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I've been regularly thinking about Apartheid-era South Africa. It was a massive Thing for me as a Catholic school kid in the '80s because it seemed (to me) so c

by tclancy 5mo ago

I've been regularly thinking about Apartheid-era South Africa. It was a massive Thing for me as a Catholic school kid in the '80s because it seemed (to me) so clearly wrong yet accepted. There were clearly "lefties" making it visible without a lot happening but then "How did you go bankrupt? Two ways: Gradually, then suddenly" happened. And a lot of it started with university students petitioning their schools to divest and that spreading. It will not be fast, but these things can happen and we should start to build a framework for it. And yes, yes, Enemies Lists are fraught with problems and have a history of eating themselves, etc. But the one thing I know is worse is not trying.

newsclues 5mo ago
[flagged]
- gljiva 5mo ago
  How dare they not solve _all_ the problems, instead of only contributing towards solving one!
- swiftcoder 5mo ago
  > South Africa is really thriving these days eh? I know you meant this sarcastically, but unironically yes. GDP has more than doubled since the end of apartheid, and it has the strongest economy on the continent
  - mothballed 5mo ago
    LMAO, now normalize it against world change in GDP since the end of apartheid. Pre-apartheid they were beating the world average, all times after apartheid they have been behind world average. https://mybroadband.co.za/news/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/DGP-per-capita-global-1.jpg https://mybroadband.co.za/news/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/DG... Especially the last 20 years, it is falling off a cliff in relative performance. Yeah the post-apartheid peak was 10% above the apartheid peak from the 80s.... unfortunately if you can only get 10% better in 40 years it actually represents a massive failure relative to the rest of the world. I'd agree that apartheid was bad, but it seems to be coupled with other factors that led them to fall behind on the world stage. I'm guessing the kind of ideology that accompanies literal filled stadiums shouting "kill the boer farmer" is not so far fetched from the kind of ideology that resulted in Zimbabwe going for broke.
    - tclancy 5mo ago
      >I'd agree that apartheid was bad At least we have finally settled that. >I'm guessing the kind of ideology that accompanies literal filled stadiums shouting "kill the boer farmer" is not so far fetched from the kind of ideology that resulted in Zimbabwe going for broke. Zimbabwe's failure is pretty clear: total corruption under one man. South Africa, post-Apartheid, has an unhappy history of corruption as well. But it is confounding how one reaches for the "anti-white racism" explanation before considering how centuries of colonial "oppression" (which a fun euphemism for violence and denying education) might lead to a situation where government functions poorly when you abandon ship and leave your government setup in place for people with no experience and no mentor to figure out.
      - mothballed 5mo ago
        >when you abandon ship and leave your government setup in place for people with no experience and no mentor to figure out. >>"Kill the boer" "Kill" doesn't sound like mentorship. You can argue they just mean rip them out of power/office, which they have done, but the ANC's message has not been "lets use the colonizers as our mentors." >Zimbabwe's failure is pretty clear: total corruption under one man. I don't think it's that simple. They tried to basically replace the colonial-style farming model almost overnight, handing over agriculture to black citizens. They tried to throw out the bathwater of "colonialization" while thinking they could keep the baby with it. One could argue South Africa is trying some similar things at slow speed and seeing if the trainwreck works better if you play it in slow motion. If they were really just trying to replicate the success of before except without apartheid, I don't know how you can even do that while simultaneously promising all the socialist reform and goodies of the ANC. It's like having the new guy show up and training him, and he's tell you that you're wrong and he has no idea how to do it but know's you're doing it wrong. If your goal is be mentored you'll have to get proficient at what your mentor is doing so you have some frame of reference to see if your "improvements" even work or are the reason why you're failing relative to your mentor.
      - newsclues 5mo ago
        Let's not pretend like racism isn't a problem. Just like the bigots that hated the blacks, prejudice against the white populations is just as stupid and evil.
  - newsclues 5mo ago
    Safety matters more than GDP imo https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/south-africa https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/south-africa
- tclancy 5mo ago
  If you're asking me to rate things on a scale where human freedom comes behind some economic measure, you are asking the wrong person. On edit: it would be nice when these GOTCHAs are offered, if the offerer stopped and asked themselves, "Did centuries of colonialism denying education to the natives have any bearing on what I am asking?"

