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Posted by mv on 09/26/84 11:46
>>However it's true
>>that for a self important Westerner there are many parts of that
>>continent best steered clear of, but more often due to the bad vibes and
>>presumption of that type of Westerner, who by a mere caprice of fate was
>>born into the lucky quarter of the world and is yet to have a clue about
>>the virtues of those who don't conform to their own trivial concepts of
>>moral worth. God help us.
>
>I can not speak for the others, but I hardly resemble the strawman you
>built. I spent February of last year in Egypt...a place considered by
>some not to be a prudent place to visit. I travelled in definite
>non-tourist style. Also, one of the guys I mentioned having negative
>comments about South Africa is an accomplishment "non touristy"
>traveller. He travelled down the Congo River in the bilge of a barge.
>
>I have no doubt that one can be treated well in villages of South
>Africa. I, too, recognize the grace that the people of Africa have
>after having survived the predations of the colonial powers, in
>particular your country.
There's no doubt that the colonial period that resulted from the
geopolitical, economic and military conflicts between primarily France,
Britain and Spain resulted in all sorts of onerous things. However there
is a spurious quasi righteousness oft proffered by Americans on the
issue that tends to selectively view only those elements of historical
fact that support those attitudes. The fact is that much of those
regions, particularly in Africa, that fell under the control of European
powers were not adversely affected in comparison to their actual
condition prior to colonisation, in many cases life for the general
populations where immensely improved with respect to law, security and
physical well being. Its the presumption that America is an innocent
party that is again a result of parochial triteness. It was Britain who
declared slavery illegal in 1812 that was a good part of the reason for
the Anglo American war of 1812. Of all the European colonial powers, as
it happens, it was the British who demonstrated a degree of social
responsibility and application of, relative to the period, equality
before the law that absolutely no other power, including the USA,
demonstrated, ever!
Indeed things got very much worse for the Native Americans, who suffered
near genocide and theft of homeland by your own people after the
revolution, on a scale that makes Britain's inequities in this respect
seem almost benign. Consider the fate of Canadian Native Americans in
comparison. Perhaps the worst incident of inhumanity in our empire was
the near genocidal treatment of the Aborigines in Australia, an Anglo
Australian crime of the 19th century that Australians today have hardly
begun to redress. At least we British did return all those colonies, in
most cases exponentially improved, where the native populations asked
for it. The few remaining 'overseas possessions' either had no native
populations or elected to remain British.
This is a much needed debate on this subject required at a more
appropriate level of forum than here but I could go on in much detail.
>
>
>As to your point that the US is a dangerous country too, I can only
>agree. I certainly felt safer on the streets of Cairo than I would in
>certain places in the US. However, the murder rate is 700% higher
>(that's seven hundread percent higher--look it up) in South Africa
>than in the US.
South Africans at least have been restricted to only murdering their own
countrymen. The Statistics could easily be re-analysed in perhaps more
meaningful terms to show an almost total inversion of that ratio. Don't
expect the 'Straw men' of the faux worthy media, let alone Fox et al to
even begin to consider these implications with the sort of coherent
depth and integrity that would be compelling to any pure analysis.
>
>The original poster asked what the conditions are in South Africa are.
>To confuse the issue by complaining about attitudes of Western
>tourists and crime rates in the US does him no good.
>
>I don't think I'd take my family there.
There's thousands of white people living in modest Jo'burg homes with
only ordinary levels of security who have not yet felt compelled to
leave. As with those sectors of the Los Angeles 'barrios' or the poorer
neighbourhoods of Atlanta, by far these murders in Jo'burg are focused
predominately within certain pressurised, dysfunctional and impoverished
sections of their society. For most visitors to Jo'burg a little
judicious local knowledge will allow one to function with an acceptable
degree of safety. Ask the several hundred thousand white families living
quite normally there today.
--
John Lubran
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