In the Wake of the World Cup…
…Violence Starts Again
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The Football World Cup, hosted by South Africa, has come and gone. Ever since FIFA announced that South Africa had won the bid to host the 2010 event, huge numbers of people, South Africans and others, expressed grave doubts about the ability of the country to pull it off. They were convinced that SA did not have the expertise to get everything ready in time, and they predicted chaos everywhere, from the moment of arrival of the hundreds of thousands of foreigners at the international airports, to the transport to the stadia, to the collapse of infrastructure. Most of all, they were sure there would be widespread violence, with foreign visitors especially targeted.
We, however, always believed that South Africa would be ready in time. Despite its huge problems, this country still has a large pool of highly skilled, talented people, on an equality with anywhere else in the world and exceeding that of many other places. Despite all that the ruling ANC has done to take the country back to the Dark Ages, they have only been partially successful, for this is a country that is a combination of First and Third Worlds. And the skilled First World component (admittedly a minority component, consisting mainly of Afrikaners, English and Indians) is what made the World Cup succeed. The only aspect of the hosting of this football idol that concerned us was the very real possibility of violence; for this is the most violent country on earth outside of a war context.
As it turned out, the hosting of the World Cup was a huge success, and is being touted as one of the most successful ever held. Anywhere. And as a result, the hundreds of thousands of foreigners returned home full of glowing praise for South Africa. In their eyes, there is nothing wrong with the country and all the doomsday prophets are idiots.
But let’s look at this realistically. The World Cup is a moment of artificiality. All the stops were pulled out to ensure that it went off without a hitch, primarily for the sake of the huge influx of foreign visitors. Everything possible was done to make it the success it was. And the massive police presence everywhere guaranteed that there were very few major incidents of violence while it was being held (although the media did not fully report on violence during this period either). Consequently the visitors returned home with their glowing reports of a vibrant, happy land, marching into a bright and prosperous future. But here’s the thing:
This is not reality for South African citizens!
In the years since the Marxist-controlled ANC came to power in 1994, South Africans have lived in the most violent country on earth. The standard within the once-mighty SA Police Force has dropped dramatically, as have standards everywhere else. The courts are drowning in the flood of criminal cases. Legislation favouring criminals and stacked against the victims has been enacted. Personal self-protection via private firearm ownership has been made increasingly difficult. Literally tens of thousands of South Africans are brutally murdered and raped every year. And on top of all this crime, everything is collapsing: the health care system, education, the power grid, the roads, everything.
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