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> The western world has stolen enough wealth from us. South Africa has taken all the rope it had and hung itself with it. Sure the west stole enough from South

by zohch 5y ago

> The western world has stolen enough wealth from us. South Africa has taken all the rope it had and hung itself with it. Sure the west stole enough from South Africa, but South Africans stole more from other South Africans than the west ever stole from South Africa, and they continue to steal from other South Africans, and will continue doing so. South Africa's biggest roadblock to prosperity is not the west, it is South Africans, and especially those South Africans who whip up political fervor and xenophobia by pointing to the other (e.g. the west) while robbing the rubes blind.

Synaesthesia 5y ago
A lot of our mineral wealth does still go overseas, because they are foreign owned corporations. Or the rich owners leave with the money. If all our industry was owned locally it would be a huge boon IMO
- zohch 5y ago
  > If all our industry was owned locally it would be a huge boon IMO Maybe, it would be a bigger boon if you had less corrupt politicians, but sure, try your luck with the corrupt robber barons you have as politicians and "locally owned" mineral companies, I'm sure Zuma's cronies could use the spare cash to wipe their asses with while they laugh at the silly rubes that keep electing them. Heck I'm sure if you try hard enough you could maybe have another spat of xenophibic lynchings, maybe kill some of those shareholders this time, definitely that will fix all your problems. Just more of the same, if it has not worked yet, it is surely just because you have not done enough of it. EDIT: Remember this https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1575536/uber-driver-burnt-in-car-last-month-succumbs-to-injuries/ https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1575536/uber-dri... - "Uber driver burnt in car last month succumbs to injuries" ... South Africans fucking South Africans over while blaming the west, such a familiar tune.
smokey_circles 5y ago
So we're clear, I'm not proposing the west do any kind of reparations. You just won't calculate it and the damage is already done, a pay cheque isn't going to help. But you are wrong. I'd prefer it if they just left, take their corporations with them. They don't have to return anything, just go. Firstly, I am referring to the whole continent. The west didn't just destroy one nation, they took us all out (except Botswana, and hey wouldn't you know it: They're mostly fine. Strange that, must be a fluke). It's ridiculous to think we would have self-corrected after the colonials left, especially in a few decades. The west created power vacuums, committed coups to remove leaders who didn't want to hand over land and money (and instead wanted to invest it into our own future) and pulled us into wars we had nothing to do with, just to further their own commercial interests. It's not just mineral wealth that was taken from us. They also divided the land they didn't have any right to amongst themselves. Some good arguments about how responsible the west is for the middle east's current crisis. I also feel like this argument ignores a lot of the CIA's activities over the past 5 decades... America's wealth was greatly enhanced by the railways built by the slaves they stole. How much of that came back to Africa? Oh yeah, none of it. That counts as wealth theft, but I'm happy to agree that this starts to get messy quickly and isn't very productive. I have to laugh at the 'The west stole enough' line. They nearly stole everything, and it continues to this day. The gold, the fucking Cullinan Diamond, the minerals used to create phones. They all come from labor in Africa, and very little of the generated wealth comes back. That seem balanced or appropriate to you, or does it seem there's a power gradient? We all know about the supply chain issues at companies like Apple, I'm not sure how you can argue that the damage isn't still ongoing. > South Africa's biggest roadblock to prosperity is not the west The west excludes us from global economic activity all the goddamned time. In extreme cases that includes assassinating leaders who want to punt them out of Africa. And hey, look at that, Shell is busy sonar blasting our coastline for fucking oil. Great. You think we're gonna see any of that money? Not a chance. Nevermind the destruction they're causing, at least the westerners can drive their cars around. But hey, we should just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, right? Here's a nice example: Take omicron. The west banned travel from here because we reported it first. This is pretty simple to work out: We are world leaders in infectious disease management, due to the amount of infectious diseases we have to manage. Experts in the field have been explaining this to (apparently) deaf audiences for a while now. It's not great to have so much experience in identifying and managing infectious diseases, but we do. The west could (and should) learn something from us. I learned the other day that _nothing_ has killed more Americans in the same timeline as COVID has, not even the civil war. Admittedly I doubt