Journalism and misdirected Responsibility
The following article is taken from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22554709
Do white people have a future in South Africa?
"Apartheid South Africa looked after white people and nobody else. Now some of its white communities face a level of deprivation, or of violence, which threatens their future in the country.
Everyone here, regardless of colour, tells you that white people are still riding high.
They run the economy. They have a disproportionate amount of influence in politics and the media. They still have the best houses and most of the best jobs.
All of this is true but it is not the only picture.
Look below the surface and you will find poverty and a sense of growing vulnerability.
The question I have come to South Africa to answer is whether white people genuinely have a future here.
The answer, as with so many similar existential questions, is "Yes - but…"
BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson examines the challenges facing white South Africans
You are twice as likely to be murdered if you are a white farmer than if you are a police officer”
It seems to me that only certain parts of the white community really have a genuine future here: the better-off, more adaptable parts.
Working-class white people, most of them Afrikaans-speakers, are going through an intense crisis. But you will not read about it in the newspapers or see it reported on television because their plight seems to be something arising out of South Africa's bad old past - a past which everyone, black and white, would like to forget.
According to one leading political activist, Mandla Nyaqela, this is the after-effect of the huge degree of selfishness and brutality which was shown towards the black population under apartheid.
"It is having its effect on whites today, even though they still own a share of South Africa's wealth which is entirely disproportionate," he said.
That may all be true. But the people who are suffering now are the weakest and most vulnerable members of the white community.
Ernst Roets, a leading Afrikaans campaigner from the AfriForum organisation, took me to a squatter camp outside the country's capital, Pretoria. A white squatter camp.
It has been set up on the property of a sympathetic white farmer and is called, optimistically, Sonskyn Hoekie - Sunshine Corner.
There are broken-down cars and bits of discarded furniture everywhere. Beyond the wooden shacks lie ditches and pools of dirty, stagnant water where mosquitoes breed. Two basic toilets serve the whole camp.
According to Roets there are 80 white squatter camps - many of them bigger than this - in the Pretoria area alone. Across South Africa as a whole he believes there could be as many as 400,000 poor whites in conditions like these.
Sonskyn Hoekie has no water and no electricity. The inhabitants live on two hand-out meals of maize porridge a day, which is provided by local volunteers. There is no social security for them, no lifeline - any more than there was for non-whites when apartheid ruled.
Viewpoint: Does race matter in South Africa?
"I don't want to live in a place like this," said Frans de Jaeger, a former bricklayer, who with his beard and wrinkled face looks like one of the old Voortrekkers.
"But I can't get out."
His wife died suddenly of cancer a few years ago and it sent him into a downward spiral of binge drinking and destitution.
Semi-skilled white people have little chance of getting a job when so many black South Africans are unemployed.
There is another group of white Afrikaners, far higher up the social scale, who are deeply threatened - in this case, literally. Virtually every week the press here report the murders of white farmers, though you will not hear much about it in the media outside South Africa.
In South Africa you are twice as likely to be murdered if you are a white farmer than if you are a police officer - and the police here have a particularly dangerous life. The killings of farmers are often particularly brutal.
Ernst Roets's organisation has published the names of more than 2,000 people who have died over the last two decades. The government has so far been unwilling to make solving and preventing these murders a priority.
Average annual black income in 2011: $2,300
Mixed-race (coloured): $4,300
Asian: $7.700
White: $17,500
Source: South African Institute of Race Relations
I went to a little town called Geluik - happiness. A few weeks ago gunmen burst into the farm shop there and opened fire, killing one farmer outright and injuring one of his sons and a shopworker.
They stole next to nothing. It seemed to be a deliberate, targeted killing. Soon afterwards the son died of his injuries.
Belinda van Nord, the daughter and sister of the men who died, told me how dangerous the lives of white people in the countryside have become. The police, she said, had seemed to show little interest in this case.
In the little graveyard where her father and brother are buried there are two other graves of farmers murdered recently. The wonderful landscape which surrounds it has become a killing ground.
There used to be 60,000 white farmers in South Africa. In 20 years that number has halved.
