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How South Africa's dream turned into a grim reality
The Star ^ | Saturday, December 8, 2012 | Ben Schiller

Posted on 12/12/2012 2:55:26 PM PST by MinorityRepublican

LUSIKISIKI, SOUTH AFRICA—The news arrived in this remote African village at night, like a digital bolt from the star-filled sky — landing with the “ping” of a text message.

It woke Nomkhitha Sompeta from her sleep, sent her scrambling in the dark for her phone, and left her staring into its luminous screen.

“Biza has passed away,” the message read.

Her brother was dead.

More than 700 kilometres away, 36-year-old Mzukisi Sompeta — “Biza” to his friends — had been shot to death with 33 other striking miners in a standoff with police at a place called Marikana, in a massacre that rocked the nation.

Nomkhitha Sompeta, 23, tears up in the telling of it: how she loved her brother, how humble he was, how he sang African spirituals like, “I am but a visitor to this earth.”

Now he lies buried in the backyard, in a field planted with maize, bean and pumpkin seeds on a slope facing Mpungutye Mountain.

In the weeks and months since that day in August, when riot police unleashed 16 seconds of automatic gunfire into a crowd of protesting miners, a kind of sleeping volcano has erupted in South Africa.

Tens of thousands more miners walked off the job; striking truckers disrupted food and fuel supplies nationwide, and farmworkers in the Western Cape burned down vineyards. As foreign investors scattered, the currency was shaken and the bond-rating agency Moody’s issued the country a stinging downgrade.

(Excerpt) Read more at thestar.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
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1 posted on 12/12/2012 2:55:33 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
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To: MinorityRepublican
when riot police unleashed 16 seconds of automatic gunfire into a crowd of protesting miners By which the author is referring to a detachment of men wielding Assegais and machetes, and at least one pistol, and who were seeking to close with an engage the police in melee.
2 posted on 12/12/2012 3:01:56 PM PST by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both)
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To: BenLurkin

Thank God they did, too, or instead the story would have been “25 police and reporters hacked to death by frenzied mob armed with pangas.”

They fired at the moment when it was “us, or them.”

Some of them still had the nerve to say, “Them.” And open fire. Same thing any rational human would do. Pure self defense.

Moral of the story: Moral right (in your mind) will not be much protection when you start running toward police, while waving machetes and calling out war cries.

“Ghost dancing,” African style.


3 posted on 12/12/2012 3:13:30 PM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Every black man in America should honor his slave ancestors every day who suffered so he (she) could live in America. His slave ancestors who made a huge down payment for all they have today including guilt tripping whites into affirmative action propaganda and huge welfare programs. The white taxpayer is now the slave of blacks and other poor minorities such as some Hispanics. Asians too who scam our welafre sytsems and there is a lot. He is their beast of burden


4 posted on 12/12/2012 3:31:41 PM PST by dennisw (The first principle is to find out who you are then you can achieve anything)
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To: MinorityRepublican
Millions still lack housing, electricity, water and proper toilets. The education system in the black townships lies in ruins.

Poor, uneducated blacks and wealthy, white liberals both believed that poverty and ignorance would be eradicated in, oh, I don't know, a year or so. The elimination of apartheid and the accession to power of black men would make it so.

But it takes generations to raise a nation into relative prosperity. And that's under the best of conditions. If they'd taken everything the whites owned, they'd still be in the same condition today.

5 posted on 12/12/2012 5:02:09 PM PST by BfloGuy (Workers and consumers are, of course, identical.)
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To: BfloGuy
"But it takes generations to raise a nation into relative prosperity." .... in addition to liberty, free markets, capitalism, an education, hard work, rugged individualism, and self reliance. OK, now I think it reads better.
6 posted on 12/12/2012 5:16:21 PM PST by mosaicwolf (Strength and Honor)
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To: mosaicwolf
OK, now I think it reads better.

I agree completely. Those are, indeed, requirements of prosperity. Hey, it was a blog comment, not a dissertation.

7 posted on 12/12/2012 5:38:11 PM PST by BfloGuy (Workers and consumers are, of course, identical.)
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