So let me tell you…

He’s the fellow on the right. He is also the controversial leader of the ANC Youth League, with a love for radical statements and threatening anyone he does not agree with.

“Who cares?”, you might be thinking. Well, perhaps more people should be worrying about this guy!

As ANCYL leader, and with the ANC being the party that will be governing South Africa for the foreseeable future, it is not unreasonable to see Comrade Julius as representing the next generation of leaders being groomed by the ANC in the wings of South African politics.

As such, it is entirely possible that Julius Malema could be president of South Africa down the road!

Why Is That Bad?

To get a sense of why it might be bad if Julius Malema becomes South Africa’s president, you have to look at some of the things he has been saying and doing…

Malema Quotes

“I have defeated you and your apartheid regime and I’m going to defeat you again, once and for all!”

“I have defeated colonisers. I am going to defeat the children of colonisers.“

Clearly Malema was referring to whites in this case. With a phrase like “I am going to…” he clearly believes that he has unfinished business with whites in South Africa.

When the current SA president, Jacob Zuma, was on trial for fraud and corruption charges a few months before his election as president, Malema said…

“Let us make it clear now: we are prepared to die for Zuma. Not only that, we are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma.”

“Why do you want to subject him to the hands of the few, the judiciary, the judges and the media?“

This doesn’t sound like the words of a man who respects the law and believes everyone is equal before the law.

Malema & South African Businesses

A few months ago, Nando’s, a chicken fast-food chain in South Africa that is known for producing funny ads, ran an ad on South African TV featuring a Malema-puppet. This prompted Malema to threaten Nando’s with a mass-action campaign.

A few months later, Nedbank, a sponsor of Athletics South Africa, decided to withdraw further sponsorship of ASA because their sponsorship requirements weren’t being met. This prompted Malema to threaten Nedbank that he would “mobilise society” against Nedbank and he spoke  “of people who are refusing to accept the transformation, of African leadership“, thereby turning the issue into racial one.

Malema & Racism

Speaking of racism, Malema likes to make racially-charged statements. A while ago he called Helen Zille, the (white) Democratic Alliance leader, a “racist, colonialist and imperialist” and a “little racist girl“. This, despite Helen Zille being part of the anti-apartheid movement.

This guy has made many other wild, controversial statements. Do a Google search for “Julius Malema” and you will see them. There seems to be an endless supply of his craziness.

Much of what Malema has to say sounds so much like the kind of stuff uttered by Robert Mugabe, who took 30 years to run Zimbabwe into the ground.

If Malema was just some lunatic on the fringe of politics, there would not be any real need to pay attention to his antics, but he is not on the fringe. Even if he is only in the ANC Youth League, he is a member of South Africa’s governing party, a party that rarely attempts to rein him in.

God help South Africa if Julius Malema ever becomes president!

Let me first admit that we didn’t travel through all of South Africa. We were exposed only to a small part of South Africa and only for a few weeks. This also means that we were tourists who did not have to experience the realities of making a living in South Africa. Therefore my impressions are not comprehensive. That being said, here goes…

Airports

South Africa is hosting next year’s Soccer World Cup. Other than the stadiums that are being built (some completed, most not…), South Africa is in the process of upgrading most of its major airports.

When we visited South Africa two years ago, Johannesburg airport seemed to be a mess, and we waited more than an hour to get our luggage. There was also lots of construction going on. All that seems to have changed now. The airport is beautiful, with several restaurants, and it all seems to function quite efficiently. This time we waited no more than 15 minutes for our luggage.

Other airports that we visited also have lots of construction going on. As with the stadiums, I hope that all the airports will be ready to go by the time that all the tourists flood to South Africa for the Soccer World Cup.

Money

The single thing always strikes me most when we visit South Africa is how many more Rands South Africans have to cough up to pay for the same items. When we lived there (1996 and before), a R100 note was a rare thing to have in your wallet because you seldom needed that much money from day to day. Nowadays they seem to fly out of wallets like bees from a hive!

