In 1987, whilst sitting in my office in Kitwe, Zambia I was visited by a Zambian salesman offering advertising material in the form of printed tee shirts. As he had no samples to show I declined.
Two weeks later he turned up again accompanied by another Zambian gentleman, exceptionally well dressed in a smart three piece suit and carrying a briefcase. When the briefcase was opened, it was full of old tee shirts with dreadful sub-standard printing and they seemed like they had just come off someone’s back.
Spotting a gleaming white tee shirt among the others and not wanting to sound rude, I asked the gentleman if I could see it. It was a first class tee shirt with a clear and well printed logo, so I told him that was what I wanted for our company. He then informed me that he was unable to supply such shirts as they were imported. Now I must explain, in Africa the term “imported” has connotations of high quality, not normally achievable from local manufacturers. I asked where they were imported from and he told me, Zimbabwe. Now my facetious streak kicks in and I ask him how come Zimbabwe, who only had independence for 7 years, could produce such high quality goods, when Zambia, who had independence 23 years, could not?
His response and you must understand that this was coming from an articulate and well educated Zambian was, “they’ll also get worse as they go along.” I never though his words would come true, as at that time Zimbabwe was doing extremely well economically and we were all very impressed. We even thought the Zimbabwe would prove to be the exception to the usual state of decay and deterioration which had cursed African. How wrong we were and how right was the Zambian gentleman.
There are some nice Before and After photos of Portuguese cities in Angola and Mocambique. Those relating to Beira are especially illustrative.
Like the Italians, put a group of Portuguese in the middle of primordial African bush with a cement mixer and come back in ten years to find a beautifully laid out "colonia". True urban artists with reinforced concrete and decorative tiles with an eye to construction that would last centuries. Even when shot to blazes and gutted to empty shells, they still stand - identifiable and distinct reminders that Men of the West once stood here before their Legions returned home.
Brits and Belgies were, in contrast, content to signal [albeit subconsciously] that they were there less permanently since their preferred choice of building material was largely confined to corrugated iron and cheap bricks.
With respect Watcher Nairobi was not built with corrugated iron and cheap bricks, and neither was Salisbury.
They were both thoroughly modern and well constructed cities which are still standing today, despite next to zero work on the infrastructure in 50 years in the case of Nairobi and thirty in the case of Salisbury.
Italian colonialism always struck me as not so much wicked but rather absurd.
The best thing that came out of it was Cladia Cardinale, who was born to Italian parents, but grew up speaking Arabic in Tunis.
In retrospect, the Italians had a rather elegant exit from colonialism: They left and all they took with them was a sensual starlet, whereas the Brits and Frenchmen were pursued home by an avalanche of genetic debris.
What it is really amazing about the comments on this thread is that so far they have not been discovered by James Murathin who will now doubt arrive in time and rebut it all with some hocus pocus diatribe about the legacy of slavery, colonialism and apartheid being the direct cause for this failure and collapse
The answer to all this uselessness can be found in a recent post on the censorbugbear blog
"Asylum Seekers" [read economic migrants/refugees] are arriving in South Africa at the rate of 1,170 per day from the rest of Africa south of the Sahara
Extrapolate this to the South African domestic situation and you will find the following: In 1900 the white population in South Africa was approximately 1 million. In 1990 it was approximately 5 million This population growth was on a pro-rata par with Scotland, Ireland, Wales and New Zealand. In other words the population grew at a rate that could be sustained by the expanding economy.
Contrast that with the black population in South Africa over the same time frame. It grew from approximately 3 million (9 tribes) to 35 million. Add to that an estimated 10 million illegal immigrants today.
Now there is NO corresponding expanding black economy to support this population. They are parasites wholly dependent on the white man's entrepreneurial flair to create jobs. Simultaneously the white man is being driven off the land, is excluded from the work place by AA & BEE and is being forced to emigrate to survive.
A recipe for disaster that the black majority Government appears to be incapable of seeing.
It seems to me that black Africans are the only race on the planet that breed beyond their capacity to support themselves and then descend on prosperous nations [Europe/South Africa] and expect them to bail them out of their own self inflicted mess.
Hi Sarah Agreed - what you say is true of Nairobi and Salisbury [two cities I am very familiar with]. My comments were definitely in the "exaggeration for effect" category since I have an undying respect for the Portuguese in Africa [an oft forgotten nation of builders under the handicap of being [at the time] one of the poorest and smallest nations in The West. However I still think there's truth in the model if one keeps in mind the following: 1. Nairobi was a corrogated iron town until after WW2 when farming and the new settler scheme got into high gear. The 1950's transformed the place. 2. Salisbury was baked brick and corrogated iron until the advent of Federation in the 1950's. In a short ten years, the place absolutely boomed and its skyline was transformed. It still pretty much looks like 1959 architecturally. [Very little new construction went up in UDI and Bush War era.] 3. Once one left the major centers of Kenya and Rhodesia, it was back to brick and corrogated iron though in the small rural service towns. 4. But in the Portuguese territories, it was different. Even in tiny small communities accessible only by aircraft or rough dirt tracks. Their Great God Reinforced Concrete was used to the maximum extent possible.