by tclancy 5mo ago

newsclues 5mo ago

[flagged]

gljiva 5mo ago
How dare they not solve _all_ the problems, instead of only contributing towards solving one!
swiftcoder 5mo ago
> South Africa is really thriving these days eh? I know you meant this sarcastically, but unironically yes. GDP has more than doubled since the end of apartheid, and it has the strongest economy on the continent
- mothballed 5mo ago
  LMAO, now normalize it against world change in GDP since the end of apartheid. Pre-apartheid they were beating the world average, all times after apartheid they have been behind world average. https://mybroadband.co.za/news/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/DGP-per-capita-global-1.jpg https://mybroadband.co.za/news/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/DG... Especially the last 20 years, it is falling off a cliff in relative performance. Yeah the post-apartheid peak was 10% above the apartheid peak from the 80s.... unfortunately if you can only get 10% better in 40 years it actually represents a massive failure relative to the rest of the world. I'd agree that apartheid was bad, but it seems to be coupled with other factors that led them to fall behind on the world stage. I'm guessing the kind of ideology that accompanies literal filled stadiums shouting "kill the boer farmer" is not so far fetched from the kind of ideology that resulted in Zimbabwe going for broke.
  - tclancy 5mo ago
    >I'd agree that apartheid was bad At least we have finally settled that. >I'm guessing the kind of ideology that accompanies literal filled stadiums shouting "kill the boer farmer" is not so far fetched from the kind of ideology that resulted in Zimbabwe going for broke. Zimbabwe's failure is pretty clear: total corruption under one man. South Africa, post-Apartheid, has an unhappy history of corruption as well. But it is confounding how one reaches for the "anti-white racism" explanation before considering how centuries of colonial "oppression" (which a fun euphemism for violence and denying education) might lead to a situation where government functions poorly when you abandon ship and leave your government setup in place for people with no experience and no mentor to figure out.
    - mothballed 5mo ago
      >when you abandon ship and leave your government setup in place for people with no experience and no mentor to figure out. >>"Kill the boer" "Kill" doesn't sound like mentorship. You can argue they just mean rip them out of power/office, which they have done, but the ANC's message has not been "lets use the colonizers as our mentors." >Zimbabwe's failure is pretty clear: total corruption under one man. I don't think it's that simple. They tried to basically replace the colonial-style farming model almost overnight, handing over agriculture to black citizens. They tried to throw out the bathwater of "colonialization" while thinking they could keep the baby with it. One could argue South Africa is trying some similar things at slow speed and seeing if the trainwreck works better if you play it in slow motion. If they were really just trying to replicate the success of before except without apartheid, I don't know how you can even do that while simultaneously promising all the socialist reform and goodies of the ANC. It's like having the new guy show up and training him, and he's tell you that you're wrong and he has no idea how to do it but know's you're doing it wrong. If your goal is be mentored you'll have to get proficient at what your mentor is doing so you have some frame of reference to see if your "improvements" even work or are the reason why you're failing relative to your mentor.
    - newsclues 5mo ago
      Let's not pretend like racism isn't a problem. Just like the bigots that hated the blacks, prejudice against the white populations is just as stupid and evil.
- newsclues 5mo ago
  Safety matters more than GDP imo https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/south-africa https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/south-africa
tclancy 5mo ago
If you're asking me to rate things on a scale where human freedom comes behind some economic measure, you are asking the wrong person. On edit: it would be nice when these GOTCHAs are offered, if the offerer stopped and asked themselves, "Did centuries of colonialism denying education to the natives have any bearing on what I am asking?"