that civil war claim and I suspect we just don't know how many people died as a result of the war. Still, COVID is up there. A lot of the west seems to think Africa is just fundamentally flawed. We're not, it's just hard to act independently or in our own interests under the capitalist boot. To be fair, it's not just the West. China is busy creating the next silk road through crafty debt tactics. Once again: Something the West could do to help us, but won't. Which is going to cost you a great deal more in the long run (we're used to poverty, I don't see modern America handling it well). ----- EDIT Removed a lot of "you's" because I am not actually upset with anyone in particular. But the west has 0 understanding of what they did here, they elected to whitewash history instead. Plenty of scars to disprove the narratives. It's also worth noting I'm a white south africa. I know a great deal about this whitewashed history because most older white south africans spout it, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Happy to continue this debate, I really don't mean it to be aggressive (but I love this country and I will passionately defend the defensible parts of it)
- zohch 5y ago
  > > South Africa's biggest roadblock to prosperity is not the west > The west excludes us from global economic activity all the goddamned time. And yet you fail to cite one example of this. I don't see how this is true, but by all means, maybe try again and cite an actual example. And just for clarity, an example of restricting travel in a god damned pandemic is not an example of "systemic economic exclusion", it may be an ill conceived policy choice, but the west is also not responsible for your pathetically low vaccination rate which likely helped the new variant come into existence. > And hey, look at that, Shell is busy sonar blasting our coastline for fucking oil. Great. You think we're gonna see any of that money? Not a chance. Definitely the voters who vote for the politicians who license and allow this have nothing to do with this, right? > It's also worth noting I'm a white south africa. Nope, not worth noting.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
    > And just for clarity, an example of restricting travel in a god damned pandemic is not an example of "systemic economic exclusion", it may be an ill conceived policy choice, but the west is also not responsible for your pathetically low vaccination rate which likely helped the new variant come into existence. I’m not from Africa nor am I from America so I don’t think I have a horse in this race but I think this is the sort of rhetoric that the guy is critiquing. It has a clearly skewed understanding of the power differentials of the pandemic and then blames the nations with less power for being able to pull less strings. Firstly, it makes total sense to me that preventing travel from a region just because it discovered a variant, when that region is apparently world reknowned in its ability to study infectious disease, is a policy born out of ignorant xenophobia. There’s no evidence that this thing started in the regions that were banned or that omicron hasn’t already spread internationally at that point, only that one of the nations with a world class variant detection system sounded the alarm. Secondly, damn are we really gonna blame colonized countries on low vaccination rates when vaccine access is still being hoarded, it’s production still close sourced, and antivax movement is still strong in western nations?
    - zohch 5y ago
wesleywt 5y ago
As a South African. I am wondering what this guy is on about?
- zohch 5y ago
  > As a South African. I am wondering what this guy is on about? I guess as South Africans who voted for the politicians who sell South Africa out to anyone willing to pay while stuffing their pockets, the majority of South Africans have no clue what I'm on about. I mean at least Russians can claim that their voting system is horribly corrupt, but South Africans claim with a straight face that they, en masse, do not in fact support the policies instituted by the politicians they elected and who who are so blatantly corrupt that it would make Putin blush. No, that is all the west's fault. Apologies if I delayed you from a xenophobic lynching with my crazy talk, or was it the burning of another university?
nsomaru 5y ago
Sure, it isn’t stealing if you’ve built the labour and market system to cater to labour exploitation and wealth extraction. Most here live a very simple life in rural africa and would probably be content to do so if it wasn’t for taxation and labour demand. Sure we have our issues. Billions of rands poor out of this country, extracted by modern multinational neo-imperialists. If we blink the wrong way, the spectre of “loss of foreign investment” is always held above us. If we blink the other way, the rand is punished and ratings agencies come knocking. I love my country and it’s people. I think we have enough to feed and house everyone. It often feels like other people are pulling the strings.
- zohch 5y ago