Of course I will forgive you the "waffle and Rose Tint" Watcher, what you have to say is very interesting.
There are a lot of photographs of rural Kenyan and Ugandan towns in the early 20th century here http://www.sikh-heritage.co.uk/heritage/sikhhert%20EAfrica/nostalgic-other%20cities%20&%20towns.html (albeit seen from an Asian perspective) I see one corrugated iron building, but the rest look very much like rural towns in the USA or Australia looked in the same period.
Kilimanjaro, The problem people who cling to outmoded ideas like James have is that everything has changed in the last few years. Try this for size -
""Jew Bears Christian Witness to Ethnic Cleansing," Ilana Mercer's new WND.COM column: barnacle, Thursday 13 January 2011
"... America’s solipsistic opinion formers and television program-makers do not provide any serious, ongoing analysis of what’s afoot in the 'new' South Africa. ... Indeed, the ethnic cleansing of the Afrikaner has failed to cloud pinched horizons in America. Perhaps it takes a Jew to bear Christian Witness. As Adriana Stuijt reports, a 'pro-Boer Israeli human rights activist' by the name of Avigdor Eskin visited South Africa on a fact-finding tour in October. Mr. Eskin has, kicked off the Christian New Year by demonstrating in Jerusalem on Sunday against the ANC-regime’s ‘silent genocide’ of the … Afrikaner-Boers in South Africa. He said the Boers have ‘for the past 100 years always been the friends of the Jewish people. We must support and help them in their present plight. What is happening in South Africa cannot be tolerated and we will not remain silent.’
14 comments:
Sarah, sorry to barge in, but have you seen this?
Mugabe and the white farmer part 1/6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g6WSK3YX3E
Hi Shaun
Yes, I have seen that, I think I posted a link to it a while back. It deserves wide circulation.
Sarah
In 1987, whilst sitting in my office in Kitwe, Zambia I was visited by a Zambian salesman offering advertising material in the form of printed tee shirts. As he had no samples to show I declined.
Two weeks later he turned up again accompanied by another Zambian gentleman, exceptionally well dressed in a smart three piece suit and carrying a briefcase. When the briefcase was opened, it was full of old tee shirts with dreadful sub-standard printing and they seemed like they had just come off someone’s back.
Spotting a gleaming white tee shirt among the others and not wanting to sound rude, I asked the gentleman if I could see it. It was a first class tee shirt with a clear and well printed logo, so I told him that was what I wanted for our company. He then informed me that he was unable to supply such shirts as they were imported. Now I must explain, in Africa the term “imported” has connotations of high quality, not normally achievable from local manufacturers. I asked where they were imported from and he told me, Zimbabwe. Now my facetious streak kicks in and I ask him how come Zimbabwe, who only had independence for 7 years, could produce such high quality goods, when Zambia, who had independence 23 years, could not?
His response and you must understand that this was coming from an articulate and well educated Zambian was, “they’ll also get worse as they go along.” I never though his words would come true, as at that time Zimbabwe was doing extremely well economically and we were all very impressed. We even thought the Zimbabwe would prove to be the exception to the usual state of decay and deterioration which had cursed African. How wrong we were and how right was the Zambian gentleman.
Just to let you know that the white farmer in the film I mentioned above later died of the injuries he sustained.
http://why-we-are-white-refugees.blogspot.com/2011/06/white-zimbabwe-policeman-denied-asylum.html
"Death of Mogadishu" in a single image.
There are some nice Before and After photos of Portuguese cities in Angola and Mocambique. Those relating to Beira are especially illustrative.
Like the Italians, put a group of Portuguese in the middle of primordial African bush with a cement mixer and come back in ten years to find a beautifully laid out "colonia". True urban artists with reinforced concrete and decorative tiles with an eye to construction that would last centuries. Even when shot to blazes and gutted to empty shells, they still stand - identifiable and distinct reminders that Men of the West once stood here before their Legions returned home.
Brits and Belgies were, in contrast, content to signal [albeit subconsciously] that they were there less permanently since their preferred choice of building material was largely confined to corrugated iron and cheap bricks.
With respect Watcher Nairobi was not built with corrugated iron and cheap bricks, and neither was Salisbury.
They were both thoroughly modern and well constructed cities which are still standing today, despite next to zero work on the infrastructure in 50 years in the case of Nairobi and thirty in the case of Salisbury.
Italian colonialism always struck me as not so much wicked but rather absurd.
