Depressing South African Stats

[Farren]

While searching for information regarding the status of the US in a discussion on IIDB PD* I came across these depressing ranking for my own country on www.nationmaster.com:

1st for

* Crime - Assaults (per capita)
* Crime - Death penalty - abolition for ordinary crimes
* Crime - Manslaughters (per capita)
* Crime - Murders with firearms
* Crime - Murders with firearms (per capita)
* Crime - Rapes (per capita)
* Health - HIV AIDS - deaths
* Health - HIV AIDS - people living with HIV AIDS
* Health - SARS fatality ratio (%)


2nd for

* Agriculture - Exports to USA - Oranges
* Crime - Assaults
* Crime - Manslaughters
* Crime - Murders (per capita)
* Crime - Rapes
* Economy - Income distribution (richest 20%)
* Health - Children living with AIDS
* Health - SARS median age range
* Lifestyle - Life satisfaction inequality
* Transportation - Railways (narrow gauge)


3rd for

* Agriculture - Exports to USA - Grapes
* Agriculture - Exports to USA - Mandarins clementines and similar citrus
* Agriculture - Exports to USA - Oranges (per capita)
* Agriculture - Grains - Corn stocks (per capita)
* Agriculture - Grains - Oats imports (per capita)
* Labor - Total work time (females over males)


4th for

* Agriculture - Exports to USA - Apples
* Agriculture - Exports to USA - Apples (per capita)
* Agriculture - Exports to USA - Grapes (per capita)
* Agriculture - Exports to USA - Mushrooms (per capita)
* Crime - Burglaries
* Crime - Murders
* Crime - Robberies
* Crime - Robberies (per capita)
* Education - Education spending
* Energy - Coal consumption (per capita)
* Energy - Coal production (per capita)
* Environment - Pollution - Carbon Dioxide from fossil fuels 2000 (per $ GDP)
* Religion - Church Attendance
* Sports - Rugby World Cup - 2003 standings


5th for

* Agriculture - Exports to USA - Mandarins clementines and similar citrus (per capita)
* Agriculture - Exports to USA - Peaches (per capita)
* Agriculture - Grains - Oats imports
* Crime - Death penalty - last executed
* Crime - Total crimes
* Economy - Distribution of family income - Gini index
* Language - English speakers


I guess I'm insulated from it by economic status and distance from the city but its really crappy seeing stats like this. The clue to one of the root causes lies in one of our No. 5 placings:

* Economy - Distribution of family income - Gini index

The wealth distribution index measures, IIRC, equitable distribution of wealth. SA has one of the highest wealth disparities in the world. It basically represents the gap between the economically active wealthy and the economically active poor. Brazil, for instance is No. 3, and that society is famous for the vast slums that sprawl just behind a billionaires playground in Rio.

When you go only slightly further down the rankings you find SA occupies the 6th-11th slot in a lot of good things like tarred roads per capita and cellphones per capita, but seeing my country coming out tops for disease, crime and more crime is a depressing sight. I wish the pace of job creation and wealth redistribution would happen a little quicker. The AIDS stat is also sharply divided along income lines and partially the responsibility of an idiotic head-in-the-sand attitude of the govt in years gone by, in addition to Africa being the epicentre of AIDS and SA being its major Subsaharan hub.

[edit]
The Crime-Death Penalty stats aren't actually bad stats. They represent what crimes a country executes people for and when the death penalty was last applied. The death penalty was removed from the statute books as soon as the ANC came to power.

*[2nd edit]
It just occurred to me how natural it becomes to throw around acronyms left, right and centre on the net, although it confused the hell out of me previously when other people did it. I can imagine someone who has only ever posted on this board looking at that and going "IIDB PD? Say What?"

[JoeP]

What? You mean you aren't proud to live in the "murders with firearms" captial of the world? :(

*[2nd edit]
It just occurred to me how natural it becomes to throw around acronyms left, right and centre on the net, although it confused the hell out of me previously when other people did it. I can imagine someone who has only ever posted on this board looking at that and going "IIDB PD? Say What?"
Too true. You had this:

1st for
* Health - SARS fatality ratio (%)

and I thought, no surprise that the SA Revenue Service causes more fatalities than any other national tax office.

[Petra]

and I thought, no surprise that the SA Revenue Service causes more fatalities than any other national tax office.

Okay, I admit to a guilty giggle there. Y'bastard!


They are pretty depressing stats, Farren. But some good news in there, too. I mean, ya did all right in the Rugby. 4th ain't bad.