  > Sure, it isn’t stealing if you’ve built the labour and market system to cater to labour exploitation and wealth extraction. It is not stealing if it is by definition not stealing, but at least you can say that you never voted for the singular political party that has enjoyed an legislative majority (and sometimes supermajority) for almost 30 years ... right? I mean it is better than chance you did, as the majority of South Africans who can vote have at least once in their lives voted for said party, but not you for sure, and definitely not your parents, that would be ludicrous to suggest. > Most here live a very simple life in rural africa and would probably be content to do so if it wasn’t for taxation and labour demand. And you definitely never voted for the political party that set the tax regulations. > It often feels like other people are pulling the strings. Must be, can't be the voters, obviously the majority of the voters who voted for singular political party that has enjoyed an legislative majority (and sometimes supermajority) for almost 30 years have no say in how the country is governed, that would just be fucking stupid to suggest.
- lelanthran 5y ago
  > I love my country and it’s people. I think we have enough to feed and house everyone. It often feels like other people are pulling the strings. Well, stop for voting the people pulling the strings... A quick example: The largest owner of land is the South African Government, and yet laws are pushed through to allow land to be confiscated from people of a particular race and "redistributed" to other people of a selected race[1]. As long as the majority allows things like that they will remain poor and impoverished. It's been over 25 years that South Africa has had State-mandated and State-enforced affirmative action to benefit the 90% majority at the expense of the 10% minority, and yet the 90% majority is still clamouring for more. [1] It makes more sense for the South African Government to give out land that they actually own, not land that is held by someone else.
pythonic_hell 5y ago
Do you have sources to backup this often repeated rhetoric? I don’t think you can downplay the role of foreign capital and multi-nationals In South Africa’s economic problems for the past two decades - for example the role that The Guptas, McKinsey and KPMG all played in looting the state.
- zohch 5y ago
  > for example the role that The Guptas, McKinsey and KPMG all played in looting the state. Who made that possible? The voters, who voted for Zuma and the ANC and gave them a legislative super majority, who then in turn gave the Guptas all the power that they managed to get and either looked the other way or more likely were complicit in the Gupta's corrupt dealings with KPMG and McKinsey. Without South African politicians selling out the South Africans who voted for them, the Guptas, KPMG and McKinsey would be entirely irrelevant. But I'm sure these facts won't prevent South Africans from lynching some more foreigners.
Schattenbaer 5y ago
I'm struggling to parse the point you're making, paraphrasing: "Systemic issues in SA causes more money to be lost than sending money to Uber Eats... thus the parent's point of not supporting Uber Eats is moot"? I think you can choose to not support a company that isn't playing by South African labour rules and rather support a local alternative even if the government is corrupt. And that doing a little bit is better than doing nothing, even if it's not a complete fix. Apologies if I misunderstood, though - I do agree with you that there are bigger issues at play too in the country. But I do think it doesn't mean we shouldn't also fix the smaller issues if they are in reach. Low-hanging fruit and all that.
- zohch 5y ago
  > "Systemic issues in SA causes more money to be lost than sending money to Uber Eats... thus the parent's point of not supporting Uber Eats is moot"? Fair enough, the point about not supporting Uber Eats is great. I boycott Amazon for example for similar reasons. I'm just a bit tired of hearing how awful the west is while any problems that the west creates for South Africa is negligible compared to the problems that South Africans create for themselves. But yeah sure, fuck Uber eats, where I live (in the west) we don't even have Uber never-mind Uber eats. But again we have legislation that prevent them from operating here, put in place by politicians, who were voted for by the populace, same as in South Africa. So you know, the root cause remains the root cause. South Africans en masse can claim they don't want Uber eats to operate there, but of course they would never stop voting en masse for shitty politicians either that keep screwing them over and that allow Uber eats to operate there. But I guess if you are the kind of person who thinks lynching a Pakistanis and Nigerians will fix something, then probably it also seems like a good idea to boycott Uber eats while voting for politicians who allow Uber eats to operate.
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into hellish flamewar. The GP started it but at least that comment was partly on topic. You should have ignored the provocation at the end and either replied to the interesting, curious bits, or—if you didn't find any bits interesting or curious—not replied at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dang 5y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29550522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29550522.

