Talk:South Africa/Archive 1

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.

This archive page covers approximately the dates up to 6 April 2005.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary.

Thank you. --Slashme 17:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

"This article is about the gay club called South Africa. For information about the region of southern Africa, see Southern Africa"

I'm fixing this vandalism (gay club). could anyone see if there's more in the article? --Marxmax 16:20, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Take a look on thishs;hsusmopiy7u, week's free book on SA at questia.com to make the article better

April 30, 2005

Ches: With regards to History, could we please include a little on what happened prior to the Dutch arrival? For instance, the Bantu migration from around 1,000 AD (or is it 1,200 AD? This is why I'm not volunteering! http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/Africa/Africa.Chron.html). Some kind of mention too that the Khoi-San have been in the area for a significantly long time: the skull found in Peers Cave in Fish Hoek is of prehistoric man. http://www.antiquityofman.com/Peers_Cave.html <rtgi5py5yu[0><with regardsto thew article, south africa is one of the largest countries on the continent of africa>

Would somebody please stop taking out the section on Employment Equity, if Apartheid is mentioned it's modern (reverse) equivalent should also be mentioned!

Dawidl 15:34, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Is it right say Province of Cape??. Thanks in advance.

No. Tiles 01:00 26 May 2003 (UTC)

Never!

Largest City: Cape Town vs. Johannesburg

I changed the largest city back to Cape Town, because Cape Town has more people than Johannesburg does, according to the 1996 census. While Johannesburg has a larger metropolitan area than Cape town does, I am referring to individual cities when it boils down to the largest city.

If one can show me census data from later than 1996 which shows Johannesburg proper larger than Cape Town proper, feel free to do so. WhisperToMe 04:06, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for this? I live in Cape Town, and we've always been smaller than Jhb. Definitions and boundaries have changed a lot recently, but it's news to me if 'officially' we're not! Greenman 19 Nov 2003

Ches -- After the democratic elections in 1994, a lot of political power was devolved from central to provincial to local governments. City borders were redrawn, as metropolitan areas were divided up a limited number of "substructures". Cape Town had seven, which included Atlantis and Somerset West/Strand. It is likely that these populations were omitted from the count in 1991. A further source of discrepancy is Khayelitsha -- it is reasonable to assume two things: firstly, that the population of Khayelitsha expanded greatly between '91 and '96, and secondly, that less effort was taken in carrying out an accurate census in the informal settlements in 1991. In those days it was still policy that Africans didn't live or belong in metropolitan areas unless they were employed. (They "belonged" in the TBVC "states" and the "Independent" homelands.) It is likely that redistricting after the formation of Gauteng province led to sections previously considered as part of Johannesburg were discounted from the area in 1996. There certainly isn't a South African alive who would consider Cape Town to be a larger city than Johannesburg.

http://www.library.uu.nl/wesp/populstat/Africa/safricat.htm --

Cape Town: 1991, 854,600 Cape Town Agglomeration: 1996, 2,727,000

Johannesburg: 1991, 712,500 Johannesburg Agglomeration: 1996, 4,939,000

Yep, Cape Town (in 1991 at least) is the largest city in South Africa. WhisperToMe 02:24, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Changed largest city back to Johannesburg, based on 2001 census data, this data is availabe at the following reference; http://www.joburg.org.za/business/population.stm Note that areas such as Sandton, Roodeport, Randburg and Soweto have been officially included as part of Johannesburg since 2000, as mentioned in the Wikipedia article on Johannesburg. (anon post)

That's the largest metropolitan area, NOT the largest city. Nice try. :) WhisperToMe 07:17, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