In my day, you could buy a Spur burger for around R10-R15. Now you’re looking at R40-R55. There are plenty of other examples. Granted, South African salaries have risen quite dramatically too, at least for some. Many people now earn R25,000 per month instead of the R25,000 per year that I made as an engineer at the SABC.

My Spur example above suggests an annual inflation rate of about 12%, which is double the official rate of about 5.5% over the past 8 or more years. I might be wrong about this, but I get the feeling that South Africans’ cost of living has increased by much more than the 5.5% per year suggested by the official inflation rate. (Here’s an article that may support that point.)

Crime

South Africa still has a big problem with crime, as evidenced by secured housing complexes, burglar bars covering windows, metal gates covering doors, electric fences on top of 8ft concrete walls, etc. Then there are the stories that locals tell of relatives or friends that became victims of crime, and then people simply telling you how bad the crime is.

The crime is not equally intense all over South Africa though. People have to be very vigilant about their safety in big cities like Johannesburg and Pretoria, but things seem to be somewhat better in many rural areas. This is one reason why I prefer to spend most of our time visiting relatives on farms.

I must also admit that during our time in Cape Town, which does have issues with crime, I did not feel threatened, nor did we have any problems when we visited the Waterfront, Table Mountain, and Cape Point. I suppose it helped a lot that we visited mainly tourist spots and were surrounded by lots of other people at all times.

I am hoping that the criminals aren’t licking their lips at the prospect of thousands of Soccer World Cup tourists next year, or that the South African government is making plans to contain this problem. And, of course, life goes on after the Soccer World Cup… the government has to do something about the crime!

People in the Service Industry

Our experiences with people in the service industry have been very good. I’m talking about waiters in restaurants, operators at tourist attractions, SAA flight attendants, etc. They have all been friendly and provided good service with a smile. This was our experience on previous occasions as well.

The South African border agents at the Rietfontein border crossing into Namibia did a thorough job while being friendly, contrary to their Namibian counterparts who didn’t seem to like us at all.

I think this is a very positive thing for South Africa!

Beauty

What can be said about beauty of South Africa’s nature that hasn’t been captured in millions of photographs? We took a trip around the Cape Peninsula, and it is still simply stunning! The same can be said for the Baviaanskloof mountains.

We did however drive through Pretoria on one occasion. We drove from Menlyn Park to the Loftus Versfeld area, and from there to the Johannesburg airport. The area around Loftus, in particular, looked neglected to me. I don’t remember it that way when I lived in the area in the late 80′s. I suppose it is merely one city out of many.

Prospects for Young People

I got the strong feeling that it is tough for a young white person to find employment in South Africa’s formal sector these days. One friend even said it in so many words. Others have said that if white kids can’t join a family business, or get lucky and start their own successful business, that employment could get tough for them.

None of the people I spoke to were encouraging their children to leave South Africa, but I also got the feeling that at least some of them would not be shocked at all if their children announced that they were planning to leave.

For non-white kids, things ought to be as good as the country offers. Policies such as BEE favor non-whites, not only those who need employment, but also those who have their own businesses.

Despite all this, South Africa’s unemployment rate remains high, which affects everyone, and I’m certain that this plays an important role in the high crime rate.

Final Thoughts…

Some people have their own good reasons to think that South Africa is doomed. Based on my limited experiences, I don’t think this is necessarily true. There are positive things that offer hope.

There are however a few issues that the government will definitely have to address soon, or else they will continue to drag the country down. It will all depend on whether the government has the will and right people to do it.

I am hoping that they do.

The flag above, the old South African flag, has been the subject of a lot of controversy since it was replaced in 1994.

The controversy usually seems to be stirred up at rugby matches where one or two spectators wave the old flag among a sea of people waving the new flag. If the old flag is displayed at a prominent rugby match where it can also be seen on TV (like the recent Super 14 Final), the controversy is even bigger and politicians love to jump on the condemnation-wagon.

