<p>Goldenpooch, the Dalai Lama has not been “forbidden” to attend the funeral–he hasn’t applied for a visa since his last one was denied in 2009. It’s possible South Africa would have granted one for this occasion.</p>
<p>Interesting you mention post-Apartheid issues as the main cause when the much more glaring and historically longstanding racial policies from the colonialist and Apartheid eras and their continuing impact on education isn’t. </p>
<p>Racially-based discriminatory policies in educational access and employment going back over a century does tend to create a severe shortage of educated professionals…especially when such policies impact the vast majority of the overall population. Find that very interesting considering such policies didn’t end until the early-mid-'90s. Considering such policies ended less than 20 years ago, it’s a tall order to expect the impact of long-standing racism in educational access/employment to be ended virtually overnight as you seem to be expecting. </p>
<p>It’s probably going to take several decades at least for the impacts from such educational inequities to be ameliorated considering the long lead time of the educational process K-12 or moreso, higher-level professional training/higher education. </p>
<p>Also, got to see a documentary on the Boer War recently. Interesting to find that before/during the war, the Afrikaners actually had much more racist dismissive attitudes than the British in matters ranging from minimal rights to whether Black Africans were received at the front door or the kitchen/side door. When Winston Churchill was captured by the Boers, he was even treated to a “lecture” by his Boer captors who condemned him and the British for “giving too many rights to the Blacks”. </p>
<p>Interesting considering the British of the colonialist period weren’t exactly known for their enlightened racial attitudes.</p>
<p>Not many countries had enlightened attitudes about race issues in the 19th century or even the 20th century. Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t we have slaves 150 years ago and Jim Crow laws 50 years ago. So what’s your point. </p>
<p>Cobrat how many excuses can you think of to rationalize the actions of the ANC and its supporters. It feels like you are an enabler of their dysfunctional govt. There is also something condescending about it. Like they are too enfeebled by their past to govern their country effectively.</p>
<p>Wow. Would love to see where anything of the sort was even intimated in this thread…but never mind. I’ve been quietly observing for days not only this thread, but other discussions and responses to the passing of Mandela, and have sadly noted that some things never seem to change much—namely an all too common response among some (mostly conservatives) in wake of the passing of black world changers. It’s a strangely routine minimizing and marginalizing of that person’s impact and importance; to wit that de Klerk, a major cog in the long-standing machinery of South African white oppression was actually the one who should be credited for liberating its black population, and not the man who had become the symbol for and world-wide galvanizing force in the fight to end Apartheid. Similar things were said of Lyndon B. Johnson over MLK, who apparently didn’t do much, relatively speaking. His detractors contended that he only made some pretty speeches and organized a few marches. And these were things the worst of them said about him only when they were feeling charitable. When they weren’t, he was just “an agitator” stirring up negro discontentment and “filling their heads with ideas”. </p>
<p>What’s ironic is that on the one hand, even though Mandela apparently wasn’t nearly so important in bringing about racial equity in South Africa, the fact that that country’s desperately poor and undereducated majority population hasn’t joined the ranks of majority populations in the world’s first world nations in the space of twenty years can somehow be laid at his feet. It takes a pretty powerful form of cognitive disconnect to reckon in one’s mind the idea that centuries of systematically entrenched disadvantage can be virtually wiped away with the stroke of a pen. To expect a people who have never had governing experience to suddenly effectively govern as if such skills were magically conveyed with the same pen stroke, is also a real head-scratcher in my book. It’s a bit like chopping off the toes of a runner, and yet expecting he’ll be competitive in a marathon once the sutures have healed. What’s implicit in the “yeah but things in South Africa are so much worse than they were under Apartheid” rejoinder is the suggestion that South Africa’s blacks would have been better off remaining as they were twenty+ years ago. Some people said such things when slavery ended in America as well. It shouldn’t escape notice that opinions such as these are almost inevitably stated by people for whom freedom is a right so pedestrian as to be taken totally for granted.</p>