WhisperToMe have you ever been to South Africa in the last year? Johannesburg, Sandton, Randburg ect are now one city, all rates and taxes, town planning ect are all controlled by Johannesburg Council.--Jcw69 06:05, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In other words, Sandton and Randburg are now areas of Johannesburg? WhisperToMe 17:04, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That depends on how you define "Johannesburg". In common speech, as somebody who does not live there, I would say that Sandton and Randburg are part of Johannesburg. In terms of official boundaries on maps, who knows for sure? Various levels of government (national, provincial, "uni city", municipal) keep on shuffling the boundaries around and renaming things. —AlanBarrett 21:12, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thats about right, I live in Douglasdale, which is near Fourways, 2 years ago I paid dues to Randburg, then it was changed to Sandton which is between me and Johannesburg, now we fall under Johannesburg. Gauteng has been devided into 3 to 4 Uni-Cities. I will find all the names soon and give feed back--Jcw69 06:09, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

5 previously independent metropolitan areas were merged in 2000 to form the current Johannesburg "unicity" - The City of Johannesburg. I am quoting from City of Johannesburg's official website ""...The previous city structure proved wasteful, with much duplication of functions. Also some suburbs were "rich" with well-established amenities while neighbouring areas lacked even the most basic services..." The City of Johannesburg is now a Unicity consisting of 11 regions.

Region 1: Diepsloot
Region 2: Midrand/Ivory Park
Region 3: Sandton/Rosebank
Region 4: Northcliff
Region 5: Roodepoort
Region 6: Doornkop/Soweto
Region 7: Alexandra
Region 8: Inner City
Region 9: Johannesburg South
Region 10: Diepkloof/Meadowlands
Region 11: Ennerdale/Orange Farm

The new regions are smaller than previous mega-suburbs. This is now the City of Johannesburg. Again quoting this site "...The population of Johannesburg is 3,2-million..." (as of 2001 census)--Jcw69 07:37, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Cannabis

I have not been able to verify that SA is the 4th largest cannabis producer. The best info I have located, Cannabis in Africa lists SA as the top producer. Does anyone have a source for the article's claim? User:Magicmike 8 May 2004.

Info crossover (cosmetic)

Under the new Monobook skin, the table that starts opposite the Other names section covers the horizontal line that breaks that headline. Can someone who is more able tidy this up please? -- TonyW 03:35, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

BEE

I disagree with 195.93.66.5 as I believe the white minority are still highly active and influential in the business sector and not “after 10 years of democracy, continues to dominate the economy” as he says. With BEE, companies including international ones like HP and Microsoft have to have a 20% black ownership. This is a sticky point at this very moment as internationals are trying not to comply. I am not against BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) but I would like to point out that economic empowerment is just another name for apartheid be it reversed.

Well, yes.  The goal is to reverse the economic effects of Apartheid.

Official name up top

I disagree with putting the name in three different languages above the table, as that does not follow official SA practice. Whilst SA does have 11 official languages, English has clear supremacy in official dealings. This can be seen in a number of different ways, from government documents and websites to street signs. The president and all ministers make their speeches in English. All official SA govt documentation refers to the official name of the country as the "Republic of South Africa". All other updated online sources on South Africa use only the English form (ie the CIA Factbook). Therefore I think the only version of the country's name on the top of the table should be the English version, with the versions in the other 10 languages being left in their current position. Impi 13:09, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think we should rather follow the official Wikipedia practice, rather than the official South African or CIA, etc. naming conventions. This is Wikipedia, after all ;-) . Now, please look at the Belgium and Switzerland articles, where the name is given in all three and four (repectively) official languages, even though German and Romansch (respectively) are tiny languages in those countries, and hardly ever used officially.

For example: in Belgium all signs are in both Dutch and French, but not German; most (but not all) politicians speak fluent (or at least passable) French and Dutch, but not German. However, Wikipedia lists Belgium's name in all three official languages.

There is, in my opinion, an excellent case to be made for having all 11 offial languages at the top, the only limiting factor being the space/layout issue - the three names was an effort at a compromise. It may be so that English is more widely used in official circles, but I am not aware that, legally, English has been made more official than the other 10 languages.