Until now, display of the flag was merely condemned, but after the recent incident at the Super 14 Final, there have been calls (by politicians) for the flag to be banned.

While banning the flag might not imply that it would be illegal to own the old flag, it would imply that it would be illegal to publicly display the old flag in South Africa.

Generally, those who support banning the flag say it is a symbol of oppression to them, and those who are against banning the flag say it was simply the flag that they grew up with.

The question now is:

Other than voting yes or no, also tell us what you think about this. (Keep in mind that this is a sensitive subject to many, so let’s keep it civil.)

To help those who have no choice but to make their own boerewors, I want to dedicate an article to that honored tradition.

A couple of years ago I wrote an article describing how we make boerewors. Here it is: How To Make Boerewors

On the website we also have a boerewors recipe.

The recipe and the article ought to get you started with making your own decent boerewors.

However, we all learn little tips and tricks along the way to make things better. Let’s use this page for sharing those tips with one another. If you have learned something about making boerewors that might help others, post it as a comment below.

Instead of you having to keep up with what others are doing, wouldn’t it be so much easier if the others simply kept you informed about what’s going on in their world?

Let’s take a look at all the different methods that we (South Africans in Austin) use to keep people informed. Once you know, you can pick the method(s) you prefer and let us do the work.

Email

Even though email is the “oldie” amongst the contact methods, it still works very well.

We have a mailing list that you can sign up for. We use our mailing lists to send email notifications to list members.

At the time of writing this, our mailing list contains 7 email lists that you can choose from. Each list has it’s own specific purpose. This allows you to decide exactly which types of emails you would like to receive from us. You’re in control!

And if you decide you no longer want to receive emails from us, simply unsubscribe and you won’t hear from us again.

RSS

You can subscribe to our RSS feeds. We currently have 2 RSS feeds:

1. SAA News: This feed contains news items, like when our latest newsletter has been published, or information about upcoming events.
2. SAA Blog: This feed contains all the articles published on this blog.

Please note that the SAA News feed has recently been changed into a Feedburner feed. If you have previously subscribed to the original feed, it will continue to work, but I encourage you to switch over to the Feedburner feed.

If you don’t know what “RSS” is, here’s the nutshell version: An “RSS feed” is simply a special file on a website that contains information about articles (title, article text, link to the whole article). To use an RSS feed, you need a program called an “RSS reader”. When you “subscribe to an RSS feed”, all you’re doing is telling the program (RSS reader) where the special file (RSS feed) is located on the internet. The RSS reader then checks the RSS feed every few minutes and displays all the articles found. If anything new was added, you’ll see it immediately. You can subscribe to many different RSS feeds from one RSS reader, to allow you to follow a variety of topics in one place!

If you would like to know more about RSS, read our article What is RSS?

Facebook

Many people are already on the hugely-popular Facebook, including probably you!

We have created a Facebook group called South Africans in Austin (Texas). If you are on Facebook, you are welcome to become a member of that group.

We will be posting many of our updates there as well.

Twitter

Twitter is a very popular micro-blogging site that people use to stay in touch with each other. If you aren’t on Twitter yet, sign up. It is a lot of fun!

We are on Twitter. You can follow us to get updates that way.

There you have it… many different ways to stay in touch with us! Pick your favorite methods and wait for the next update from us! Talk to you soon…

[Article by John]

This is the blog companion to the website, South Africans in Austin. The blog is of course not only for South Africans living in the Austin area. Everybody is welcome!

If this is your first time here, you may want to read About The Blog. It will tell you what this blog is about, what you can expect to find here, and how to best use it. It is really the point where everyone should start.

We will start posting new articles here very soon.

Bookmark The Blog now and come back regularly to follow updates. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed. And don’t forget to share any interesting posts with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and so on!

Have a great day!