by zohch 5y ago

Synaesthesia 5y ago

A lot of our mineral wealth does still go overseas, because they are foreign owned corporations. Or the rich owners leave with the money. If all our industry was owned locally it would be a huge boon IMO

zohch 5y ago
> If all our industry was owned locally it would be a huge boon IMO Maybe, it would be a bigger boon if you had less corrupt politicians, but sure, try your luck with the corrupt robber barons you have as politicians and "locally owned" mineral companies, I'm sure Zuma's cronies could use the spare cash to wipe their asses with while they laugh at the silly rubes that keep electing them. Heck I'm sure if you try hard enough you could maybe have another spat of xenophibic lynchings, maybe kill some of those shareholders this time, definitely that will fix all your problems. Just more of the same, if it has not worked yet, it is surely just because you have not done enough of it. EDIT: Remember this https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1575536/uber-driver-burnt-in-car-last-month-succumbs-to-injuries/ https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1575536/uber-dri... - "Uber driver burnt in car last month succumbs to injuries" ... South Africans fucking South Africans over while blaming the west, such a familiar tune.

smokey_circles 5y ago

So we're clear, I'm not proposing the west do any kind of reparations. You just won't calculate it and the damage is already done, a pay cheque isn't going to help. But you are wrong. I'd prefer it if they just left, take their corporations with them. They don't have to return anything, just go. Firstly, I am referring to the whole continent. The west didn't just destroy one nation, they took us all out (except Botswana, and hey wouldn't you know it: They're mostly fine. Strange that, must be a fluke). It's ridiculous to think we would have self-corrected after the colonials left, especially in a few decades. The west created power vacuums, committed coups to remove leaders who didn't want to hand over land and money (and instead wanted to invest it into our own future) and pulled us into wars we had nothing to do with, just to further their own commercial interests. It's not just mineral wealth that was taken from us. They also divided the land they didn't have any right to amongst themselves. Some good arguments about how responsible the west is for the middle east's current crisis. I also feel like this argument ignores a lot of the CIA's activities over the past 5 decades... America's wealth was greatly enhanced by the railways built by the slaves they stole. How much of that came back to Africa? Oh yeah, none of it. That counts as wealth theft, but I'm happy to agree that this starts to get messy quickly and isn't very productive. I have to laugh at the 'The west stole enough' line. They nearly stole everything, and it continues to this day. The gold, the fucking Cullinan Diamond, the minerals used to create phones. They all come from labor in Africa, and very little of the generated wealth comes back. That seem balanced or appropriate to you, or does it seem there's a power gradient? We all know about the supply chain issues at companies like Apple, I'm not sure how you can argue that the damage isn't still ongoing. > South Africa's biggest roadblock to prosperity is not the west The west excludes us from global economic activity all the goddamned time. In extreme cases that includes assassinating leaders who want to punt them out of Africa. And hey, look at that, Shell is busy sonar blasting our coastline for fucking oil. Great. You think we're gonna see any of that money? Not a chance. Nevermind the destruction they're causing, at least the westerners can drive their cars around. But hey, we should just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, right? Here's a nice example: Take omicron. The west banned travel from here because we reported it first. This is pretty simple to work out: We are world leaders in infectious disease management, due to the amount of infectious diseases we have to manage. Experts in the field have been explaining this to (apparently) deaf audiences for a while now. It's not great to have so much experience in identifying and managing infectious diseases, but we do. The west could (and should) learn something from us. I learned the other day that _nothing_ has killed more Americans in the same timeline as COVID has, not even the civil war. Admittedly I doubt that civil war claim and I suspect we just don't know how many people died as a result of the war. Still, COVID is up there. A lot of the west seems to think Africa is just fundamentally flawed. We're not, it's just hard to act independently or in our own interests under the capitalist boot. To be fair, it's not just the West. China is busy creating the next silk road through crafty debt tactics. Once again: Something the West could do to help us, but won't. Which is going to cost you a great deal more in the long run (we're used to poverty, I don't see modern America handling it well). ----- EDIT Removed a lot of "you's" because I am not actually upset with anyone in particular. But the west has 0 understanding of what they did here, they elected to whitewash history instead. Plenty of scars to disprove the narratives. It's also worth noting I'm a white south africa. I know a great deal about this whitewashed history because most older white south africans spout it, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Happy to continue this debate, I really don't mean it to be aggressive (but I love this country and I will passionately defend the defensible parts of it)