Elf-friend 09:23, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Technically all 11 are equal in status, though in practice this is obviously not so. English has become the default standard, and the other ten are unfortunately totally underrepresented. Technically, the correct thing to do would be to put all 11 names up top, but that's unworkable. I also tend to sway towards all or one, as it gets iffy when trying to choose which other two languages the name should appear in. Perhaps the example of India should be followed, where although the country has 18 official languages, recognition is made of the government's stipulation that English and Hindi are to be the national government's languages of official communication, and the name appears only in English and Hindi. On the face of it that suits our purposes fine, as English is determined to be the national government's language of communication in SA. Yet I will be the first to admit the comparison is less than perfect, as India is a federal system rather than the more centralised system in SA, and in India Hindi and English are constitutionally defined as "more official" if you will, whereas I know of no law making English the same in SA, merely precedent. You know, of late I have been getting really annoyed at the SA govt, it would help when editing SA-related topics if they were less vague....

But anyway, I agree the best case would be to have all 11 official languages up on top, but this is impractical. So we're forced to cut down the number shown up top, and that's a grey area. How do we choose which are more worthy than others, when space is at a premium? Of course, then we run into more areas. As all 11 languages are technically equal, the prominence of place names in each particular language should also technically be equal. Thus if we put the official name in let's say three languages, we must translate the names of all cities and provinces mentioned in the article to the versions ascribed to those languages. So Pretoria, as a case example, is: Pretoria, iPitori, Tshwane, Pitoriya, iPitoli, Pitori, Pitoria / Tshwane, iPitoli / iTswani, iPitoli in all 11.

Now you can see why English is the supposedly official official language in SA, using all 11 becomes unworkable. The impression I get, and I could be wrong here, is that in English-language publications and websites, the english name only for the country is acceptable, whereas if you were dealing with an Afrikaans/Zulu/etc publication, you would use the relevant name. As such, I think it's a situation where any of the 11 is acceptable (so long as one of the 11 is used), and not all 11 are required. This is certainly borne out by all official SA govt documentation that I've seen. Perhaps we should put the name in English, and right underneath place a smaller link to "Other official names for South Africa" which leads to the first subsection. Perhaps a bit of duplication, but it makes it more prominent. Impi 21:27, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've taken a while to reply ...

I'm still a fan of the all or nothing approach - we could put all the names up top, but in a smaller font than usual, which will probably fit the space requirements better or we could have a link to the names in all the languages (uncluding English) inside the body text of the article and leave the "up top" part "blank" (except for the link). But I don't like discrimination against the non-English official languages, even if that discrimination is also shown by part of the official SA government apparatus.

Anyway, as the name of the article is already "South Africa" (as befits the English-language Wikipedia), repeating solely this name again "up top" is not very interesting and of limited educational value.

I don't agree with your argument that if we give the name of the country in all 11 languages, then we have to do so for all other place names in the article as well. The Wikipedia convention is only to give the name of the applicable country in all its official languages, not the place names as well. For example, the capital of Italy is given as "Rome", not "Roma".

However, the other official names for the various cities would be a nice addition to those cities's own articles.

Another compromise could be to give the name of the country in the same languages as the national anthem (Xhosa, Sesotho, Afrikaans, English), but then we would be leaving out the largest single SA language, Zulu.

Elf-friend 17:54, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with the all or nothing approach. Although I support the concept of multilingualism, and would prefer all 11, it's unwieldy to have all 11 names listed. Also note that each province also have their own official languages, usually a maximum of three (in the Western Cape it's English, Afrikaans and Xhosa), so it would be very rare to have all eleven listed in most cases. The only language all provinces have in common is English, so I suggest using English only. Greenman March 5, 2005

I support putting it only in English, or alternatively the top 3 most widely spoken languages, which according to memory should be Zulu, Afrikaans and English. Dewet 20:01, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Former Symbols

I moved Former Symbols from SA main page to history page as I did not think taht they were relevent to the main page as it is about SA now and not then. --68.80.223.233 18:34, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I, again, moved the former sybols articles to the history page as they are, still, not relevent to SA today. --68.80.223.233 18:49, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Race?

