Back in the so-called "bad old days" of Apartheid, South Africa was a booming society with a bright future.
Despite economic sanctions from much of the World, the country managed to develop nuclear weapons, carry out the first human heart transplant, devise an effective substitute for oil made from coal, destroy a communist army in Angola, and open the biggest hospital in the World to cater to the needs of the Black population of Soweto.
In short, it was a country with a real "can do" spirit, and was making progress on every front—except the most important front, that of racial and historical realism.
But now those days are long gone. Ever since the Marxist ANC took over, things have been going downhill faster than a wagon full of fat kids.
Due to racist legislation, skilled and industrious White workers have been shunted aside and replaced with creeping tribal croneyism and rampant corruption. In fact many of them have ended up in squatter camps where they now depend on handouts to get by.
The flood of major new projects that once made South Africa practically a First World country—big airports, major new motorways, shopping centres, power stations, etc.—has dried to a pathetic trickle.
As the picture at the top of the page shows, things have gotten so bad in the "Rainbow Nation" that bigwigs are now being reduced to ceremonially open small and demeaning "projects," like the occasional outside toilet built in a dusty field.
What better symbol could you have of this once proud country's decline from an efficient, modern, affluent society to a "shithole country"—to use Donald Trump's phrase—than high-ranking ANC members cutting the ribbon on a brick shit house?
Despite economic sanctions from much of the World, the country managed to develop nuclear weapons, carry out the first human heart transplant, devise an effective substitute for oil made from coal, destroy a communist army in Angola, and open the biggest hospital in the World to cater to the needs of the Black population of Soweto.
In short, it was a country with a real "can do" spirit, and was making progress on every front—except the most important front, that of racial and historical realism.
But now those days are long gone. Ever since the Marxist ANC took over, things have been going downhill faster than a wagon full of fat kids.
Due to racist legislation, skilled and industrious White workers have been shunted aside and replaced with creeping tribal croneyism and rampant corruption. In fact many of them have ended up in squatter camps where they now depend on handouts to get by.
The flood of major new projects that once made South Africa practically a First World country—big airports, major new motorways, shopping centres, power stations, etc.—has dried to a pathetic trickle.
As the picture at the top of the page shows, things have gotten so bad in the "Rainbow Nation" that bigwigs are now being reduced to ceremonially open small and demeaning "projects," like the occasional outside toilet built in a dusty field.
What better symbol could you have of this once proud country's decline from an efficient, modern, affluent society to a "shithole country"—to use Donald Trump's phrase—than high-ranking ANC members cutting the ribbon on a brick shit house?
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| South Africa as I remember it. |