But, seriously, Farren - things may look pretty grim on those lists, but South Africa has come along way since the days of apartheid, and they are not so long ago.

[copiae]

Has it?


The overtly racist policy has been removed, but what of the mindset that made it? Has that changed?*




*I don't know the answer, but hopefully Farren or someone else familiar with the area does.

[JoeP]

The mindset still exists, it's just that the (never the majority even among the whites, I suspect) small number of people holding it no longer have political power.

There is a popular image of the "rainbow nation" - all peoples working and living together in creative and energetic harmony. (Rainbow, because it's not blacks and whites; it's blacks of 8 or 9 different languages; English-speaking whites; Afrikaans-speaking whites aka Boers; coloureds, which means something different here; Indians; and more.)

However, you could make a case for the old racism being replaced by a new racism. Black empowerment is the order of the day and it is very clearly not meritocratic everywhere. I don't intend to get into a political discussion :yawn:, but specifically on the question of mindset: there is a mindset, prevalent in those with current political power, of self-enrichment by owning existing businesses and so on, and doing only as much as they can get away with of economic upliftment of the poor and providing services. Farren?

[Farren]

Yeah I think simple capitalist greed is causing the demographics of the economy to change without the structure changing significantly. The economy has expanded, but, like the US, without adding jobs. The Rand has gotten stronger and a lot of SA companies are coining it - like for example MNet which broadcasts in something like 20 other African nations and Stanbic, which I discovered to my horror recently is making record profits in Zim by more or less robbing the poor.

As a result, more black people in boadrooms. Some replacing whites, some in new positions, but very little wealth redistrbution happening in business. Sorry, a modicom of wealth redistribution and very little wealth spreading, hence our huge rich-poor gap. I would disagree though, Joe, that there is a prevailing mindset of self-enrichment in the ANC. Some of the ANC's members have demonstrated that mindset but I wouldn't tar the entire ruling party with that brush.

They quite explicitly declared their intentions several years back to create a black middle class as rapidly as possible rather than try to uplift everyone at the same time. I think the fear was that without role models, the poor masses would demand some kind of radical socialism that would alienate us from big investors. The obvious net result of a smaller proportion of formally poor blacks becoming quite filthy rich has debatable merit, but isn't necessarily reflective of a simple mindset of greed.

Unlike, say, the Zimbabwean example, a large proportion of the black people that have benefited from empowerment programs are not ranking ANC members or even ANC members. Many couldn't give a rat's ass about politics and some oppose the ANC and are in favour of the DA. I've worked with a lot of powerful black businessmen in the past and I've seen naked attempts to leverage political contacts fail just as much as they succeed.

I sat in a boadroom with a certain former head of COSATU (I'm still close friends with close relations of his so I don't want to be too indiscrete) and listened to the head of Nedbank's IT division more or less say flat out a deal that was basically "you get the telecoms laws changed, we'll enter into a strategic partnerships with you". Needless to say, said very-well-known and influential former COSATU head had no luck with the changing of the law because reflexive cronyism isn't as much a feature of government as some like to believe.

There also is an active and sincere effort to stamp out that kind of stuff in government, more than you possibly realise. A lot of stuff that comes to light in the Weekly Mail and Guardian comes to light because it is leaked by auditors and investigators in the actual process of investigating government corruption.

I've also been dragged into an interview during the commission of one such investigation at the Department of Housing and they were ruthless bastards, 100% willing to bring down the high and mghty. It was quite nerve-wracking really, but my nose was clean (I've never been tempted to get involved in processes that look shady to me - I won't even bribe those goddamn Jo'berg traffic cops which unfortunately has become a norm in our current culture).

Also there are some quite positive stats that don't show up when doing top-100 comparisons, which is partially why I found those stats depressing (because they don't paint an entirely accurate picture). For instance, something like 2,500,000 RDP/GEAR houses have been built in the last ten years. At a thumbsuck of 4 people per home, that's 9 million formerly homeless or shack dwelling people properly housed. Also running water delivery has apparently expanded to include another 3 or 4 million people.

Now my thinking is that such contributing factors will not immediately show up in positive economic stats and considering the low starting threshold will not place us in the top 100 for the relevant social stats. But they will, I hope, be reflected in future social and economic gains, as more children grow up with electricity, running water, a decent home and a passable education. I still have a great deal of hope.

[JoeP]

I knew I could rely on you for a lot of words! You make good points. I didn't really mean that self-enrichment mindset was widespread, just that it's somewhat too common.