' has the largest white population on the continent'. Would Maroccans and Algerians agree with that? Besides, why is it so important? nl:Gebruiker:Jcwf

IMO it is important since Africa is predominantly black, and this ties in with the history of colonialism. Also, would North-Africans be classified as white/Caucasian/European -- shouldn't it be Middle Eastern? Even if not important, it is still fact (assuming the assertion is correct). --Dewet 19:34, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Although, broadly speaking, (many?) Arabs and Berbers (the population groups of Marocco and Algeria) can probably be termed "Caucasian", in this context white would actually mean those of European descent (and this is generally what this term is interpreted to mean, anyway). As a matter of fact, in the "old" days of apartheid, the infamous "race signs" actually said "Europeans" and "Non-Europeans" and it was only later that "White" and "Non-White" came to be the standard signage. (Probably so as not to confuse American visitors).

Considering the importance that the concept of race has played in the history of South Africa, it boggles my mind that somebody questions the relevance of this fact to the article. One might as well not mention that Northern Ireland has a substantial Catholic minority, for instance. (Or, for that matter, that the Netherlands has a substantial and growing Moroccan and Turkish minority.)

Elf-friend 09:45, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Copyvio

The user continually removing sections from the site has obviously not read the Terms and Use section on the southafrica.info website, which does allow the use of its material on a non-commercial site like Wikipedia:
Copyright

8. The IMC retains copyright in the website and all current and future content that is displayed on the website which is not owned by third parties.

In terms of a limited license, granted for general use, the IMC grants you, the user, subject to these terms and conditions, a non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited and revocable right to access, display, use, download and otherwise copy the current and future content of the website for your personal, non-commercial and informational purposes only.

The website owner grants the user the permission to copy and distribute the information from the website provided that it notifies the webmaster of such use and provided that the source of the information is acknowledged by reference to the source. (emphasis mine)

The website and content may not be reproduced, duplicated, copied, resold or otherwise exploited for any commercial purpose without the express prior written consent of the IMC. Impi 12:48, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Is this compatible with Wikipedia/GFDL? Since we're trying to stop people uploading "copyrighted non-commercial-use-only" images, shouldn't the same apply to the text? I think the only resolution for this is if the owners of safrica.info grant a specific exception to wikipedia to have their text relicenced. Dewet 15:47, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, it is not compatible with GFDL. "Materials for which commercial redistribution is prohibited generally cannot be used in a GFDL-licensed document, e.g., a Wikipedia article, because the license does not exclude commercial re-use. However in some specific cases, commercial re-uses may be fair use and in that case such materials do not need to be licensed to fall within the GFDL if such fair use is covered by all potential subsequent uses. One good example of such liberal and commercial fair use is parody. Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks is full of examples of Wikipedia being used for commercial purposes such as advertising. --Henrygb 17:49, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Economy

Where does the figure of 4.79 million HIV infections come from? According to UNAIDS, 21.5% of the country's adult population - that is, 5.3 million people - was infected at the end of 2003. Could source be cited, or should this figure be changed? --24.215.188.27 01:35, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Will the idiot that keeps posting death statistics in the Economy section please stop doing it.

Nuclear Weapons

Hey, I thought we destroyed our "limited nuclear weapons capability"! Where did these nucs come from?--Jcw69 17:19, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

We did get rid of them, not sure why that part was added. I've removed it, and made mention of SA's peacekeeping operations in place of it. Impi 07:28, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think Bush wants to invade SA and intends to use WMD again as a pretext since it worked so well with Iraq. That sentence was the beginning of a long and well thought-out plot ... next the newspapers will have reports on it (quoting Wikipedia), then television ... soon, there'll be aircraft carriers off Cape Town. :-D Elf-friend 11:58, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

We've got no oil, but an american friend of mine who works for a large Texas oil company, has been searching for oil in Mozambique. He said to me that they have found large oil reserves on land in Mozambique. Maybe it is a bit close to a us for Bush's liking. lol --Jcw69 13:39, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A thing no one ever considers apart from the oil is steel. We have steel. (Or the raw materials anyway.) I know steel might not SOUND that glamorous, but stop and think about it for a moment.... Bertus 08:22, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Okay I've stopped--Jcw69 08:45, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nope, steel does not sound right, maybe the raw materials or even as in our past, our strategic position ;-)Jcw69 08:47, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

