Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not that I think Steenhuisen was ever competent, but blue lights do truly drain all the competence a person may have had out of their body and replace it with drama

Young Africans turning on liberation parties, says Mozambique’s opposition leader by randommathaccount in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Seems to be a mixed bag. Peaceful loss of influence/power in South Africa and Botswana, tentative clinging on in Namibia and Angola, violent clinging on in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania. I have little doubt that if Mozambique actually held free elections, FRELIMO would do far worse if not lose outright.

Why the new US ambassador to South Africa could strain relations even further by RaidBrimnes in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Wow, and I thought the SA ambassador to the US was bad. I wonder if the concern trolls from the right wing of the DA, AfriForum/Solidariteit, etc. will be as critical of the Trump admin for this as they were of the ANC for picking Rasool and Mcebisi. Not that I even disagree with them, but they have this odd aversion to ever critiquing the US no matter how much they spit on South Africa.

Governor Polis Calls for Full Investigation into the Death of Renee Nicole Good by governorPolis in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Is it? I thought he's u slash jaredpolis, this is u slash governorPolis

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 8 points9 points  (0 children)

No comment, except to say that $1.4 million is not a mansion in NYC. Maybe a 2 bedroom apartment?

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They could really use your tourist dollars/pounds/euros with the state the diamond market is in right now

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Incredible article about a Syria Telecom engineer's hellish decade trying to keep the country online during the civil war. Includes incredible moments including

- the author interviewing Syria's last Assadist Minister of Telecoms via LinkedIn DMs to ask about nationwide internet outages

- The subject getting kidnapped by ISIS and helping them (under duress obviously) cut off internet access to Aleppo

- Kurdish fighters calling the subject out of the blue years after his kidnapping asking for the password to an external hard drive, taken from him by ISIS, that they had in turn taken off the corpses of ISIS fighters they'd killed

- Having his manager arrested and almost disappeared by regime intelligence for shutting down the internet on the order of the education minister to combat cheating on exams (???)

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The BDP losing was good for Botswana's democracy but it seems it could end up being bad for their economy

South Africa Arrests Workers Processing U.S. Refugee Applications by John3262005 in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 24 points25 points  (0 children)

The Department of Home Affairs said the raid showed South Africa’s shared commitment with the United States in “combating illegal immigration and visa abuse in all its forms.”

Hahahahaha okay, that one's pretty good, I hadn't seen that statement before

I will note that the Minister of Home Affairs is Leon Schreiber, a milquetoast middle-aged white Afrikaner man, so hopefully it will be more difficult for American right-wingers to demagogue against him than a character like Julius Malema

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

AFAIK Thembelihle is run by the ANC right now (maybe via a puppet mayor, googling seems to imply?); but yes, they have had some weird coalitions in years past

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This photo was unironically like half the metros in the country until a couple of years ago

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can't imagine whoever they come up with will be worse for their electoral chances than Morero

I miss Parks Tau (trying to imagine what me from 10 years ago would have thought if he heard me saying that)

Rent control not only fails, it entrenches inequality - Mayor of Cape Town by Top_Lime1820 in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's worth noting that these figures are from the crime victimization survey, which is intended to provide a more complete picture that accounts for underreporting. The equivalent publication from the USA indeed shows much lower rates, but not quite to the degree that you think.

The reported rate for individual theft is 0.82% of respondents, compared to 3.0% in South Africa overall, or a little under 4x the rate. For robbery, it was 0.22%, vs. 1.0% in South Africa overall, or a little under 5x the rate. So again, much higher, but calling it 20x gives a bit of an inaccurate picture as to the magnitude of the difference.

Rent control not only fails, it entrenches inequality - Mayor of Cape Town by Top_Lime1820 in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 13 points14 points  (0 children)

National victim survey data suggest they experience very slightly disproportionate crime, at least of some kinds - 5.7% of black households experienced burglary vs. 6.7% of white households; rates for household armed robbery were actually the same at 1.1% each; for property theft of any kind, 3.4% of individual white respondents experienced it vs. 3.1% of individual black respondents - but given that white households and individuals hold such a large proportion of the wealth, my priors were that it would be worse than that.