<p>I saw no “rationalizing” of the ANC by Cobrat or any other poster. Rationalizations and explanations to two entirely different things. Explanations don’t absolve people of the responsibility bring about necessary change. But, they often point out reasons for why those changes may be slow in coming. It’s sad, but fledgling governments commonly flail, and experience massive growing pains for rather longer than patience dictates. Incapability born of absolute inexperience may take longer than twenty years to rectify. Go figure.</p>
<p>Talk to the many blacks who booed Zuma at Mandela’s funeral and have complained that their lives have not improved since apartheid, and in fact have become even more challenging in the South Africa of today. There are many blacks in South Africa who are fed up with the living conditions in their country and are not interested in your explanations for why their lives are so hard.</p>
<p>Goldenpooch, again–I don’t think Mandela can be blamed for everything that has happened in South Africa over the past half-century (or longer). Zuma is not Mandela.</p>
<p>Which is proof positive, I suppose, that Mandela isn’t revered by the vast majority of the black population of South Africa, and that they would rather have remained under the yoke of Apartheid because “things were so much better then.” Oh. Wait…</p>
<p>Goldenpooch, it’s a good thing indeed that black South Africans are not content that things remain as they are. Other than the considerable prerequisite of free agency, which should only be viewed as the starting point towards building a South Africa that offers real economic opportunity for the vast majority, there’s obviously a heck of a lot that needs to change. </p>
<p>Revolutions are waged out of “fed up”. The most cursory perusal of American History should serve as exhibit A in this discussion. Hmmmm…As I recall, that had a bit to do with a notion called “freedom” as well. But of course, in the case of The United States, it became a world economic powerhouse from the moment the ink dried on that declaration document. There were no significant growing pains, every man, woman and child enjoyed true equality in the instant that Washington and Cornwallis shook hands, and our nation was never even threatened with the rumor of civil war. In that light, South Africa can very credibly be pronounced a failure in the wake of the end of Apartheid. </p>
<p>How do you expect any new government to fix more than a century of racially discriminatory policies affecting practically all aspects of SA society…including its educational system in less than 20 years. </p>
<p>To put this in perspective, it has been over 20 years since the reunification of Germany…and the economic and social inequities between the two halves of Germany are such that the German government are still having to send massive subsidies from the Western half and work through the inequities IN THE PRESENT TIME. </p>
<p>And comparatively speaking, the level of inequity between the two Germanies is less stark than the economic, educational, and other inequities faced between SA Whites and non-Whites…and they’ve had less time to address them. </p>
<p>In the case of the US after Jim Crow, the effects of segregation and its derivative attitudes are still being felt in the educational system in many areas of the south to this very day. </p>
<p>The Mississippi branch of my extended family had such experiences when they found the only real meaningful difference between the local public schools and the local private schools was that the latter were created as a means for White parents to avoid having to send their kids to racially integrated public schools back in the '50s and '60s.</p>
<p>I don’t know if anyone has corrected this (thread too long), but KanYe West didn’t say he was the next Mandela. That came from a satirical website and we all know people don’t often fact check before believing things.</p>
<p>“How do you expect any new government to fix more than a century of racially discriminatory policies affecting practically all aspects of SA society.”</p>
<p>For starters, how about throwing out the corrupt, inept and malignant ANC. They are single-handedly destroying a nation in 20 short years. Unfortunately, for SA, that is unlikely to happen.</p>
<p>Wow, Goldenpooch. I would love to know where I might acquire a crystal ball like yours. Unless it also told you of the impending dissolution of the former Soviet Union and the destruction of that concrete wall in Berlin prior to their occurring, I hope you didn’t pay a lot for it. I’m looking to install a reflecting ball in my garden. Think it might do the job?</p>
<p>Because right now there is no viable alternative to the ANC. Maybe it is because of tribal loyalties or because the political system has not been able to accommodate competitive parties, but there is always hope.</p>
<p>Alternatives can appear overnight from among the ranks of the “fed up”. Ironically, Nelson Mandela the “overrated”, was one of the “fed up” of his time. But then again…what did he do?</p>