[w00pla]

> People will die as a result of pretty much any peak oil scenario.

Not really. South Africa was a third world country under heavy sanctions.

Yet it created industries to produce petroleum from coal (and even today these companies produce 40%+ of SA's liquid fuel requirements).

If a crappy third world country can do it with 70ies technology (most of which they weren't even allowed to import legally), why can't first world country do this?

[jsz0]

We'll probably be too busy fighting each other every step of the way. I don't know much about SA's situation but I'm going to take a guess that it was the pro-apartheid government that made it happen. Maybe they weren't so consumed about fighting with each other since they had a common enemy to focus on. I'm somewhat convinced we're at the point in the US where the opposition party (either one) would sabotage the plan for short term political gain.

[w00pla]

> Maybe they weren't so consumed about fighting with each other since they had a common enemy to focus on.

<rant>

And who would this “common enemy” be? The Spiel that white people considered black people their enemies during Apartheid is a bit incorrect (yet a popular sentiment in the west).

It is ironic that statistically, the plight of the majority of black people is now far worse in SA than during Apartheid (life expectancy, income inequality, unemployment, infancy mortality, matric pass rate, TIMSS score, etc…). Apartheid (i.e. separate development and rule for all ethnic and cultural groups) as an ideology is failed (mostly due to industrial development which caused South Africa to become a scrambled egg of people). Yet the ideology of full democracy (i.e. tyranny of the majority) is also spectacularly failing. Yet no one would acknowledge the latter failings.

<\rant>

> I'm somewhat convinced we're at the point in the US where the opposition party (either one) would sabotage the plan for short term political gain.

But in any case, I digress. You are right about this part. Everyone is NIMBY. The problem is also that using coal to make fuel would release CO2. And this is counter to the ideology of the far left (which only wants non-practical solutions to be implemented).

The USA landed people on the moon in less than a decade. I am sure that if they put their minds to it, they can expand nuclear power generation significantly (to reduce CO2) and start to make a significant part of their liquid fuel requirement from coal.

[nbf]

Your rant doesn't mention that benign-sounding "separate development and rule for all ethnic and cultural groups" under Apartheid forced blacks onto 13% of the land, even though they formed by far the largest population group in South Africa.

Nor does it mention the fact that generations of blacks were forced by state policy into inferior "Bantu Education". Nor does it mention the fact that the migrant labour system, coupled with the other degrading laws to deprive blacks of economic and social freedom helped wreck the fabric of black society.

I am as disgusted by the current ruling party's corruption as anyone, and I am appalled by the way the west generally seems to turn a blind eye to its massive failings.

Apartheid was designed to turn black people into failures, and into an exploitable manual labour pool. And any attempt to decouple apartheid from its aftermath is, at best, highly inaccurate.

[w00pla2]

Look here, I am not in support of Apartheid (or the current system for that matter). The fact is that Apartheid could not work (for a multitude of reasons, including economic reasons). But a lot of attacks on Apartheid ignore the basic facts and do not perform a simple statistical comparison with the NSA.

> "separate development and rule for all ethnic and cultural groups" under Apartheid forced blacks onto 13% of the land, even though they formed by far the largest population group in South Africa.

What does this number include? Blacks were deprived of their land well before “Apartheid” started. During the creation of homelands, white people also lost their land (land was bought and sold to create contiguous homelands). A good example is the large farms of Lisbon, Berlin, etc… that became KwaNdebele.

It is clear that the deprivation of land from black people is wrong. But the fact is that most of the depravation/deprivation was done well before Apartheid.

> Nor does it mention the fact that generations of blacks were forced by state policy into inferior "Bantu Education"

Bantu education was inferior, that is a fact. But it is a question of resources. During Apartheid more money was spend on Bantu education than on the education of white people (although less per capita). White people almost exclusively pay taxation (as is still more or less true today).

The problem is that there are only so many math teachers, etc…

By the way, Bantu education is vastly superior to all education that every person in South Africa receives. This is not my opinion, but the opinion of Dr. Mamphela Ramphele and prof. Jonathan Jansen. OBE failed.

Even South Africa’s president Zuma, said the following of the previous education minister:

> This comes shortly after ANC president Jacob Zuma blamed former education minister Kader Asmal for closing down these institutions, causing more damage to education than had been done under apartheid. http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20080425091635396C60...

There were a lot of teacher colleges whose function it was to train teachers. These colleges were often in rural areas and focussed towards black people. The ANC government closed down basically all these colleges, leaving SA in a severe shortage of (black) teachers (and people in these places without the opportunity to get education).

How many black universities did Apartheid government build? I can think of quite a few (MEDUNSA, University of the North, University of Venda, several Technicons, etc…). How many was built by the ANC government? None – they however closed down colleges.

Why wasn’t there at least a University built in the past 20 years in Mpumalanga? The province doesn’t have a single university.

> Nor does it mention the fact that the migrant labour system,

Migration is a natural cause of South Africa’s industrialization. The population is still rural and development is in the cities.

What you should bear in mind is that Apartheid government tried to get industrial development started in black and rural areas. This was done by means such as development zones (e.g. Babelegi) and making companies in homelands free from VAT.

Another thing that the NP government was fearful for was that black unemployment would lead to revolution. There were active programs in order to reduce unemployment. During Apartheid, SA’s unemployment was much lower than it is now. Do you know what unemployment is now? Narrow definition 25,3% (people who are actively looking for work but do not find any: http://www.statssa.gov.za/keyindicators/keyindicators.asp). Broad definition (people who are capable of work but have given up) is over 40%! (see articles by Kingdon, G. and J. Knight)

This had another effect – spreading development around the country. Now we have a lot of development in cities, but many rural areas are basically abandoned. Rural areas (where many black people live) have now extremely high unemployment rates and there is almost zero industry. The ANC abandoned the country site to its own fate.

