Shocka. Nah.
The Rugby World Cup of 1995 and African Nations Cup in 1996 showed South Africa to be a positive and united nation.
However, the 'Rainbow Nation' seems to have lost much of it's shine, with crime being seen as one of the major contributing factors leading to some South Africans becoming more negative about the country's future.
IOL asked its readers: Has South Africa become a country of pessimists?
Of the 1151 people who participated in the poll, 885 (77 percent) voted "Yes" and 266 (23 percent) voted "No".
Here is a selection of reader comments:
richard: Its not a nice thing or an easy thing to admit, but the facts all around us speak for themselves...........the crime, health, education, corruption, service delivery failure, the list goes on.......maybe somewhere there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Duncan: Absolutely! Not just pessimists - take a look at the miserable gits on this poll every day and you will see those with a bad dose of schadenfreude (delight in the misery of others). There seems to be a Chicken Little mindset amongst too many South Africans that unless there is imminent danger of the sky falling on their heads they're not able to function. I've lived, worked and played on four continents and this one is fabulous!
MML: Pessimism is an infectious desease, most of all when your born optimism is stampeded and laught at systematically. Let's face it, CRIME does not give you any chance to keep up optimism. True Duncan, Schadenfreude has the upperhand. Let's keep up at least hopes. Hey, bafana bafana did it :) and Santana does speak english!
Ash: How can you not be pessimistic when you pick up the newspaper this morning and the front page shows that the "song" of choice that was sung at the football was umshini wami-bring me my machine gun!!!! That says it all!
Colleen: I think our country has huge potential. Sure we don't have the best leaders in the world but people make the country and if we all make a small contribution to stand up when we see wrong being committed things will change. I have family and friends who have left SA and telling me how great things are and when I ask what's different, it's always the CRIME. The government is not going to reduce crime alone, the communities have to stand up and be counted.
Matt B: I dont think most people are pessimistic i think however a lot of people are realists. ie if a window is broken it needs fixing, that isnt pessimism its a fact. there is an SA tendancy to deny things until it is too late. Instead of taking it head on, once people see these actions happening then they will become more positive as well.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: WHAT’S NOT TO AGREE WITH?
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Dudes and dudettes…see if you think anything congressman Steve King had to
say on the House floor Thursday is anything you agree or disagree with. –
Person...
49 minutes ago
7 Opinion(s):
Just had a burglary in one of our warehouses. Damage around
R 60 000.- . The factory behind us was raided the next night. Damage
around R 160 000.- . Further down the road ( 80 meters ) another factory was hit as well . We are armed at all times and carry about 2 kg keyes around just to get through all security gates. Masterkeyes are a bad mistake in our situation. The security companies we had to deal with are a joke .
So how optimistic should I be ?
@ Adder, know the feeling. One particular business property of mine was hit so many times that the insurance company threatened not to renew my policy if I made one more claim. I eventually stopped reporting the break-ins and paid for the repairs myself - until I sold the darn place. How many times is this scenario being repeated?
@Adder, may they rot in hell.
very very sad. Pessimism is a slippery slope to cynicism and that's something I really have to fight off. The culture I grew up in is steeped in cynicism and it took a long time to unthink.
But, in the South African situation, it's just realism.
I would love this country to do well. High hopes were heaped upon it in 1994, maybe too much. I don't think it could have lived up to expectations anyway. We can always hope things will improve, or at least, not get any worse.
@ Viking, Amen brother.
I have to agree with Matt B, reporting the TRUTH and the actual state of play is not pessimism, but realism. It may sound like pessimism to people who still believe in the myth of the noble savage and await the day where we will all stand around holding hands.
I look around me and know that short of us returning this country to pristine and uninhabited state our fathers found it in there is nothing at all we can do to fix things, hence the process of IMMIGRATING to my New Land.
There are more people destroying in this country than there are people who are creating. It can do nothing but devolve to the lowest common denominator, and looking north, that denominator seems to be a dismally small number.
Hopefully I will be able to put my life back on track in a place that actually works and is not descending into total and absolute turd world anarchy.
I will lose 6/7ths of my pension savings by converting them into a real currency. I have already lost 60K on my house and it is not sold yet. If I can dump it for what it is bonded for I will smile. If not... I have some bad news for my bank. My 2nd hand cars are now going for 30% less than they did a year ago and the prices are dropping daily.
We are truly trying to piss into the wind, and that wind is a hurricane. There are some days when I just think "Fuck it! We have enough for the tickets, lets just go and sponge off the family for a few months and just get out of here."
Then reality bites and I realise that this is not 2007, and unless I have EVERYTHING sorted, our chances are going to be next to zero.
So we slowly work the plan to fulfillment and await the day, coming soon, that we can say goodbye to a once proud nation, which is now just a ship of fools, and make our way into the sunset.
Monkey may see... But monkey CANNOT do!!!
Anon - 19 June 2009 8:47 PM
Your comments remind me very much of myself. If that lowest common denominator can be found without being lowered to the extreme of Zimbabwe, then perhaps, as Viking says, there is some hope. But for many there is damage enough, and for those that do have a passport/ visa and willing to sacrifice a bit on the money side (as I did) I urge you to leave, more so if you have kids.
Good luck!
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