South Africa does have a strategically valuable set of mineral resources, most importantly our gold and platinum deposits. That is part of the reason S.Africa played a rather special role during the Cold War, and why the USSR was so interested in it (the other reason of course was the Cape Sea Lanes). Elf-friend, speaking about aircraft carriers off Cape Town, I have some bad news for you: The USS Harry S. Truman will be appearing in Cape Town at the end of the month.... :)

Seriously though, the US and SA actually have fairly similar aims in Africa, and relations between Thabo and George are ok. As for Mozambique, it'll be great if they do find some oil, and if it improves the economic conditions in that country (Pietermaritzburg has a larger economy than Mozambique). However, the record with African countries and oil is less than stellar, so here's hoping the Mozambican govt can rise above the gross corruption that usually follows this sort of resource discovery.Impi 13:24, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Danger sign

Were did the this image "BAHA-apartheid-signage.jpg" come from? I never seen it before not even in the apartheid museum. Is it a hoax or for real? What proof is there that it exsisted?--Jcw69 18:27, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It came from the History of South Africa article. I'm more than happy to see it replaced, I just need more images. Do you have any good ones? Páll 21:52, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What I find interesting is that the sign in the photograph is only in English. While that might not strike anybody from outside SA as odd, anybody who lived in apartheid-era SA would tell you that all such signs were either both in Afrikaans and English or sometimes just Afrikaans. Certainly, considering the language policy of the government at that time, this sign would either have been a sign on the property of some English-speaking individual or company, or it is a hoax. Elf-friend 08:20, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

~~Note that the last line is in Afrikaans {Vir gebruik...) — mark ✎ 18:04, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)~~ (Oops, talking about another picture)

I think that this sign is a hoax or belonged to some english farmer because the government or Boers (farmers) did not use the word "natives", it was either K____s, Bantu, or Blacks.

Páll I not have any photos from that era, because I was too young, but I will sometime visit the apartheid museum again in a few months time and sneak a camera in :-) (I don't remember if they allow cameras in, if not cell phone one will do)--Jcw69 17:37, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it is strange that the sign isn't in Afrikaans at all. I hadn't thought of that until you pointed it out. It very well could be a hoax. I wonder who uploaded it. Actually, I just looked. Interestingly, it comes from the fairly well respected www.sahistory.org.za [1] and it was uploaded by User:El C. Anyway, I'm not sure if its necessary since we already have one Apartheid sign image. Does anyone have any other suggestions for what to put there? Jcw69, since you're from Jozie, would you mind taking some photos of the city? We really need some of the CBD and the Carlton Centre and places liek that because the J'burg photos are terrible. Would you mind? Páll 18:15, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think the sign is likely to be real, but signs like that were not typical. The article should be illustrated with more typical signs, such as separate entrances for "Blankes / Europeans" and "Nie Blankes / Non Europeans", or "Slegs Blankes / Whites Only". (I think it was always "Blankes" in Afrikaans, but sometimes "Whites" and sometimes "Europeans" in English.) —AlanBarrett 19:44, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, the older signs said "Europeans", but that confused some American visitors, who naturally used the "Non-European" entrances, so it was changed to the more explicit "Whites". Elf-friend 21:13, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure it's a real sign. But surely no one could have believed it was an official sign! Not even the apartheid government was that blatant! It was obviously a private sign made for fun by a property owner (e.g. farmer as suggested above). Greenman March 5, 2005

Infobox

Why on earth is the infobox not showing at the top? Besides, does that image represent the whole country? We need to swap it. In fact, I'm going to do it now. - Ta bu shi da yu 22:22, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Largest Indian population outside of Asia?

I think (though I'm not 100% positive) that the United States has overtaken SA in this regard. To be on the safe side, it ought to read, "one of the largest Indian populations..."

Crime

South Africa tops the international list in several crime indices; murder #2 [2], murder by firearm #1 [3], rape #1 [4], robbery #4 [5], assault #1 [6], manslaughter #1 [7].

