Henke Pistorius and the reality of crime in South Africa

http://mg.co.za/article/2013-03-05-oscar-pistorius-have-white-fears-gone-too-far

Oscar Pistorius himself cited fear of crime to explain how he came to kill Reeva Steenkamp but it was his father who this week unleashed a political storm by bringing race to that claim.


"Some of the guns are for hunting and some are for protection, the hand guns," Henke Pistorius told Britain's Telegraph on Tuesday. "It speaks to the ANC government, look at white crime levels, why protection is so poor in this country, it's an aspect of our society."

The Pistorius family quickly sought to distance themselves from Pistorius's sentiments, the ANC reacted with anger. Outrage and condemnation rained down from far and wide. Except, perhaps, from the many white South Africans who share Henke Pistorius's belief that white people are under siege by crime and must arm and protect themselves against it.

It is a perception as common as it is wrong.

Thanks to administrative decisions to drop race from various forms, poor record-keeping and the lack of low-level crime data, it is extremely difficult to say how the impact of crime changed for white people between the end of apartheid and today. It is also, arguably, a useless comparison.

But comparing how crime affects black and white people is somewhat simpler, especially where the geographic lines that divide class still largely divide race. From those comparisons it is clear that the risk for rape, aggravated assault and robbery, as well as murder and attempted murder is considerably greater for the poor black township dweller than, say, a rich white person – and that includes an iconic Olympian and Paralympian.

According to the Institute for Security Studies, in the Boschkop area of Pretoria – where Pistorius's Silver Woods home is situated – there were 541 cases of serious assault in the past five years. Less than 10 minutes away, at one of the police stations that serves Mamelodi township, there were 2 840 similar cases reported.

In Brooklyn, the police district where Pistorius made his home after being released on bail, there were 55 murders reported over the last five years. On the other side of Pretoria, in Atteridgeville, there were 258.

Numbers indicative of race

The numbers are only indicative of race, ignoring black residents of upper-class areas and, by the same token, assuming no white people visit townships and experience crime there. But the trend holds true across police reporting districts, even where it initially seems not to.

"If you look at Milnerton in Cape Town you'll find the crime rate is high but that has both high-income areas and informal areas under it. The same is true of Honeydew [in Johannesburg]," says Lizette Lancaster, who manages the instute's crime hub.

Lancaster cautions that demographics can be hard to discern from police districts, which are still concentrated in formerly white areas, and which can serve vastly different numbers of residents. But data from other sources, which did not focus on race, showed the same discrepancy between white and black crime rates. One recent study by the Medical Research Council, drawing on reports from mortuaries rather than police statistics, found that more than 90% of gun homicide victims were black.

Despite Henke Pistorius's claims, a study shows that the risk for crime is greater for the poor black township dweller than a rich white person.


Black people make up slightly less than 80% of the total population.
But are white people disproportionately worried about crime, considering the high overall rate of crime and the very real danger they face?

Hard metrics on perceptions of crime among different race groups, such as spending on private security measures, are badly skewed by income and perception surveys tend to be based on small, urban surveys. A notable exception was the Victims of Crime Survey by Statistics South Africa, which was last published in September 2012 and utilised data from more than 34 000 individuals.

Those numbers showed white South Africans were very afraid indeed, far more so than those with more to fear.

White people 50% more afraid

Nearly half the white households surveyed said crime prevented them from going to parks or other open spaces. A little under a third of those surveyed said they avoided public transport due to crime and a quarter said they would not walk to shops.

Black families shared the same fears but to a much lesser extent. A comparison between black and white households implied that white pople were between 50% and four times more afraid of crime than their black counterparts who lived in significantly more dangerous areas.

The same survey asked individuals whether they experienced various types of crime during the previous 12 months. Among black people, 2.1% reported they had been victim to robbery, assault or a sexual attack. For white people the percentage was just a hair over 1.4%.


Statistically, Oscar Pistorius may have a legitimate claim to fear of crime. But if he shares his father's sentiment that he should be afraid because he is white, then he has got it all wrong

Oscar Pistorius : Blade runner and the media fuelled neurosis

I'm holding back to write my opinion on ther Oscar Pistorius/Reeva Steenkamp ho-ha, but I will put down a few thoughts later over the weekend on the whole international media hijacking of the tragic incident to lay down alarmist statements about South Africa.

