It’s very simple for you to say that here are good things here, as well and that we should focus on that and effectively “ignore” everything else. That is how I interpret your reply.

Yes, I agree, things are bad all over the world, but they’re not as bad as it is here.
Tell me, have you ever been held at gun-point in your own home, tied up with a blanket over your head, not knowing whether they’re going to shoot you, rape you mother, your girlfriend, listening to how they carry the things out of your house. Having them point a gun at you asking for the code to the safe, not trying to think about the pain in your hands and feet due to lack of blood going to those parts because of the knots.

I’m 24 now, I was 22 when this happened to us. My stepbrother was 15. No one deserves to go through something like that at that age. To wake up at night from the slightest sound, wondering if it’s someone trying to break in again. To live like a prisoner in your own house. When it gets dark, we lock all the doors and close the windows. We can’t entertain friends outside until late at night, or have a BBQ outside at night, for fear of people seeing an “opportunity” to break in.

When you’ve been held up with a gun in your own home with the fear of your wife being raped and not knowing whether you’re going to come out alive the other side; then you can come back and tell me this country has potential and good things going for it.

I work for a large company and have had the privelege
of working with people from all cultures on the same level and higher and it has been a truly wonderful experience. There are good things going on here, it’s just that many people only look at the negative and have never given themseleves a chance to be exposed to the positive. So all they can do is sit and
point fingers and feel miserable away from home – I’m not blind – I do understand the sentiments of some -
about bombings in the past etc etc, but let’s try to move on. I’ve given up arguing with my friends, because whenever I mention anything good about this country
they automatically go into negative mode….the “I told you so” mode…..it’s almost as if they want things to go
wrong so they can justify their move away from this
beautiful country. So let’s dig for the gold and try to
move away from the dirt….you can find dirt anywhere.

Maybe we do have more dirt – maybe this is a terrible country – maybe I should not be bringing up my kids
here, but what worries me is that drugs and discipline
are causing major decline around the world and we must not loose sight of that. Countries that had no crime 20 years ago are beginning to suffer from increased crime. That is why people now have burglar
alarms in New Zealand. Hold on….I can already hear you say ” yes, but they don’t have violent crime, they don’t have murders, they don’t have…….”…but the worrying point is that it’s starting and it’s getting worse.
Same in U.K…..undisciplined kids = undisciplined adults = crime etc etc. It is happening. Don’t be blind about the moral decay wherever you live. It is happening. It’s happened here already and I am worried. But where do I go if it’s starting everywhere else and not being properly checked ??

I recently met a South African who had been in Howick,
Auckland New Zealand for 27 years. He had come back as he was sick of being held up by gun swinging
youths full of drugs wanting his hard earned money in his cash box. So guys, it may be bad here, but you’re not safe anywhere. If it’s not crime, it’s terrorism. If it’s
not terrorism it’s melamine in the baby food….wherever
you run you’re likely to come across some hurdle.

What gets me is expats who criticise everything about this country when they return on holiday. Anything from
bad weather to cracked walls, anything that is accepted in a first world country is not acceptable in South Africa. A crooked wall in rural France is “rustic”, but here it’s “Third World “….honestly you can make any place just as bad as you want !!!…not to mention peeling paint and rotting wood…..yes, I know there are shacks all over the place and cows on the some roads and we have an AIDS problem and and…please don’t harp on all that we already know…it hurts all of us….but there IS a lot of growth and development, there is a lot here that is better than many other countries, let’s not forget that. And please stop using the word “race” and “racism”. It’s actually all about culture and the quicker you try to understand it the better. Just remember if the Germans had been black then the British could have been called racists during World War II.

There are many of us who love what’s good about this place so please refrain from making us feel bad or guilty about living here. That’s all I ask. I know we are
taking a chance, I know what happened in Zimbabwe,etc etc etc…but just leave us alone. It’s our destiny, not yours. You’re all in paradise.

I really believed things could work out well for South Africa. However every time I returned things seemed to have deteriorated more and more. First my aunt, who lives in SA still, became wary about which route she took to and from the airport. I can’t blame her after someone threw a rock at her car and she was blinded in one eye. Then the squatter camps encroached closer and closer to the motorway and eventually you had to avoid cows wandering in a metropolitan six-lane highway. My cousin couldn’t afford to drive from Somerset West to work in Cape Town, so she took the train instead. Everyone said she was foolish. She had a knife held to her throat and was robbed. Then my aunt and uncle’s house, which I remembered being open to the suburban street, was surrounded by high walls and a security gate. Even so, his house was burgled and his firearm stolen from the safe. Fortunately they were out. What if they had been in at the time? Perhaps they would have been tortured or killed, as you often hear about in the news. Recently he has been robbed at knifepoint in his own home by someone posing as a buyer for something he was selling. My parents’ friends moved to a gated complex, but their son had his car stolen at gunpoint as he left. Then the electricity supplies became intermittent purely because of incompetence and skilled technicians being forced to leave simply because they are white.

Of the people I went to school with, fully half are now scattered around the world, in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. For my parents’ generation it is the same. It is very demoralising.

I don’t want to claim that life is impossible for everyone. It isn’t. Especially if you are wealthy and lead the sort of lifestyle and have the sort of job that can easily take you abroad if the worst comes to he worst. But it seems like a very restricted life, especially if you are not so wealthy. Here I can walk to the shops, take a bus or train home after a night out and am not afraid to walk alone after dark except in the worst inner city areas. The last time I walked to the shops in SA a woman pulled over and asked if I was OK, because she thought it was dangerous to be where I was. My aunt will not drive from Somerset West to Cape Town after dark for fear of breaking down next to squatter camp. I wouldn’t be able to live with that fear and restriction of my life.