I don't know if my edit was removed to gussy this article up for "featured article" status, and frankly I don't care. The fact that SA is #2 in murder rate and #1 in assault rate, manslaughter rate, rape rate, and rate of murder by firearm is certainly apropos and I will continue to reinsert it. This isn't a travel brochure, it's an encyclopedia.

No, you will not "continue to reinsert it." Pushing your point-of-view through continued hard-headed editing is frowned upon in Wikipedia, and will ultimately lead to your edit privileges being removed. The proper way to incorporate controversial changes is through discussion and debate on this talk page, which you aren't doing. I also see from your contributions yesterday that you are pushing your POV onto the Zionism articles, also without discussion. I urge you to read up on proper wikipedia etiquette, since only then will people start taking you seriously.

As to your actual problem with the stats being excluded: we have all been working hard to get this article up to a sufficient standard, and equating it with a "gussy-up" is just rude. We cannot include everything on this page simply because we're already pressed for size. The "Economy" section is also not the proper place for this. Lastly, quoting a bunch of external links the way you did is not the proper way to cite information; Wikipedia cannot be reliant on the availability of external sources, and we try to incorporate information into the article proper, which again conflicts with the size of this article we're trying to get down. I suggest you formulate a proper section on crime for consideration through compromise and communication here, after which we can easily add it to the article itself. Dewet 04:46, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No, what's "rude" is deleting salient facts and then pretending it was done out of intellectual honesty. If the format of the facts in question is inappropriate, the right thing to do is to format them properly (start a section on crime if economy isn't the right place, rewrite the paragraph if the links are excessive, etc.), not delete them altogether.

If there isn't sufficient room, then I say flora and fauna go and crime stays. The fact that SA is the world leader in violent crime is far more salient to any thinking person than what kind of trees they have.

I think Crime could use a major section in the article. I have a website that mentions crime, and crime in south africa is a top google search. flora and fauna do not go. To cut down on length, perhaps some judicious movement of content into Main articles could be done - perhaps the history or culture section - and maybe Crime in South Africa could also be a main article referred from here. It doesn't help on length, but I think we have too many pictures as well. Wizzy 20:57, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't seriously suggesting that flora and fauna should go, only that the section is far less salient to human affairs than SA crime. As far as length goes, I'm not interested in writing a long text on SA crime (what's to write? It is what it is, that's the entire point), which is why I didn't create a "Crime" section in the first place (I didn't want to red-flag the issue with a new header, I just wanted the facts included). I think a section on "Problems" or somesuch would be more appropriate, with AIDS, crime, "reverse" affirmative action, etc.

I'm willing to cooperate, so I'll remove the information from the economy section and start a draft on crime (I can only wonder why the crime stats I introduced are "inappropriate" there when I only added them there because of the longstanding mention of crime in that section, but as I said I'm willing to cooperate).

Crime Draft

South Africa tops the international list in several indices of violent crime; murder #2, murder by firearm #1, manslaughter #1, rape #1, robbery #4, assault #1. [8]

(Nationmaster's) Source: Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 1998 - 2000 (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention)

I see no easily-accessed guide to citation here. Where and how are editors expected to cite sources?

I think you are doing fine. Flesh it out a little, maybe mention some causes (no minimum wage, unemployment) and the steps being taken to combat it to maybe make it a little less hard. Why not put a small summary (as above) in the main page and write some original content for a Crime in South Africa page ? Gated communities ? Hijacking ? Arms caches dating from Apartheid era ? Gun amnesty ? Wizzy 21:04, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

If I do that I'll start an edit war, and I'm not interested in doing that, because I'm not going to present economic hardship as an explanation for SA as the rape capital of the world. Let someone else more in line with the local consensus do that (or I might do what I suggest above, simply cull "Problems" and create a new section just on those.

I think the paragraph on crime fits perfectly well in the section on economy, until someone wants to write a section devoted solely to crime (or law or whatever). AIDS is expanded upon in the economy section, and there is no health section, crime is ALREADY a topic mentioned twice in the economy section, so I'm going to put the paragraph there. Btw, I find the idea that I'm "pushing my POV" into this article in a "hard-headed" fashion to be absurd; facts about the crime rate in SA aren't POV.