Coming soon..

S.A still tops FDI in Africa

WHILE some analysts and stakeholders in business called on President Jacob Zuma to help make South Africa an investment destination of choice in his state of the nation address, others whipped out charts and graphs this week to prove that the South African glass is still half full.

Michael Lalor, director of the Africa Business Centre at Ernst & Young, said that "contrary to current sentiment, the facts show that South Africa is not losing ground to other investment destinations in Africa or elsewhere".

According to Ernst & Young's new report on repositioning the South African investment case, this perception became apparent in reports and commentary after a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development World Investment survey showing that foreign direct investment (FDI) shrank between 2009 and 2010.
Factors such as the nationalisation debate, events in the mining sector and South Africa's credit downgrade fuelled this. Then came The Economist magazine's "Cry, the beloved country" cover story in October, declaring that South Africa is doomed to go down as the rest of Africa goes up.

However, Mr Lalor said in a survey of 503 business leaders in 38 countries, done for Ernst & Young's new Africa Attractiveness report, 41% said they regard South Africa as the most attractive country in which to do business. Nigeria, often touted as the country that will surpass South Africa as Africa's leading economy, was ranked number one by only 6% of the respondents.

Looking at numbers, Mr Lalor pointed out that the number of FDI projects into South Africa grew by a compound annual rate of 28.7% between 2007 and 2011. FDI capital invested in South Africa grew by 24.7% compared to 1% in Nigeria.

"In relative terms South Africa is still stacking up very well against any other African economy that may be considered as competition," Mr Lalor said.

"The perception and the numbers tells us that FDI into South Africa in growing."

Mr Lalor said South Africa is also among the highest-ranked emerging markets on Ernst & Young's emerging market risk index.

It considers factors like the quality of governance, levels of democracy and the strength of the institutional environment.

Audit, tax and advisory consultancy Grant Thornton also released research this week that shows things are not as bad in South Africa as they are often made out to be.

According to the report on the firm's emerging market opportunity index, South Africa is the only African economy ranked in the top 15 emerging economies worldwide and is still the African leader in terms of potential investment.

"Although recent events in the mining sector have hurt our county's reputation as a destination of choice for FDI, there are significant benefits that continue to attract investors," Grant Thornton South Africa's chairman Deepak Nagar said.

The Grant Thornton report highlights South Africa's location, the financial system, the JSE and the country's infrastructure as the key benefits and attractions to investors.

Ernst & Young also highlighted the growing working age population, natural resources, macroeconomic stability, the diversified economy and the National Development Plan as factors counting in South Africa's favour.

From yahoo news.

Tourism

• The number of tourists visiting South Africa has grown from 3.9million in 1994 to 11.3 million in 2010. South Africa is ranked among the top 5 countries in the world in respect of tourism growth (growing at 3 times the global average).
• SA ranks 24th in terms of tourist arrivals at 11.3 million (France 79 million, UK 28 million, Switzerland 8.5 million, India 5.2 million). (Economist)
• Cape Town was named the top tourist destination in the world in the 2011 Traveler’s Choice Destinations awards.
• OR Tambo airport is the best airport in Africa, according to the World Airport Awards 2010/11. It was also in the top 3 most improved airports in the world for the same period.
• 27 South African beaches were awarded Blue Flags, an international indicator of high environmental standards for recreational beaches in 2010.
• South Africa is ranked 66th out of 139 in the World Economic Forums Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2010/11.
• According to CNNGo (CNN's Travel Website), Cape Town is the 9th most loved city in the world in 2012.
• TripAdvisor has named Boulders Beach as one of its top 10 truly unique beaches in the world 2012.