> Apartheid was designed to turn black people into failures, and into an exploitable manual labour pool.

That is debatable. The primary goal of Apartheid was arguably to ensure the existence and security of minority white people (from real and perceived threats such as communism (“Rooi gevaar”) and black crime (“Swart gevaar”).

The amount of money spent on black education (e.g. universities) would indicate that the “exploitable labour pool” theory is not completely correct. I would like to remind you amount of black teachers and craftsmen trained during Apartheid were much higher than it is now.

I personally suspect that the aim of the ANC government is to create very stupid and untrained voting cattle while cultivating a very small and rich black elite with close ANC ties.

[nbf]

Regarding the consolidation of universities, I wouldn't take Zuma too seriously (I have to wonder he was motivated to say that by individuals who lost power through the consolidations, and in any case Zuma was in Cabinet and didn't voice any objections at the time). There was a lot amount of duplication between racially segregated institutions, and cutting administration costs is a good idea. The merging of teacher training colleges into universities may be more problematic, but overall, in South Africa, the less institutions, the less chance for waste and looting. I also have to wonder how good the teachers produced by those colleges really were.

>Bantu education was inferior, that is a fact. But it is a >question of resources. ... >White people almost exclusively pay taxation (as is still >more or less true today).

Hendrik Verwoerd's comments about Bantu education clearly indicate, that it was about more than resource constraints http://africanhistory.about.com/od/apartheid/qt/ApartheidQts... Per capita spending on education for black children was 10% of that on white children. I do agree the Outcomes Based Education (introduced by Asmal's predecessor, if I recall correctly), has been a tragic waste.

The idea that blacks didn't contribute to the tax base, and were not therefore entitled to its benefits is absurd. They were systematically excluded from economic opportunity, so they couldn't contribute, even if they wanted to (and they have always payed sales taxes).

>Migration is a natural cause of South Africa’s >industrialization. The population is still rural and >development is in the cities.

Migration and the migrant labour system are two very different things. The Apartheid ideal was black men in hostels, black women and children in Bantustans.

The rural industrial development was worthy, and it is regrettable that it has been abandoned, but one has to question the sustainability of those developments. Their motive, like much development in apartheid South Africa, was to further racial segregation by keeping the races apart. If they had provided job opportunities close to major economic centres, those jobs might have proved to be sustainable.

[w00pla2]

> There was a lot amount of duplication between racially segregated institutions, and cutting administration costs is a good idea.

Yeah, closing them down isn’t such a good idea. You know that most universities which merged basically closed down their “satellite” campuses in black areas? This simply serves to keep away affordable education from black people.

> The merging of teacher training colleges into universities may be more problematic, but overall, in South Africa, the less institutions, the less chance for waste and looting.

Most teacher colleges weren’t merged, they were simply closed down. Note that waste and looting wasn’t such a big problem before, why is it now?

By the way, you know what is one reason why they were closed down? Provincial governments became extremely corrupt (the funding for colleges came from provincial governments). They simply closed it down to ensure more money for looting.

> I also have to wonder how good the teachers produced by those colleges really were.

Look, they were not the best teachers in the world. But the problem is that we do not need the best teachers in the world, we need a lot of teachers. A good teacher in a class of 40 doesn’t help a thing. Also, the idea of removing teacher diplomas ensures that there are even less teachers (teacher training courses at universities is now 1 year longer).

South Africa loses some 12, 000 teachers a year (6, 000 produced by universities but 18,000 lost due to retirement and immigration). It is a disaster waiting to happen.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&...

> Hendrik Verwoerd's comments about Bantu education clearly indicate,

Hendrik Verwoerd was not the be all and end all of the NP government. You know that many of the policies changed after him? In any case, I do not care what someone has said (or what the motives were) but what happens on the ground.

> Migration and the migrant labour system are two very different things. The Apartheid ideal was black men in hostels, black women and children in Bantustans.

Can you give a citation for that? During Apartheid, there were a lot more industries closer to the living area of black people. The industrial zones (of which there were numerous) are an example of that.

Today the economic activity near large centres of black population is a lot lower. The economic outlook in rural areas also forces people to become migrant labourers.

> that it has been abandoned, but one has to question the sustainability of those developments.

Whatever the motive, those developments worked.

> If they had provided job opportunities close to major economic centres, those jobs might have proved to be sustainable.

There are many reasons why those businesses moved (from high crime to non-functioning municipalities). The fact of the matter is that work and businesses are now far from where many employees work. So they have to rely on non-existent transport (such as taxis or horrible metro lines) each day to commute 30km+.

[igravious]

> The Spiel that white people considered black people their enemies during Apartheid

Presumably what was meant was the common enemy was not the "darkies" but the rest of the world coming together and imposing sanctions.

> Yet the ideology of full democracy (i.e. tyranny of the majority) is also spectacularly failing. Yet no one would acknowledge the latter failings.

Naomi Klein does in The Shock Doctrine and a heck of a lot of people have read that book.

[w00pla2]

> but the rest of the world coming together and imposing sanctions.

Maybe. It is just ironic that they are standing in line to do business with countries such as Equatorial Guinea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teodoro_Obiang_Nguema_Mbasogo) and Saudi Arabia.

> Naomi Klein does in The Shock Doctrine and a heck of a lot of people have read that book.

I am not a big fan of Naomi Klein. She probably attacked the governments macro economic policy?

That is unfortunately the only thing that the ANC government did right in the past 16 years (this is now probably going to change with Zuma).

The reason for SA's macroeconomic policy was probably because previous prez. Mbeki did a masters degree in economics at a British university.

[igravious]

I am a big fan. I don't care that you're not.