zohch 5y ago
> > South Africa's biggest roadblock to prosperity is not the west > The west excludes us from global economic activity all the goddamned time. And yet you fail to cite one example of this. I don't see how this is true, but by all means, maybe try again and cite an actual example. And just for clarity, an example of restricting travel in a god damned pandemic is not an example of "systemic economic exclusion", it may be an ill conceived policy choice, but the west is also not responsible for your pathetically low vaccination rate which likely helped the new variant come into existence. > And hey, look at that, Shell is busy sonar blasting our coastline for fucking oil. Great. You think we're gonna see any of that money? Not a chance. Definitely the voters who vote for the politicians who license and allow this have nothing to do with this, right? > It's also worth noting I'm a white south africa. Nope, not worth noting.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  > And just for clarity, an example of restricting travel in a god damned pandemic is not an example of "systemic economic exclusion", it may be an ill conceived policy choice, but the west is also not responsible for your pathetically low vaccination rate which likely helped the new variant come into existence. I’m not from Africa nor am I from America so I don’t think I have a horse in this race but I think this is the sort of rhetoric that the guy is critiquing. It has a clearly skewed understanding of the power differentials of the pandemic and then blames the nations with less power for being able to pull less strings. Firstly, it makes total sense to me that preventing travel from a region just because it discovered a variant, when that region is apparently world reknowned in its ability to study infectious disease, is a policy born out of ignorant xenophobia. There’s no evidence that this thing started in the regions that were banned or that omicron hasn’t already spread internationally at that point, only that one of the nations with a world class variant detection system sounded the alarm. Secondly, damn are we really gonna blame colonized countries on low vaccination rates when vaccine access is still being hoarded, it’s production still close sourced, and antivax movement is still strong in western nations?
  - zohch 5y ago

wesleywt 5y ago

As a South African. I am wondering what this guy is on about?

zohch 5y ago
> As a South African. I am wondering what this guy is on about? I guess as South Africans who voted for the politicians who sell South Africa out to anyone willing to pay while stuffing their pockets, the majority of South Africans have no clue what I'm on about. I mean at least Russians can claim that their voting system is horribly corrupt, but South Africans claim with a straight face that they, en masse, do not in fact support the policies instituted by the politicians they elected and who who are so blatantly corrupt that it would make Putin blush. No, that is all the west's fault. Apologies if I delayed you from a xenophobic lynching with my crazy talk, or was it the burning of another university?

nsomaru 5y ago

Sure, it isn’t stealing if you’ve built the labour and market system to cater to labour exploitation and wealth extraction. Most here live a very simple life in rural africa and would probably be content to do so if it wasn’t for taxation and labour demand. Sure we have our issues. Billions of rands poor out of this country, extracted by modern multinational neo-imperialists. If we blink the wrong way, the spectre of “loss of foreign investment” is always held above us. If we blink the other way, the rand is punished and ratings agencies come knocking. I love my country and it’s people. I think we have enough to feed and house everyone. It often feels like other people are pulling the strings.

