Yes, we Americans have a very distorted view of Africa. In my mind, it's all disease, war and squalor. It's interesting to see what the place actually looks like and what a local has to say about it.
The disease war and squalor do exist. These are mostly in North Africa.
The common screw up in Africa is AIDS and that is b/c the native folk
are very promiscuous and is not taboo in their culture even when they
convert to christianity. The black islamists in places like Nigeria are
totally fucked up and I only visited one country that is majority islam.
The one thing I can say the christian ones do tend to do better than the
islam ones. My visits to Ghana and Guinea opened my eyes and a trip to
Scotland opened my eyes to the origins of apartheid.
We did not invent
it only invented a word to describe it which you are all aware of in the
50's US culture as separate but equal - that is what apartheid is in a nutshell. It is an Afrikaans word and literally translated is apartness.
When the white settlers came to Africa, the blacks were looking after
themselves pretty well as hunter gatherers and subsistence farming.
Evolution was at work and the survival of the fittest working aces.
Ever
wondered why they make the best track and field athletes? The slaves
that made it to the Americas were the strongest.
They were taken out of this natural environment and introduced to the
white man's ways. They quickly lost their natural skills and when world
opinion caught up with the advent of global press and media, it was all
gone. The current lot only know the white man's ways and just when we
were starting to change towards them, pressures disrupted the new
evolution. Black folk are not dumb, they are just stupid when it comes
to western civilisation mainly because they have not had the
opportunities we have had.
A black kid born in 58 would be lucky if his father owned a bicycle. My
grandfathers both had automobiles and by then time I hit 16, I could not
only drive a car but service it too. See the difference? I had a
technological advantage via lineage they did not have. There is a phase
shift of at least three generations before they catch up to where I was
at 16 but I have moved on, my kids do better than me at school as I
could at least teach them basic math and assist them. The black kids
even in my kids generation did not have that. I have had internet since
the mid 90's. Some black kids never knew what a computer is.
You have to remember by the time the whites came to Southern Africa,
the locals had not even discovered the basic wheel, they did not need
it yet.
White civilisation accelerated their mental evolution and were kept
doing menial labour as they were stronger and fitter than the whites.
They had to first learn English, Portuguese, French, Dutch or German
before education could even begin.
When I was at college, one fellow trainee was Stephen Herwadzi, a black
guy and he scored 100% every weekly test. We white kids went to ladies
night on Thursdays and managed a hungover minimum pass. Come the end of
the year, we went into hibernation and got stuck into the books and we
whites all outperformed the black guys. We were in the same class and
college.
Obviously they were not dumb based on weekly scores. Most of the white
kid's dads were in the same engineering field (or similar) we were training in so there again was that advantage.
When we went to war, we were just starting to sort out our racial shit;
the clock of evolution cannot be accelerated and being forced to do so
actually stopped the process. Make no mistake, even in these times
there were black lawyers and doctors and some of them damn good ones.
Nelson Mandela was a lawyer.
Idiots took over and even the educated black Zimbabwean professionals
have left for the UK and US. SA was not even a plausible choice for
them back then. Black guys I have trained in SA moved onto the UK and
one contacted me one day by phone and thanked me. He said I was the
best boss he ever had.
All we needed was another 30-50 years and it would have all worked itself out.
The Brits knew and saw this and as such forced us to capitulate to world
pressures, in the end they still raped the lands of resources with
little moral obligations to the masses. Sound familiar? Saudi???
Rhodesia was known as the bread basket of Southern Africa, now it is just another basket case.
The UK car manufacturing has all but dried up and is heavily foreign
owned. They lost huge market shares in Africa as the French, German and
now the Japanese filled the voids.
South Africa now produces all Mercedes C Class for the RHD world, same
for the Toyota Corolla (last I heard) My last new Toyota was a full
import from AUS. None of our motor manufacturing plants have closed
recently other than the Brit and US ones that may have been assembly
plants only. The US does not even have 10% of 1% of the market share of
motor vehicles in SA. The only exception is John Deer who somehow
maintained a presence during sanction years, they are still the most
popular amongst the big farmers. Caterpillar is another one that is
still popular in the mining sector but we manufacture most machine here.
I don't have the details of what percentage is imported like engines and
transmission but seeing we can build this from scratch...
Rooivalk Attack Helicopter
Building a Cat machine is obviously a no brainer
Oh BTW, if you have a pool, this is a South African invention
Kreepy Krauly
And in case you forgot, SA was the first place to do a successful heart
transplant (this in the day when organ transplant rejection and matching
was in its infancy)
Ubuntu - Mark Shuttleworth - 1st civilian in space from Africa, also the guy that invented VeriSign.
We don't just play good rugby and cricket.
List of 5 Great South African Inventions (You'll be surprised)
One missing from this list is the blind spot stick on mirror, defunct
now as most cars have curvatures built into the rear view wing mirrors.
Hell, even I have a registered patent
{/stops blowing trumpet}
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