The best thing that came out of it was Cladia Cardinale, who was born to Italian parents, but grew up speaking Arabic in Tunis.
In retrospect, the Italians had a rather elegant exit from colonialism: They left and all they took with them was a sensual starlet, whereas the Brits and Frenchmen were pursued home by an avalanche of genetic debris.
http://blog.libero.it/wrnzla/5921413.html
Postcards of an Italian city in Eritrea.
I wonder how africanised it is these days?
What it is really amazing about the comments on this thread is that so far they have not been discovered by James Murathin who will now doubt arrive in time and rebut it all with some hocus pocus diatribe about the legacy of slavery, colonialism and apartheid being the direct cause for this failure and collapse
The answer to all this uselessness can be found in a recent post on the censorbugbear blog
"Asylum Seekers" [read economic migrants/refugees] are arriving in South Africa at the rate of 1,170 per day from the rest of Africa south of the Sahara
Extrapolate this to the South African domestic situation and you will find the following:
In 1900 the white population in South Africa was approximately 1 million.
In 1990 it was approximately 5 million
This population growth was on a pro-rata par with Scotland, Ireland, Wales and New Zealand.
In other words the population grew at a rate that could be sustained by the expanding economy.
Contrast that with the black population in South Africa over the same time frame. It grew from approximately 3 million (9 tribes) to 35 million. Add to that an estimated 10 million illegal immigrants today.
Now there is NO corresponding expanding black economy to support this population. They are parasites wholly dependent on the white man's entrepreneurial flair to create jobs.
Simultaneously the white man is being driven off the land, is excluded from the work place by AA & BEE and is being forced to emigrate to survive.
A recipe for disaster that the black majority Government appears to be incapable of seeing.
It seems to me that black Africans are the only race on the planet that breed beyond their capacity to support themselves and then descend on prosperous nations [Europe/South Africa] and expect them to bail them out of their own self inflicted mess.
Hi Sarah
Agreed - what you say is true of Nairobi and Salisbury [two cities I am very familiar with]. My comments were definitely in the "exaggeration for effect" category since I have an undying respect for the Portuguese in Africa [an oft forgotten nation of builders under the handicap of being [at the time] one of the poorest and smallest nations in The West. However I still think there's truth in the model if one keeps in mind the following:
1. Nairobi was a corrogated iron town until after WW2 when farming and the new settler scheme got into high gear. The 1950's transformed the place.
2. Salisbury was baked brick and corrogated iron until the advent of Federation in the 1950's. In a short ten years, the place absolutely boomed and its skyline was transformed. It still pretty much looks like 1959 architecturally. [Very little new construction went up in UDI and Bush War era.]
3. Once one left the major centers of Kenya and Rhodesia, it was back to brick and corrogated iron though in the small rural service towns.
4. But in the Portuguese territories, it was different. Even in tiny small communities accessible only by aircraft or rough dirt tracks. Their Great God Reinforced Concrete was used to the maximum extent possible.
Forgive the waffle and rose tints please lol!
"They left and all they took with them was a sensual starlet, whereas the Brits and Frenchmen were pursued home by an avalanche of genetic debris."
Forgive me for being thick but who or what is the "genetic debris"? Is it the the ethnics or the former colonials returning home? :~
Of course I will forgive you the "waffle and Rose Tint" Watcher, what you have to say is very interesting.
There are a lot of photographs of rural Kenyan and Ugandan towns in the early 20th century here http://www.sikh-heritage.co.uk/heritage/sikhhert%20EAfrica/nostalgic-other%20cities%20&%20towns.html (albeit seen from an Asian perspective) I see one corrugated iron building, but the rest look very much like rural towns in the USA or Australia looked in the same period.
Kilimanjaro, The problem people who cling to outmoded ideas like James have is that everything has changed in the last few years. Try this for size -
""Jew Bears Christian Witness to Ethnic Cleansing," Ilana Mercer's new WND.COM column:
barnacle, Thursday 13 January 2011
"... America’s solipsistic opinion formers and television program-makers do not provide any serious, ongoing analysis of what’s afoot in the 'new' South Africa. ... Indeed, the ethnic cleansing of the Afrikaner has failed to cloud pinched horizons in America. Perhaps it takes a Jew to bear Christian Witness. As Adriana Stuijt reports, a 'pro-Boer Israeli human rights activist' by the name of Avigdor Eskin visited South Africa on a fact-finding tour in October. Mr. Eskin has,
kicked off the Christian New Year by demonstrating in Jerusalem on Sunday against the ANC-regime’s ‘silent genocide’ of the … Afrikaner-Boers in South Africa. He said the Boers have ‘for the past 100 years always been the friends of the Jewish people. We must support and help them in their present plight. What is happening in South Africa cannot be tolerated and we will not remain silent.’
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