First of all, whomever is writing this from an IP address, please get an account or start signing your posts with ~~~~ so that I know what you have written. Second of all, I have expanded and rewritten your crime information to something resembling prose and not blunt statistics that are fairly meaningless. I have also moved it to the culture section, as the crime section makes not a single mention of the economic reasons behind it. At the moment, it has much more to do with the culture and i briefly touched upon gated communities. I do not believe that this is significant enough to warrant its own section on the main page, however a seperate article would not be a bad idea. I expect it to come from you, Mr IP Address Man, however. I do not like being told to write something because you merely wish to see its presence. Páll 08:26, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Don't twist my words. My hard-headed comment was simply in response to your own statement that you will keep on adding the stats without consultation. It is POV simply because you are using a single list for this reference, and the UN survey was done with relatively small sample sizes for some of their categories (if you look at the maps, most of Africa isn't included in some!). They also state (on the NationMaster site) that "Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalence."

While I'm not saying that crime isn't a problem for South Africa, I am saying that these results are skewed. There is no accurate measure of some of these things (due to many reasons, the unwillingness of victims to report crime being a big part of it), and certainly inter-city crime in Jo'burg and Cape Town is at least comparable to other big cities like New York or Barcelona, if not a bit more pronounced. I fiddled a bit with the paragraph that Páll added, but I'm not happy with it yet. Dewet 10:00, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I hope I did this edit right because I've never done this before. Nationmaster's stats are slightly out of date and statistics show a recent turnaround in many of the stats mentioned, so its doubtful those ranking are still accurate. The figures for assaults, burglaries, car thefts, frauds, manslaughters, murders, rapes and robberies are all 2000 figures on Nationmaster [9]. They're five years old and don't reflect very real changes.

Figures released in 2004 showed a sharp drop in many crime stats, including murder (-9.9% compared to 2003), attempted murder (-17.8%), assault with intent to do GBH (-4.3%), common assault (-2.6%), carjacking (-8%), truck hijacking (-10.5%), robbery of cash in transit (-49.7%), bank robbery (-58.3%), rape (-1.4%), residential housebreaking (-8.3%), business break-ins (-14.3%), vehicle theft (-7.3%), theft of goods from vehicles (-14%) and stock theft (-13.4%) [10].

Furthermore, police are reporting sharp drops in the year of 2005 so far. I don't have the figures to hand but the Weekly Mail and Guardian (IIRC), recently had quite a lengthy article about further drops in official crime stats for 2005 to date. Since some might be skeptical about official figures it's worth mentioning that in the same article they reported two large insurance companies have concurred there has been a major drop in crime and will be lowering their rates in many categories accordingly.

I would agree that some categories of crime, such as rape, are underreported. But in many other categories like housebreaking and theft there is a strong economic motive to report crimes for insurance and other purposes, regardless of whether there is faith that the police will be effective.

It should be noted that the drop in crime rates are also a direct result of concerted effort. Not only have the police force swelled their ranks by thousands of new officers in the most crime-ridden areas of the country but there has been a great deal of effort put into ending police corruption in many places. IIRC, almost the entire staff compliment of a police station (Chatsworth, I think) was replaced just over a year ago in the wake of corruption investigations.

There has also been an effort towards smarter allocation of policing resources, with huge effort being made at breaking up organised crime. The economic motive to steal vehicles, as an example, is provided by the existence of sophisticated networks of criminals able to either license and resell them or cmuggle them out of the country. The vast majority of car thefts are the result of organised crime. Focussing on organised crime has therefore payed some dividends.

So we have evidence not only of a downward trend but a diligent effort driving that trend. If crime stats are to be mentioned, I think they should at least be attended by a caveat that such efforts are being made and appear to be changing the situation. I also think any stats provided from Nationmaster should be properly qualified as five years out of date and more contemporary stats provided, where possible.

- Farren in Johannesburg, South Africa

Official Languages Not listed correctly

http://www.info.gov.za/aboutsa/landpeople.htm#languages