zohch 5y ago
> Sure, it isn’t stealing if you’ve built the labour and market system to cater to labour exploitation and wealth extraction. It is not stealing if it is by definition not stealing, but at least you can say that you never voted for the singular political party that has enjoyed an legislative majority (and sometimes supermajority) for almost 30 years ... right? I mean it is better than chance you did, as the majority of South Africans who can vote have at least once in their lives voted for said party, but not you for sure, and definitely not your parents, that would be ludicrous to suggest. > Most here live a very simple life in rural africa and would probably be content to do so if it wasn’t for taxation and labour demand. And you definitely never voted for the political party that set the tax regulations. > It often feels like other people are pulling the strings. Must be, can't be the voters, obviously the majority of the voters who voted for singular political party that has enjoyed an legislative majority (and sometimes supermajority) for almost 30 years have no say in how the country is governed, that would just be fucking stupid to suggest.
lelanthran 5y ago
> I love my country and it’s people. I think we have enough to feed and house everyone. It often feels like other people are pulling the strings. Well, stop for voting the people pulling the strings... A quick example: The largest owner of land is the South African Government, and yet laws are pushed through to allow land to be confiscated from people of a particular race and "redistributed" to other people of a selected race[1]. As long as the majority allows things like that they will remain poor and impoverished. It's been over 25 years that South Africa has had State-mandated and State-enforced affirmative action to benefit the 90% majority at the expense of the 10% minority, and yet the 90% majority is still clamouring for more. [1] It makes more sense for the South African Government to give out land that they actually own, not land that is held by someone else.

pythonic_hell 5y ago

Do you have sources to backup this often repeated rhetoric? I don’t think you can downplay the role of foreign capital and multi-nationals In South Africa’s economic problems for the past two decades - for example the role that The Guptas, McKinsey and KPMG all played in looting the state.

zohch 5y ago
> for example the role that The Guptas, McKinsey and KPMG all played in looting the state. Who made that possible? The voters, who voted for Zuma and the ANC and gave them a legislative super majority, who then in turn gave the Guptas all the power that they managed to get and either looked the other way or more likely were complicit in the Gupta's corrupt dealings with KPMG and McKinsey. Without South African politicians selling out the South Africans who voted for them, the Guptas, KPMG and McKinsey would be entirely irrelevant. But I'm sure these facts won't prevent South Africans from lynching some more foreigners.

Schattenbaer 5y ago

I'm struggling to parse the point you're making, paraphrasing: "Systemic issues in SA causes more money to be lost than sending money to Uber Eats... thus the parent's point of not supporting Uber Eats is moot"? I think you can choose to not support a company that isn't playing by South African labour rules and rather support a local alternative even if the government is corrupt. And that doing a little bit is better than doing nothing, even if it's not a complete fix. Apologies if I misunderstood, though - I do agree with you that there are bigger issues at play too in the country. But I do think it doesn't mean we shouldn't also fix the smaller issues if they are in reach. Low-hanging fruit and all that.

zohch 5y ago
> "Systemic issues in SA causes more money to be lost than sending money to Uber Eats... thus the parent's point of not supporting Uber Eats is moot"? Fair enough, the point about not supporting Uber Eats is great. I boycott Amazon for example for similar reasons. I'm just a bit tired of hearing how awful the west is while any problems that the west creates for South Africa is negligible compared to the problems that South Africans create for themselves. But yeah sure, fuck Uber eats, where I live (in the west) we don't even have Uber never-mind Uber eats. But again we have legislation that prevent them from operating here, put in place by politicians, who were voted for by the populace, same as in South Africa. So you know, the root cause remains the root cause. South Africans en masse can claim they don't want Uber eats to operate there, but of course they would never stop voting en masse for shitty politicians either that keep screwing them over and that allow Uber eats to operate there. But I guess if you are the kind of person who thinks lynching a Pakistanis and Nigerians will fix something, then probably it also seems like a good idea to boycott Uber eats while voting for politicians who allow Uber eats to operate.

dang 5y ago

Please don't take HN threads further into hellish flamewar. The GP started it but at least that comment was partly on topic. You should have ignored the provocation at the end and either replied to the interesting, curious bits, or—if you didn't find any bits interesting or curious—not replied at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dang 5y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29550522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29550522.