South Africa: 1992 vs. today--and the newest, most profitable grift

One of the great advantages of a world in which information is freely exchange is that different theories of governing, tried by different nations, can be compared for their effectiveness--or utter failure.

So if a particular experiment fawned and slobbered over by leftists and communists implodes, in theory the people of other nations could learn from that mistake and avoid repeating it, eh?  

Of course that's only possible if the Media of other nations show their people the results of the disastrous failure.  But in all western nations the Mainstream Media--which controls what people in those nations are allowed to see--all support the liberals, so voters ever hear about ghastly, destructive failures in other nations.  Hmmm...

Think for a bit about the three innocuous paragraphs above.  Just four sentences!  There's a stunning truth there for those who have the ability to comprehend it.

Just four simple, declarative sentences.  No flowery bullshit word-salad, as from Cackles and AOC and Hakeem and Chuckie Schumer and their merry band of leftist destroyers.  Just four simple sentences.  So with that background, let me present...South Africa:

If you're a young American--or most older ones--you don't know jack-shit about South Africa.  But 40 years ago American liberals had their panties in a twist about that nation.  At the time it was as advanced as any in Europe: Huge, well-functioning cities, good schools and universities, a safe, slick national airline, even nuclear weapons.  

And then it all went *poof.*

Back in the 1980s the problem--according to western liberals--was that SA had been colonized and developed by whites.  As a result, whites ran things.  This was called "apartheid"--like segregation in the U.S. before WW2.  And liberals demanded that whites turn the country over to the black majority.

Western liberals had huge help from a totally predictable source: communists, who saw the entire African continent as a battleground they could almost certainly win--which turned out to be correct. 

The purpose of this post is not to defend apartheid, but to show how neatly western liberals--with the crucial help of the communists--forced the whites to give total control of that country to blacks, and what predictably happened after that.

The main problem was that because SA had a booming economy with lots of jobs, blacks from surrounding nations migrated there to get jobs (and welfare).  And the government welcomed 'em in.  Sound familiar?

After decades of all-black immigration, blacks ended up being 90% of the population--but still things ran smoothly: repairs to streets and water lines and powerplants were made just as in the U.K. or the Netherlands--because that's who still ran the country.

Of course western liberals were outraged that whites ran things in SA, and demanded that the whites turn control of that nation over to blacks.  And the same western liberals organized boycotts demanding that South African teams not be allowed to compete in the Olympics, and similar pressure tactics.

And it worked: On March 17, 1992, white South Africans voted on the question of ending Apartheid, meaning giving control to blacks.  And 68% of the whites voted to turn control of the country over to blacks.  Blacks were given the vote, and two years later Nelson Mandela was elected as that country's first black president. 

After that election the Washington Post's Mary McGrory wrote “Nelson Mandela has won what the Post calls ‘one of history’s sweetest victories over racial subjugation’ and he is going to keep it clean and beautiful so that newspaper readers will think they are reading scripture when they read dispatches from South Africa."

So how'd that work out for ya, Mary?

I don't have time to list all the ways SA has turned to shit: streets have potholes that are never repaired, water doesn't work, power blackouts every day, massive theft--but want to acquaint you with just the newest theft:  Because the black government doesn't prosecute black crime, more than 5,000 buildings across the Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and parts of Cape Town have been “hijacked” by black gangs, which lock out the owners and collect all rent in cash.

Of course the gangs don't pay tax on the income, reducing government revenue.  You'd think the government would bitch about taxes not being paid, but the corrupt black government just smirks.  The gangs string electricity cables from nearby buildings, and threaten the owners of those buildings if they're disconnected.  Water is siphoned from neighboring buildings or municipal pipes. 

The grift is generating billions of rand a year for the gangs--by far the most profitable scam around.

Across South Africa’s major metros such as Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town, criminal syndicates have seized control of thousands of residential and commercial properties.  Estimates from property owners and urban researchers put the number at around 5,000 buildings nationwide, with roughly 1,100 in Johannesburg’s central business district alone. Anyone who resists is threatened into silence.

A group moves in, often posing initially as security guards or caretakers.  Soon the real owner is locked out.  Just as in the U.S. with squatters, the hijackers often turn the tables on the owners, saying they own the building.  The courts never rule against the hijackers.

Doors are welded shut. Armed “bouncers” are stationed at entrances. Tenants are told they must now pay rent to a new authority.  Ironically, anyone who refuses is thrown out or threatened. Owners who attempt to enter are warned they will be killed. 

Hundreds of people are crammed into buildings never designed for such density. Rooms are subdivided with plywood; fire escapes are blocked; water and sanitation systems collapse under the strain. Maintenance stops entirely.

And yet the criminals continue to collect the rent--all of it untaxed and largely invisible.  As another owner involved in a multi-year legal battle to reclaim a property put it, “No maintenance, no taxes, no compliance. Pure profit.”

Under South African law, evicting unlawful occupants is governed by the Prevention of Illegal Eviction Act.  In addition to requiring evictions to be approved by judges, that law crucially DECREES that the landlord must find other accommodation for evicted residents.  Owners say this makes it almost impossible to reclaim hijacked buildings.

Court cases drag on for years. Sheriffs refuse to act without police protection. Meanwhile, owners remain liable for taxes, even when they have no access to their properties and no income from them.

Several owners described being driven into hiding after receiving repeated death threats. Others have abandoned properties altogether, not because they are negligent “slumlords”, they say, but because the personal risk is intolerable. And that's what the syndicates want – to put so much fear into the owners so that they never return, leaving the hijackers to run the buildings with impunity and raking in the millions.

The next domino to fall is totally predictable:  Unlike legitimate landlords, the gangs spend nothing on maintenance, so buildings deteriorate, city governments rule them unsafe and the neighborhood declines, all while criminal groups keep collecting millions.

Owners argue that the state has the tools to prosecute the hijackers, but refuses to do so.

For the syndicates running this criminal empire, business has never been better.

More than 31 years after McGrory absolutely assured us that SA under black rule would be a paradise, one marvels at the total failure--of both the liberal prediction and the reality of South Africa. 

It took a century for whites to build the sophisticated urban infrastructure that was South Africa by 1992.  The decay began in 1994, and it's taken barely over 30 years most of SA's cities to become barely habitable--under the total, unhindered rule of blacks in South Africa.

The black-run national government chose to stop protecting private property rights--the right of building owners to keep black crime syndicates from taking over their buildings--because in today's SA the government refuses to take on the crime syndicates.  Think a few dozen palms are being greased?

Papers like the Washington Post--people like Mary McGrory and her leftist bosses--assured Americans that if blacks were given control of South Africa, things would be fabulous.  How'd that work out, Mary?

Say, how's Oakland doing today?  How about Atlanta?  Detroit?  Cleveland?  Chitcongo?