Fun facts for the day : economy

I'm taking these from http://www.sagoodnews.co.za

• In 2012, at 5.5%, South African interest rates were at a 30-year low.
• South African Tax Revenue has increased from R100 billion in 1994 to R742.7 billion in 2011-12.
• South Africa’s debt to GDP ratio is 32% (USA 100%, Japan 200%, UK 90%). The World Bank recommends a ratio of 60%.
• SA ranks 1st among upper middle-income economies in the World Bank “Connecting to Compete 2012: Trade Logistics in the Global Economy” report. Overall, SA ranks 23 out of 155 countries included in the Logistics Performance Indicators (LPI). Its main competitor on the African continent, Nigeria, is ranked 121.
• South Africa sold $1.8 billion worth of cars to the US in 2010, putting us ahead of Sweden and Italy as suppliers to the US market. Car sales are projected to grow 10% in 2011 to 460,000 units.
• South Africa exported 36.9% more vehicles in 2010 than 2009.
• The South African stock market rose 16.09% in 2010, ranking 8th out of the G20 nations and ahead of all of the G7 countries (Bespoke Investment Group).
• South Africa is ranked 1st out of 142 countries in respect of regulation of security exchanges according to the World Economic Forum Global Competetiveness Report 2011/12
• South Africa is ranked 1st in respect of auditing and reporting, according to the Global Competitiveness Report 2011/12.
• South Africa ranks 1st out of 60 countries in the Economist’s House Price index for the period 1997 – 2009.
• South Africa's banks rank 2nd in the world for soundness, according to the Global Competitiveness Report 2011/12.
• The South African Rand was the second best performing currency against the US Dollar between 2007 and 2011, according to Bloomberg’s Currency Scorecard.
• SA ranked 1st in Platinum output, 2nd in Palladium output, 3rd in Gold output, 6th in Coal output and 9th in wool output. (Economist)
• SA is ranked 2nd out of 183 countries for good practice in protecting both borrowers and lenders when obtaining credit for business (World Bank Doing Business Report 2011)
• SA is ranked 3rd in the world for protection of minority shareholders interests, according to the Global Competitiveness Report 2011/12.
• South Africa ranked 6th in house price improvement indices as a % change in 2009, and 1st as a % change 1999/2009. (Economist).
• SA is ranked 10th out of 142 countries for Strength of Investor Protection, according to the Global Competitiveness Report 2011/12.
• SA is ranked 10th out of 183 countries for good practice in protecting investors in business. (World Bank Doing Business Report 2011).
• South Africa ranks 7th out of 45 countries in the "Big Mac Index 2012". The price of a Big Mac is 42% less in South Africa than in the USA. In Switzerland and Norway, it is 62% more.
• South Africa is ranked 12th out of a total of 134 economies in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2010, ahead of many developed nations, including, the UK (15th), United States (19), Canada (20), Australia (23) and France (46).
• South Africa ranked 15th in terms of "largest deficits" but as a percentage of GDP is not in the top 40 countries. (Economist).
• The JSE ranks 16th in terms of "largest market capitalisation" and 19th in terms of largest gains. (Economist)
• SA is ranked 23rd out of 81 countries in the Jones Lang LaSalle's "World's most Transparent Real Estate Markets" placing it well ahead of China, Brazil, India and Russia. "Robust governance, strong auditing and a developed legal system" were cited as the main reasons for leading the developing markets in this rating.
• South Africa ranks 24th out of 192 countries in the Economist’s "Largest Gold Reserves" Index and 30th in terms of official US$ reserves.
• In a survey of 192 countries, South Africa’s unemployment as a percentage of economically active population ranked 27th.
• SA ranks 28th in terms of number of cars produced and 18th in terms of number of cars sold. (Economist).
• South Africa is ranked 34th out of 183 countries for ease of doing business according to Doing Business 2011, a joint publication of the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation.
• South Africa ranks 41st out of 192 countries in the Economist’s "Biggest Exporters" Index.
• South Africa ranked 50th out of 142 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2011/12, up from 54th in 2010/11.
• South Africa ranks 54th in a comparison of the overall tax burden of 150 countries worldwide.
• South Africa ranks in the top 20 countries for agricultural output.
• According to a survey of 62 countries by the World Bank and the IMF, South Africa has the 36th highest foreign debt, ahead of the US, Japan and all the European countries surveyed. The economist ranks South Africa 29th out of 60.
• South Africa is placed 14th in a list of 21 countries ranked by international companies as top prospective investment destinations for 2012 to 2014, according to the 2012 World Investment Report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad). 
• MTN has been ranked Africa’s most valuable brand in the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2012 survey. MTN becomes the first and only African brand to make the list, debuting at position 88 in the world.
• The number of mines in South Africa had increased from 993 in 2004 to almost 1,600 in 2011 (Business Day)
• Associated revenue generated from mining grew from R98bn in 2004 to R370bn by the end of 2011 (Business Day)
• Employment in the mining industry grew from just under 449,000 in 2004 to a little above 530,000 in June 2012 (Business Day)
• South Africa ranked 6th best out of 24 countries in the Contact Center World rankings for 2012, up from 9th in 2011.
• South Africa is the winner of the National Outsourcing Association’s (NOA’s) Offshoring Destination of the Year Award 2012