In the old days, the apartheid system looked after whites and did very little for anyone else. Nowadays white people here are on their own.
Those who fit in and succeed will certainly have a future. As for the rest, there are no guarantees whatsoever."
Conspiracy theorists could say that to speak or reveal the truth could mean a journalist's death or loss of job/career. For sure - if one look at the corporations that back journalism, politics and social media - ofcourse one is able to see that the organisations that profit at the highest levels from Capitalism, Corporations and Greed - are obviously not going to shoot themselves in the foot - especially if the members involved happen to actually agree with the principles by which capitalism functions. So on the one hand we have people, activists, organisations, politicians and journalists that may report and speak about 'taboo topics', where they attempt to lift the veil on world deception - by having tv shows and documentaries about the problems - but then what? Where does the truth go once it is revealed? Everything stays the same - so one has to ask yourself why is it if more and more people are 'spreading the word' and becoming more aware of the problems - is it that there are never enough people to stand up together, and discuss sustainable solutions together, to eventually through democracy as 'one man one vote' be the change in balance between what is not best and what is best? I am always seeing people reacting to pictures on facebook of animals and child abuse, war and poverty - but I don't ever see any people discuss the problem behind why these things occur, let alone what solutions are required globally and by and through the individual to change the abuse.
Looking at the above news article - what I noticed was that it is loaded with sarcasm, blame and again finger pointing - where the journalist him/herself really do not have anything else to say and are only allowed to speak within the context of fueling already existent public mistrust and anger. Is this productive at all? Are we saying that we will keep pouring salt in the wound but are really to limited and backwards in our personal capacity and evolution as the human species to ever look at why the wound was caused in the first place? And when we do discuss the cause of the wound we discuss it in the abstract - like it is happening over there, to 'them' -and therefore generation after generation we are allowing abuse on this planet to escalate. Because - if one look closely you will notice that this is what journalism is essentially about - they do not reveal anything new and in the cases of reports on deception within the world - and these reports are always followed by counter reports and documentaries/investigations of fraud within the governments who use these tainted or falsified events to sway public experience - such as in the case on 9/11, the Boston bombings, Saddam Hussein etc. We as the public never really actually know what the truth is or what the lies are - so we give up and brush it off as 'bad journalism' or 'the dam system' or those dishonest people' - but do not realize that we as the individuals are the reason why these organisations, politicians. corporations and journalists are able to lie to our faces - because we keep accepting the system and even fighting for the system that they protect by swaying public opinion/experiences. Therefore we might react to what is happening within the system, yet obviously the corporations and governments and politicians are not going to change the corruption and greed if they realize that they can get away with it and that essentially the public are ultimately in favor of the outcome of deception.
Therefore as I mentioned previously, the news paper article: if you take a look it outlines the usual facts, opinions and hidden and obvious points of racial blame and out-casting Nothing will change after this article was written and this is again how capitalism as a flawed system continues to flourish because the individual within the Psyche of ourselves - our mental designs - have come to accept the Money system as it is and for the most part - will fight to keep the money system as it is. So if you read an article about more and more people being pushed into poverty, and all the the journalist does is assist you in your emotional reactions of annoyance and compounding of the experience of blame towards others - without directing your thinking process towards a solution instead of programming your reactions to apathy hope and blame - then we sit with the problem we have now where no matter what happens in the world - the human is already brainwashed into apathy. Ultimately this article as an example, leaves the reader feeling like we need to make the best of our lives within the current system - because corruption is going to keep happening - and here are the people we can blame, but don't bother with solutions, only focus on making yourself HAPPY. Now we have not only become apathetic towards the problem - but we have become better consumers as we are impulsed towards the only outcome after reading such dark material - which is to make the best of what one has - especially if life for others is so tragic. So, in this situation, the Psychology behind Crimes against Life - is the part that is played through those who present messages in the media and the human as emotion/feeling, mental and energy body on which these individuals/organizations play to keep the system of greed acceptable.
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http://economistjourneytolife.blogspot.com/2012/12/day-162-equal-money-capitalism-way.html#.UZunDLVTDXk
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