Just when I thought the song headlines were getting dumb, Submitter gave us this and makes one that is actually good!

+1 Submitter

The violence, which has done untold damage to South African's reputation as the "Rainbow Nation,"

I, for one, am saddened by this latest attack on the gay community.

Sad to see Zimbabwe xenophobic insanity infecting South Africa

Now freedom must be fundamental
In Johannesburg or South Central
On the mic, 'cause someone should tell 'em
To kick in the township rebellion

/Always room for a RATM lyrics post
//You think the crime rate in your hood is bad, South Africa's is f'ing nutz.

I visited South Africa two years ago.

It is a really weird place. Cape Town, for example, is a far more impressive-looking city than anything I've seen in Canada (skyscrapers, grand old European buildings, the whole lot). Get closer, though, and you see that it's filled to the brim with poor and homeless black people (though it's pretty safe in the daytime if you don't look like an obvious tourist). They've got absolutely perfectly-maintained highways... some major sections of which are dangerous to drive on because people will throw rocks at your car. They've got a sophisticated electricity network (which reaches even to poor shantytowns) which is now becoming increasingly unreliable. The capital Johannesberg is 16% of the GDP of the entire continent, and also a huge centre for violent crime. In recent years, their economy has gone from boom to bust again and again.

Really, there are such huge contrasts within that country, it's hard to tell which direction it will go in. I got the impression, when I was there, that it was right on the edge of two possible tipping points, between prosperity and first-world status and complete societal collapse.

I, for one, hope this headline ushers in another era on Fark of threads arguing about the proper scansion of "The Camptown Races".

/just like the good ol' days
//bonus if ironic tag used
///in the politics tab...

♪ I ain't gonna play Cape Town ♪.

+1 classic!

Cape town graveyard 5 miles long oh de doo da day.

Esn: Really, there are such huge contrasts within that country, it's hard to tell which direction it will go in. I got the impression, when I was there, that it was right on the edge of two possible tipping points, between prosperity and first-world status and complete societal collapse.

Last time we visited the country, we drove up from Joburg to one of the game farms near Sun City. Came across a goat herder along the way, wearing nothing but a loincloth and brandishing a stick to keep the herd in line. He was also chatting away on a cell phone. Talk about a double-take.

Black people being racists in South Africa? That might be appropriate for the Irony tag.

SpankyPinkbottom: Last time we visited the country, we drove up from Joburg to one of the game farms near Sun City. Came across a goat herder along the way, wearing nothing but a loincloth and brandishing a stick to keep the herd in line. He was also chatting away on a cell phone. Talk about a double-take

That was their Minister of Agriculture.

Read a book called "Dark Star Safari" eeeep.

Now that's an old Fark meme.

Two short years until the World Cup is (supposed) to be held there. There could be some interesting scenes on the news if a few boatloads of English and German hooligans make the trip to cheer on their teams.

They are going to hold the World Cup there in two years? Well, good luck with that.

All the doo-dah day!

Nawwww... a country until recently still massively racially segregated (hey, look at early Simpsons episodes - Lisa has an Anti-Apartheid poster in her room) occasionally has flare up of racial tension? You don't say.

I'm with the rioters on this one, the immigration situation in SA is really getting out of hand.
Biosuits??? I mean, wtf???

It is extraordinarily sad. Physically, Cape Town may well be the most beautiful city on earth. I fear that it's going to go down the crapper.

I have family throughout the country and I've visited myself six times. One cousin's husband is fearful at the possibility of being attacked by a xenophobic mob.

Cry, the beloved country.

The ANC could never build a country up.

I fear that it's going to go down the crapper.

By the appearance of things it's already well on it's way.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7009833607

Although that is the longest the power cuts have lasted, the nation's leading gold and platinum mine owners shut their mines until power supplies become normal because they said they worried about a power outage trapping workers in mines.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has admitted that the nation should have paid attention to reports a few years ago that found the nation lacked enough electrical generating capacity. He admitted that it was poor planning to ignore the looming crisis.