I still hope that things work out well for South Africa, but increasingly this looks like the triumph of hope over experience. We saw what happened to Kenya, to Uganda, Rwanda, Congo, Zimbabwe and many others. Everyone hopes South Africa can avoid that fate but how realistic is it to believe South Africa will succeed where others failed?

The fact is that a (relatively) wealthy minority in a mainly poor country is going to be vulnerable. The poverty is not our fault, but it is always going to be easy for demagogic politicians to blame us for all the problems. The recent xenophobic attacks, the sudden horrific violence in Kenya, Mugabe’s demagoguery etc show just how easy it is to stoke up resentment and hatred amongst an impoverished and ignorant population. If it isn’t the white “racists” there are always foreigners or Africans of a different tribe to blame. When there is a court case against a white person for a crime against a black person we still see crowds gathering and the old slogans of “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer!” “Maak dood die wit man” and “One settler, one bullet” are heard. What can be expected of a ruling party that was necklacing its opponents, inciting children to burn their schools, running torture and “re-education” camps in Angola and setting off bombs in bars and shopping centres not many years ago? Or a party that allies itself with the SACP that still dreams of violent revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat?

Love your blog, unfortunately, you as so many of us are not well supported. Have a look at the site and if you really like it tell all. We have tried to showcase what is really happening in South Africa, the corruption, the crime, the human rights violations, the ecological destruction, the whole lot. Basically we have been called the same as you, even had a death threat or two, but we are still around to tell the tale. What is good to know however is that other small anti-corruption organizations have started to contact us, so there is hope for our beautifull South Africa if we all can stand together.

Carry on, the more people that know about the problems in South Africa, the more we can force Government to actually start doing something.

Regards
Andre Cloete

Way to go…

I don’t currently live in SA as work has taken me abroad..but I do plan to return soon.
I’ve not experienced any kind of brutal crime…I had my car and house broken into, but that’s about it. I was a victim of petty crime. I see crime as just a side effect, a by-product, of the revolution happenning in SA. I don’t see any of the people that are “awake and have smelt the coffee” doing anything to help. Have they signed up to be part of neighbourhood watches ? Are they actively getting involved with the city police to help think up smart idea’s of controlling and preventing crime ?
I didn’t think so. SA does not need bitter people…and by the way, bitterness stems from hatred. I’m starting to wonder who they hate ?!?
Anyways… Mike, your blog shows SA for what it is : a beautiful country with a rainbow nation trying hard to be the most hospitable, welcoming patch of land and an icon of hope that bears testimony to the fact that we are pressed but not crushed, persecuted, but not abandoned, struck down, but not destroyed.

Howzit Mike, nice blog you have here. You popped up on my Google radar so I thought I’d linger a few moments and scan you out.

Yes, ‘Watson’ was a fake, we still get the odd SMS from him telling us he’s going live again doing something but notheing ever happens.

None of us (on the new CESA team) ever met this prick but I’ve a feeling if we had, he’s have come to some grief.

But yes, he did have a good concept, we’ve battled to achieve the same webstats he said he had but out hit counter tells us we’re only getting about 1100 hits average a day now.

Those graphics he used, (stole, plagiarised) were I think attracting most of the traffic but where we differ mostly form him/ her/ it is that we are ourselves involved in crime prevention at street level, (OK, maybe just Maryna and me), we hope to eventually convince oher people to do the same as us.

Maryna is a newcomer to CDCP, (community-driven crime-prevention) but I’ve been in it a while now. Creating a counter-crime NGO four years ago (CCI) has taught me a lot.

Mainly about human nature of course but also about the essence of the title of the book I published four years ago, ‘Conditioned Victim?’ Working, (or rather trying to work ) with the authorities here in SA over the last fifteen years has convinced me even more of late that if and when it eventually does go in the fan for you, then you yourself can acquire the best solution to get out of it.

As I’m sure you’re aware, the old axiom applies, ‘It’s not what you know…….”

Nice chatting and my apologies for dropping in unannounced,
Go well and go safely.

Best regards,

Martin Hedington.
Media & community relations: CrimeXpoSouthAfrica.net
Gauteng Regional Advocacy Director; gunownerssa.org
Executive Producer: Live Fire TV SA
GM: Community Crime-prevention Initiative
Publishers of ‘Conditioned Victim? Your Choice!’
Ekurhuleni Ward 15 Committee: Public Safety Rep’
Community Liaison Officer: Sector Crime Forum; SAPS Norkem Park S1
Birchleigh Neighbourhood Watch
Birchleigh Drug Alert
Chairman: Ekurhuleni Ward 15 Residents Association
011 391 2979
082 392 9744

CESA was a lie, a fake and only made South Africa’s problem worse. Crime must be combated constructively. CESA sought to use sensationalism and racism to generate traffic for ad revenue. That’s a crime in itself, but I guess according to you white collar crime is not crime.

I’m not scared of the truth, but I’m not going to run away from it. I am facing it head on. Yes, I worry about crime and yes, I have a young family to protect too. But I also love this country enough to try to make it work, for everyone who lives here.

Edmund Burke said “All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.” Tell me, since you are such an expert on the subject, what are you doing to combat crime? And I presume where you live, nothing bad ever happens to anyone, and no-one is corrupt?

Yes, I live in SA. Yes, that’s why I’m concerned about global perceptions of my country. Very smart of you to figure that one out.

I don’t mind SA taking a bad wrap for the truth. But lies are inexcusable.