to the world about bad things. showing sad images doesn't help anyway, but showing positive things will definately improve tourism and create jobs (look at the "the death of joburg" and the other side look at how tourism in soweto is helping create because of change of perception by sowetans themself)
Most of these people use those kinds of images to push their own agenda about our countries (they usually like playing the blame game about african countries)

personally i'm tired of people showing me images of poverty and all sad things i was born in the township anyway why should i see more? its like how you see yourself as an individual, if you show all trashy things about yourself people will treat you trashy. it has noting to do with pretence ITS ABOUT A POSITIVE IMAGE.

[ikops]

Yes, you guys should stress the positive things.

[passionate saffer]

i dont deny that being postive is a good thing, however its a reality that the poor are living in terrible conditions, first world south africans dont even sympathise with the poor in most cases. to tackle something like poverty we must admite that e have poor people in SA. anyways guys thanks for your veiws.

[Reggae Boyz Ja]

south africa seen by the rest of the world like me is a place full of poor black people that live among the animals..They hunt impala's and they bring it home to their homes in the bushes. The whites are very rich and dont like to share their money..There are no indians or coloured people in south africa. They want to host a WC but they will probably fail..

[mike7743]

my problem with all of this is, why the hell Africans should care about what others think of them? seriously, I never understood the need to be accepted by others, especially by pathetic Europeans like the British. no matter what you do or say people are going to have a negative reaction to Africa. people fear what they don't understand. that's just how things are. race plays a big factor in how the media covers Africa. success is not expected or is paid little attention to. most people in America think that Britain is backward but does that mean Britain actually is backward? the answer would be NO. point is, others will always have something to say, even for those in the same "group" as them. as long as Africans are doing the right thing for their own the outside perception shouldn't matter, especially those of Europeans.

[mike7743]

Originally Posted by Reggae Boyz Ja

south africa seen by the rest of the world like me is a place full of poor black people that live among the animals..They hunt impala's and they bring it home to their homes in the bushes. The whites are very rich and dont like to share their money..There are no indians or coloured people in south africa. They want to host a WC but they will probably fail..

so what is your point? South Carolina is seeing by the rest of the country as a placed filled with people who are not educated, live in a trailer, have sex with their own family members, and extremely dumb. go figure.

[Reggae Boyz Ja]

Originally Posted by mike7743

so what is your point? South Carolina is seeing by the rest of the country as a placed filled with people who are not educated, live in a trailer, have sex with their own family members, and extremely dumb. go figure.

Cali is seen by the rest as the world as the place where movies come from. There is only poor people or really rich people no middle class. The leader is a super hero with a funny accent but nobody knows why he is the leader? The place is always on fire. Black people call it the westside. White people call it a paradise called malibu. Mexicans think it should be called mexifornia since it was apart of mexico at a certain point of time. Cali people say they never heard of a place called mexico. Cali is the state that has a bigger population of the county north of our country. Cali people say they are democratic but are brain washed to vote republican. People surf there.


And i just go to school in south carolina..I live in Toronto and there is nothing bad to say about toronto hehehe.

[mike7743]

ok, I'm guessing you have some sort of problem with reading. I asked you what was the point you were trying to make, and also gave you an example of what people's perception is about South Carolina in order to show you the irony and also make a larger point. which was that anything can be said about any other place (which is exactly what you did about Africa)

and trust me Toronto gets it as well, I just don't have the energy to type.

[Reggae Boyz Ja]

I was also giving an example about how other people see south africa if you can read. People in other countries like me see it that way, maybe not you. But now i know it's nothing like that. I know what the hell your talking about I come from Jamaica people in jamaica think of Canada being a place full of igloos and shyt, they think it is americas twin. Then I moved there and it was totally different. Then I decided to go too school in southern america. People in the north kept saying they were hillbilly's, low life racist bastards that only want to lynch black people and play their banjos. However the only thing they said that was true is their accents are funny lol..

[passionate saffer]

Originally Posted by willayster

i hear what you are saying. but the thought of poor ppl in SA make me depressed, so i try to forget about it. try to drive routes where i dont see shanty towns and live in towns where poverty is minimal, heroldsbay example. i know is wrong, but that how i get by - suppose you have to put yourself first. anyhoo.

you clearly stigmatise against them and that sir is wrong.

[xxxneoxxx]

Hey Guys lets be real, if we are talking about poor places we need to have blogs about places like sebokeng, driesik, evaton, parts of westonaria and randfontein, tembisa, diepsloot, orange farm etc. Millions and Millions of people live in these places, id go as far as claiming that they make up almost half of SA's population. It is true we have a beautiful country and we can be proud of some of our achievements, but, we need to become champions at fighting poverty. The fact is, we aren't! Our government and all the political parties all other parties in SA are doing "nothing", they are all focusing on the nice places "big cities" which is ohk, but they need to develop policies for really really really poor places of the country. So we can be proud of what we have achieved but let us not forget of the work that lies ahead!

[DennisRodman97]

Hey just like the way the world see texas as a place full of ranches and cowboys....people always think i am a cowboy that rode on horses.....this is what u call typical stereotype....most world stereotype south africa not just south africa but africa....u notice they never usually mention egypt as part of africa but as part of the middle east.....obama went to egypt...but they never said this is obama first trip to africa....but obama speech to the muslim world....then ghana ...all of a sudden its obama first visit to africa.

the media is full of bullshyt....there are poor places everywhere not just in africa....brazil have high poverty levels so are other countries of south america, carribean and central america. Most asian countries are poor except for few like japan.....india have a high poverty level despite economic gains....most of the middle east are poor except for oil rich countries.

parts of america are poor ....mississippi is the poorest state in the union...it happens everwhere...but u can only hope things will continue to improve for blacks in south africa as its doing for blacks in america.

[pablobien!]

Edit.

[willayster]

Originally Posted by passionate saffer

you clearly stigmatise against them and that sir is wrong.

Easy to say that living in London bru.. Selfrighteous...

[The E.N.D]

Maybe its the phenomenon called "white guilt"?I live in Edenvale which is very close to both Alex & Tembisa,townships which I spent a lot of time in for high school projects.Yes,I felt sorry for them and especially blessed myself being a black South African but didn't mean that I'd pretend they didn't exist for my own benefit.Nor did it mean I'd break down in tears for them,thats the last thing people need.They are real people,people trying to live their lives to the best of their abilities with such limited resources.

[Mo Rush]

South Africa pisses off the media. We are AFRICA we are MEANT to do a last minutes Athens rush in terms of our venues... WE are MEANT to have lots of crime during the Confed Cup...we are supposed to be broadcasting pics of kids living in poverty...we aren't meant to be hosting so many events, delivering infrastructure etc. the WC and country is meant to be more like the rest of AFRICA...jacob zuma was meant to ruin our country...

we're in AFRICA and they WANT African headlines.