Now critics say they fear that many of the expected 300,000 foreigners won't want to come to the World Cup if they think that they will go back to their hotel rooms and find there is no electricity

They managed the country like a typical soviet backed revolutionary movement on the worlds good books. They stole, stole, stole, and blamed everybody but the bumbling idiots they put into power.

Good move guys, good move.

HOLY CRAP!

A "doo-dah" headline! I haven't seen a "doo-dah" headline around here in YEARS!

Classic, indeed.

BoozePenguin: The ANC could never build a country up.

They managed the country like a typical soviet backed revolutionary movement on the worlds good books. They stole, stole, stole, and blamed everybody but the bumbling idiots they put into power.

Good move guys, good move.

What else did everyone expect?

Brokenseas: Two short years until the World Cup is (supposed) to be held there. There could be some interesting scenes on the news if a few boatloads of English and German hooligans make the trip to cheer on their teams.

That's why FIFA is keeping the USA as a fall back option if things in S.A. go to shiat. S.A. has put a huge amount of money into building facilities for the World Cup and even if they pull it off, they are on the knife's edge.

/kinda hoping that things crap out so I can see the World Cup come back to the USA.

Nobody referred to it as Rapetown yet?



Three men and a teenage boy were arrested for gang-raping an 11-year-old girl and keeping her hostage in a house for a week, (new window)

Mormon missionaries gang-raped (new window)

80yr-old gang-raped, strangled (new window)

Five men were arrested on Sunday morning in connection with the rape of a 21-year-old woman (new window)

Three women gang-raped (new window)

Husband forced to see gang-rape (new window)


Granddaughter 'cheaper than prostitute' (new window)

Prince Mbuyisa Dlamini, elder brother of King Mswati III of Swaziland, has been sent to jail for seven years because he raped a nine year-old girl. (new window)

A retarded quadriplegic girl was lifted out of her wheelchair and raped at the age of 10.

Concerned parents march against child rape (new window)

Rape by cops (new window)

Two held for 3-year-old's rape (new window)

Mandela's son-in-law wanted for alleged rape of algebra student

8% of high school males have killed - study (new window)

He was Mandela's heir. Now he's accused of raping woman who called him Uncle (new window)

Hobodeluxe: Cape town graveyard 5 miles long oh de doo da day.

Nice.

Stepmother is an Afrikaner, and all of her family is still there. They say the country is essentially going to hell in a handbasket. Between the anti-white and anti-foreigner violence (it's not just for Mugabe anymore!), rampant crime and corruption, and skyrocketing food prices, give it two or three years, and South Africa will be Zimbabwe x100. What a f*cking shame. I cannot see how they'll be able to host the World Cup, not without it falling into chaos.

Hell, my stepmother's mom was robbed at gunpoint while sitting at a stoplight.

Of course, that could happen in Detroit, too.

McManus_brothers: Stepmother is an Afrikaner, and all of her family is still there. They say the country is essentially going to hell in a handbasket. Between the anti-white and anti-foreigner violence (it's not just for Mugabe anymore!), rampant crime and corruption, and skyrocketing food prices, give it two or three years, and South Africa will be Zimbabwe x100. What a f*cking shame. I cannot see how they'll be able to host the World Cup, not without it falling into chaos.

Really is a shame. Like most African nations, they didn't seem to realize that all that "liberal democracy", "free market", and "rule of law" stuff was good, even if the racism it used to be attached to wasn't. They threw the baby out with the bathwater.

And all this "aid" will never help them. Treating Africa like a potential trading partner rather than a perpetual charity case would do a hell of a lot more to improve the continent. The South Africans have at least so far managed to avoid that sort of thing, but I'm wondering now how long it will last.

The last time I was in Cape Town I wondered why it didn't look as run down as Johannesburg... then we drove north to wine country. Shanty towns as far as the eye could see. Quite sad.

I am a South African, so I am getting a kick out of these replies...

/not in Cape Town.