Hey why not ? People always trying to hunt me down. So I'll volunteer something personal about me I wrote.

2007.

I'm standing in front of the dog. She's not dangerous. How could she be ? She's been tied down to the same rope her whole life. Tied so down she's not even able to stand up.

That would develop her muscle structure and in South Korea that doesn't make for good eating.

She's cowering too. Why wouldn't he when his whole life she's known nothing from people but abuse ? But today will be the greatest day in her tragic terrible life. Why ?

I have sausages.Sausages and I need something to hug.

Not great sausages. Probably the closest thing to meat in them is horse anus. Quickly bought in a moment of rebellion at the 7/11 around the corner.

This is after all the worst day of my life and I'm sick of walking past this tragic scene. Let me try explain.

About an hour earlier I'm sitting in a doctors office. A few days earlier than that I'm having a radiactive dye injected into my veins while a cat scan buzzes and whizzes and bleeps around my stupid head. It was the ants you see. There were ants in my head. I could feel them crawling up and down and around my brain.
I know this is irrational but the sensation is so vivid and unavoidably disturbing that I knew something was seriously wrong with me. A few days later in the doctors office I'm about to wish it was only ants.

The young female Korean doctor greets me with a warm smile and some small talk. I read that as a good sign. Premature over confidence is the order of the day and I fine tune my clairvoyance when I read from her face nothing but pure horror when she opens the results of the chart.

"Oh no" she says and covers her gaping mouth. The fight or flight reflex throw me off my chair and puts my back literally to the wall.

"Oh no ?" I manage to push out of my lips "Oh no what ?"

Her eyes roll into her head like a slot machine as she looks for the words in English. "Sir, you have ...something...it's wrong...in your brain."

Ah all the easy jokes but I'm not really in the most humorous of moods.

All of information I should desire becomes irrelevant in the face of what really, suddenly at the age of 29, seems to matter. And the look on her face when she opened that folder really said more than enough.

"Treatable ? Am I going to die ?" I ask.

She performs the universal gesture of "I don't know", but not unkindly by shrugging her shoulders. "You should talk to neurologist. I call him now."

A histrionic smile and greeting later I find myself sitting outside a neurologists office in the local hospital of Yongin, South Korea. I know it's 3am back in South Africa and waking my parents up to panic at this hour would be a pretty selfish move. But I'm powerless to resist. What a man of any age really wants in times like this is the cotton soft words of his mother telling him it's going to be ok and the tough bastard, life hardened advice of his father to tell you that whatever is wrong you will surely grit your teeth and beat the hell out of it.

They answer. I had told them about the ants the days before and they had written it off to me being neurotic. But they know I'm going for a cat scan and that I won't be calling them unless something is really wrong. Except at this point in time I don't even know myself so the conversation consists of me telling them that I'm waiting to see a neurologist...and ...jesus...really ? A lady is walking out of his office and she is crying her eyes out ! Great omens. Really ? This ?

I cut the conversation short and tell them I'll call them after I speak to the expert. Speak was an exagerattion. He spoke no English at all. He looked over my test results with a furrowed brow I would confuse with concern if I actually thought he knew what he was doing. On this person it looked rather like he did not know what the fuck was going on. He's quiet for a long time. I'm watching his body language for any indication of my fate but his eyes have glazed over in what I realise is him looking for any English words that might help him.

