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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32659 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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Mandela Goes From Hero to Scapegoat as South Africa Struggles

10 years after his death, attitudes have changed. The party Mr. Mandela led after his release from prison, the African National Congress, is in serious danger of losing its outright majority for the first time since he became president in 1994 in the first free election after the fall of apartheid. Corruption, ineptitude and elitism have tarnished the A.N.C... Faith in the future is collapsing. Seventy percent of South Africans said in 2021 that the country is going in the wrong direction, up from 49 percent in 2010, according to the latest survey published by the country’s Human Sciences Research Council. Only 26 percent said they trusted the government, a huge decline from 2005, when it was 64 percent... The unemployment rate is 46 percent among South Africans aged 15 to 34. Millions more are underemployed, like Mr. Thebe. He studied computer science at the university level, never receiving a degree. The best job he said he could find was selling funeral policies to the staff of the court.

While Mr. Mandela is still lionized around the world, many South Africans, especially young people, believe that he did not do enough to create structural changes that would lift the fortunes of the country’s Black majority. White South Africans still hold a disproportionate share of the nation’s land, and earn three and a half times more than Black people. Mr. Vawda, 17, belongs to a generation that knows Mr. Mandela only as a historical figure in textbooks and films. To him, Mr. Mandela’s fight to end apartheid was admirable. But the huge economic gap between Black and white South Africans will be on his mind when he votes for the first time next year, he said. "He didn’t revolt against white people,” Mr. Vawda said. “I would have taken revenge.”

the truth and reconciliation commission led by mandela chose to pardon many perpetrators of crimes related to apartheid, such as the murderers of amy biehl, an anti-apartheid activist, in order to encourage, well, truth and reconciliation. young south africaners have identified that mandela and his friends didn't go far enough with their silly restorative justice ways - perhaps a nuremberg would have been more appropriate. if you were willing to necklace traitors of your own race, why not the enemy?

Around 80% of South African youths are functionally illiterate.

https://www.africanews.com/2023/05/17/over-80-of-south-african-children-around-10-years-old-have-difficulty-reading-study//

It's fair to say that if the black radicals get what they want, South Africa will quickly become Congo (at best).

Thus far, black elites are smart enough to understand that, which is why they don't give in to those radical demands. But if I were a white South African, I wouldn't make any long-term bets on the country. Then again, some of these white families have lived there for centuries, so I can understand their reluctance to just walk away. Easier said than done.

It's fair to say that if the black radicals get what they want, South Africa will quickly become Congo (at best).

It's interesting that the Congo has maintained its 'heart of darkness, cannibals, pygmy tribes, blood diamonds, deepest Africa' reputation. There are big parts of the Congo that are a shithole but other parts are in fact doing well, GDP growth in 2022 was like 9%, and there's a rapidly growing middle class in Kinshasa, which I would say will probably become one of the better sub-Saharan African cities shortly, if it isn't already. Good hotels, interesting contemporary art galleries, better food (perhaps the Franco-Belgian legacy, as Belgian food has an undeservedly poor reputation), streets that are often very clean and well kept for the region. In some ways, the DRC might well have a brighter future than South Africa. Maybe it's because the main language of commerce, government and culture there is French, so there's comparatively much less written in English about the country.

I think that 2009era Moldbug post (I think it was him, or maybe someone else in the NrX sphere at the time) where he compares old photographs of the well-maintained European quarter of Leopoldville circa 1940 or whatever (which was probably all of about ten blocks) to some generic modern African city with corrugated iron roofs and garbage in the street and things falling apart etc. has poisoned a lot of people to the fact that in much of the continent things have actually gotten a lot better over the last 25 years.

One thing that's true about South Africans which, in my experience, isn't true about many other Sub-Saharan African countries is that there's a perennial air of pessimism and decline common to people of all races. In the DRC, people are much more optimistic.

There are big parts of the Congo that are a shithole but other parts are in fact doing well, GDP growth in 2022 was like 9% In some ways, the DRC might well have a brighter future than South Africa.

TIL: there are two Congos. And the richest one has become radically poorer over the past decade whereas the bottom-ranked one is still so far behind that Pakistan, of all countries, is thrice as rich.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=CG-CD

So you'll excuse my cynicism over your valiant attempts to puff the Congo(s), of all places.

P.S. I wouldn't look at growth rates without looking at the currency movements (3 year average). Turkey is a good example of this. Posting very high growth rates did exactly nothing because the lira has continuously tanked. D.S.

I’m talking about the DRC, not the Republic.

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