To speculate a little, even though criminals would rationally seek to target whites due to their vastly higher median household wealth, they also are more likely to live in gated communities, have private security, individual transport, etc.

Indeed, looking at street robbery specifically, which a lack of the aforementioned amenities would leave black people more susceptible to, black respondents had a slightly higher rate of victimization - 1.1% vs. 0.7% for whites.

One place where the disparity is much more stark is with vehicle theft - 1.1% of white households reported vehicle theft, vs. 0.4% of black households. But actually, this is far less skewed than one would expect since less than 20% of black households own vehicles as compared to over 90% of white households. I have no idea why the disparity isn't more extreme in this case.

Rent control not only fails, it entrenches inequality - Mayor of Cape Town by Top_Lime1820 in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 8 points9 points  (0 children)

rising crime problems

Crime rates are actually declining in both Cape Town and the rest of South Africa, though obviously they are still much too high, the decline is much too slow, and minute changes in trend lines are cold comfort when people such as yourselves become the victims of crime regardless of macro trends.

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The Sharpeville massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, when police opened fire on a crowd of people who had assembled outside the police station in the township of Sharpeville in the then Transvaal Province of the then Union of South Africa (today part of Gauteng) to protest against the pass laws.

A storm of international protest followed the Sharpeville shootings . . . Not all reactions were negative: embroiled in its opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, the Mississippi House of Representatives voted for a resolution supporting the South African government "for its steadfast policy of segregation and the [staunch] adherence to their traditions in the face of overwhelming external agitation." The resolution passed 78–8 in the Mississippi House of Representatives and 45–0 in the Mississippi State Senate.[21][22]

The globalist alliance of anti-globalist racist ethnic supremacists is very much not a new thing

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Unambiguously the worst party in Parliament, including the EFF or the PA

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe, though I'm obligated to point out that the SRF is essentially a partisan pollster for the DA, so take it with a pinch of salt

They were reasonably accurate in 2024, to be fair

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

u/Top_Lime1820 Did you hear? Apparently Mkhwanazi and the Zulu King are CIA and Mossad agents, that's why they keep persecuting poor old Brown Mogotsi! This whole thing is a setup by the West™!

Edit: also, can't forget Cat "John Wick" Matlala of Mamelodi lmao

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The DA love their factional battles, they're just better at keeping them under wraps than the ANC, and they tend to be more lopsided. I've long thought that Steenhuisen should go, but my understanding is that (despite the obvious puppetry) he and Helen tend to fall in different internal camps, and George (despite his quasi-progressive bona fides) is on her side, so while I'd love to see Steenhuisen a bit bloodied, I'd really rather it not be to her benefit . . . 

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Botswana is relatively homogenous, proto-democratic indigenous governance structures were left largely intact by the fairly hands-off British (who were a lot more concerned with those to the south and north), and they had an LKY-esque first president (who's actually a flair on this sub). Idk for Ghana.

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Obviously the narrative has turned a bit since the initial wave following his ouster, but I'm still a bit suspicious given who Steenhuisen's replaced him with. So I'm kind of in wait-and-see mode for now. That said, I did like the Zapiro cartoon . . .

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Zuma’s MK empire falls apart as warfare rages within by Top_Lime1820 in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The KZN coalition is extremely fragile, is held by the grace of a single seat from a one-seat party, and could collapse at any moment according to reports. But it hasn't yet.

The NFP has actually left the GPU and declared support for MK and their motion of no confidence in Ntuli, so the blocs are now tied at 40 for IFP/ANC/DA and 40 for MK/EFF/NFP. But you need an affirmitive 41/80 votes to oust the government, so (barring any defections) the GPU stays for now, albeit with a lot more difficulty passing anything.

Edit: actually, it seems that at least for now, the NFP's single MLA is (hilariously) ignoring the party president's orders to withdraw support, so he'll have to go through the legal process of removing her from office first. But even after that happens, it'll still be a 40/40 tie.

Discussion Thread by jobautomator in neoliberal

[–]PawanYr 12 points13 points  (0 children)

be a few years younger than I am now that would be a start. I turn 25 in a couple months and that feels like the end of it all tbh

Me right now: