Where even the bad times are good...
"Do you know that for every eight tourists arriving in South Africa, an additional job will be created? For every job that is not created by turning away tourists, up to six people (in a family) are deprived of an income. By encouraging this you are removing the possibility of a livelihood from an honest hardworking South African and breeding more poverty, hate, resentment and crime. ... You are in fact creating the problem you lobby so strongly against."
Pieter Boshoff | Open Letter to Neil Watson
Pieter Boshoff tells it like it is. And, through Shelley, I found Adam Bernstein, a reasonable Capetonian — you do get them — who links to several blogs and sites proving that for every Neil Watson, there are many more real South Africans out there.
South Africans? You don't get more south African than Rethabile Masilo, a blogger who so frequently echoes my thoughts I've had to put some rather delicate questions to my dear old mother. We're not related, Rethabile, but sometimes it feels that way. Have you met Bruce? It's spooky the number of times that guy's mirrored my mind.
Anyway, The Man from the Mountain Kingdom goes the whole hog and lists the gamut of local bloggers contributing to what is, when all is said and done, a giant thermal offering much wind and odor, but little substance.
Bar Mike Stopforth, even the good guys sound apprehensive about South Africa hosting the World Cup. Where does this crap come from? Who the hell have you people been speaking to? What are you smoking? And, if the situation is so bad, why should tourists be denied a fair shot at being mugged, raped, hijacked, or murdered?
A couple of Poms, a few Germans, and several Yanks will spare many South Africans. Besides, they're walking targets. Moonbelts stuffed with dollars, they wander the streets of Cape Town in a daze, pointing giant bloody Nikon and Canon SLRs at everything in sight. Their credit cards, travellers checks, and passports poke from their pockets, and their Rolexes shine like the sun.
Although I wouldn't bet on it, I think the last tourist to die in Cape Town was the unfortunate British hiker who died when fellow English visitor Anthony Cooper set Table Mountain alight. S'far as I'm concerned, our criminals are a bunch of shifltess, lazy bastards too full of tik to put in a decent day's work. Tourists are quite safe in this laid-back town.
But, then again, perhaps I'm missing something and am more than willing to admit to blithering ignorance. My knowledge of history ain't so hot and others may hold facts vital to an appreciation of this crazed panic gripping the electric-fence and ADT set. Could someone enlighten me?
How many tourists were mugged, raped, hijacked or killed during the 1995 Rugby World Cup and the 2003 Cricket World Cup, two smoothly run, well-staged, large and immensely successful sporting events showing South Africa lacks little in the way of the expertise needed to control the likes of Zinedine Zidane?
Huh?