Eventually he almost smiles as he seems to remember some English words that vaguely relate to the context of this situation. "Tumour related" he says as he points to a blob of white surrounded by red pen in the cat scan chart where it's quite evident it shouldn't be white. He grins, self satisfied that he communicated the message effectively by the terror on my face. He writes a little note in Korean and gives it to me and points to the underlined top.

"Taxi!" he says. Another moment of looking for the right word. "Give taxi". He's very pleased with himself as I slump out of his office into a world in slow motion.

I don't get in a taxi. I look at the slip he's given me and all I can make out is "MRI". The type of thing that at 29 years old I didn't actually know much about.

But I was about to learn a lot about these types of things in the days and years to come. But not this day. I'd really had enough of doctors this day.

So I don't get in a taxi. I don't give over the card. I just walk not paying any attention at all to the direction I'm going in. I leave that all to the reptile part of
my broken sick brain. The reptile part of my brain I notice as I come out of the panic attack induced stupor I'm in has walked me to a 7/11.

That's quite an interesting choice for your subconscious brain to make in a time of turmoil. A convenience store that's open all times of night. Over priced but when you really need a snack or a beer at 2 in the morning, she's there for you. A place for chocolates, cigarettes, chips and caffeinated based drinks. All things the mind associates with rewards or comfort. I'm futile and hapless and lost for cause or direction and my brain knows where to turn in times like this. Hedonism and vice.

It's also a place for sausages. And believe it or not that's really all my pity parade little story is leading up to. Sausages and a dog.

So I'm back at that fence. And there is this dog. I walk past this dog every day on my way to work and every day it breaks my heart into a million splinters .Lately I've tried to avoid her. Put on my ipod and walk the other side of the road. But not today. There's really nothing left of my heart today but dust.

I open that gate and sit down with that poor tortured dog. Predictably she cowers on her back but given there's a 50% chance of that being coincidence because the dog can't stand up so I'm not sure. If she was bred to be a companion I suppose she she'd be something close to a long haired labrador. But in fact I suppose the only thing that's relevant right now is that's she's miserable. And misery loves company.

I sit down and hold that dogs face in my hands ...and I lie to that dog.

I tell that dog that it's going to be ok. I look into her sweet harmless face and tell her it's all going to be ok. And I nail that lie down with sausages. And as I try feed her those sausages, she meets my gesture with suspicion. What is this strange behaviour you are engaged in human ? What kind of trickery and Machiavellian agenda is at play here ? What horrible fate awaits me via this temptation of treats you seek to entrap me with ?

But she has a moment of amnesia. All the pain and suffering humans have caused her from the day she emerged into this world as a hopeful joyous puppy are forgotten for a brief moment...and she allows herself to indulge in a dream. A dream so simple that us free men have stopped to bother to dream it. A dream of world where you are wanted, where you matter, where somebody fucking cares. A gentle loving world.
And she eats. And I cry.

No.

I sob. I shake and howl. I whimper. What's coming out of the hands over my mouth is the hangover of screams from the void of the soul. I'm truly in my mind, literally and figuratively fucked ! I'm finished ! I'm done ! I'm over ! I'm klaar !

And this dog....she's just looking at me. She's loving every single microsecond of our interaction. The attention, the food, the love. In fact I doubt in the rest of my years or even the ones gone past I'll ever know the unquestioning exhiliration that this dog is feeling this day.

Bemused at my angst, this dog is about to teach me something in my darkest hour about the world, so obvious but so beautifully awful that the human mind instantly rejects any attempt to acknowledge it. And what she teaches me is this...

Freedom is having nothing left to lose.

I dry my eyes.

Oh yeah ! Oooooooh Yeah !!!

I swear I don't give a damn about soccer ! Not a damn !

But my god it is sweet with all the negative schadenfreude aimed into the bulls eye of bafana bafana by the idiot, moron, unloved, useless , mother fucking dumb ranks of the extreme right ...that the boys just massacred Angola in the Afcon cup !

I hate the vuvuzela...but the thought of how sulken and sad some people are just because by the site that black South Africans are feeling pretty good about themselves right now...well I just want to go out on the street and blow the hell out of one into the ears of my racist neigh-BORES ear !

Viva Bafana !! Viva !!! *

* Fuck you dumb bigots ! Fuck you !