Talk:South Africa/Archive 5

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Malaria numbers

Saying that malaria deaths are down 73% doesn't convey enough information. Are they down 73% from 100 per year or 10000? Can the author please add this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.232.65.6 (talk) 15:53, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Quite right. I removed the section and replaced it with verifiable information. -- leuce 18:07, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Governmental Form

Even though it is officially referred to as such, does the form of government still qualify to be called a Republic? It appears that, in contradiction to the constitution, that anything can be voted away.

The definition of "republic" is not opposed to that of "democracy", even though in the USA you get a "republican" and "democratic" party. See the Wikipedia definition of "republic". -- leuce 17:54, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

A stray article!

Noticed under climbing places, South Africa:

HELL under Mpumalanga, South Africa ?????

Definitely way out of place! Where does it belong?!Fconaway 07:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Mpumalanga is mentioned 3 times in the article and "HELL" is inexistent. -- Szvest - ^{Wiki me up ®} 16:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I think you're referring to the link to Hell, Mpumalanga on the page List of climbing areas. See [1]. Zaian 10:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

South African Food

How about a brief section, or even under culture. There is a rich history. Think Wors, snoek, biltong, potjiekos, baai vleis, buny chow, gatsby, mopani worms, morogo, chillies on chips, chakalaka and even Nandos!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cape fox (talk • contribs) 19:46, 13 January 2007 (UTC).

Oh boy, worms are a really rich form of food culture all right... hah.88.113.137.249 00:31, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, dried Mopani worms are considered a delicacy for many of the northern (Where Mopani worms are found) tribes in South Africa, so yes, they are a rich form of the food culture of South Africa. Don't forget things like bobotie, melktert, koeksusters, vetkoek, melk kos, etc. Jediwannabe 10:02, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

You are welcome to add to the Cuisine of South Africa article. Wikipeditor 02:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Namibia's Status until 1990

I recently received an e-mail from a friend who's studying in Namibia, and she mentioned as a part of Namibia's history that it gained its independence from South Africa only in 1990. I read the Namibian entry on Wikipedia, which at least mentions that situation in passing, albeit without a lot of detail. This article, however, mentiones nothing about Namibia being a territory or actual part of South Africa.

Even though the majority of information should be contained in the other article, I believe that this information should at least be referenced here too. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the details surrounding the independence of Namibia (since it's not here in these two articles!), so I can't add it myself. --156.143.89.87 13:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC) KeplerNiko

How about a page on Tourism In SA

I've been looking around at pages of other countries, and some seem to have a seperate page regarding tourism (see Norway Tourism). I think it would be an interesting page. It could include World Heritage Sites, List of Tourist attractions, Info on activities ranging from conservation, shark diving, whale watching, tourist attractions.

Clearly such a page would have to be developed by someone in the biz. --nocturnal omnivorous canine 14:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I wonder about that one. Isn't that what WikiTravel is for? If this is meant to be a general reference encyclopedia (not a travel dictionary), should we rather leave that detail out of this article. I think WikiTravel has a link -- and that should be good enough. -- Chris Lester ^talk 15:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't know there was a WikiTravel. --nocturnal omnivorous canine 13:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Higher education

With detail on South Africa on Higher Education: University Governance, it is available for contribution to the page. I am just not sure if it details enough on education in South Africa sufficiently to add. Do let me know if you would like me to create a section for the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kenneth M Burke (talk • contribs)

you should include these stats on this page :

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/sf/Top-Rankings

http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=172

http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=173 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=174 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=175 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=177 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=178 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=185 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=227 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=228 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=255 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=256 http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=291

Category:Germanic culture

South Africa has been add to the new Category:Germanic culture by an editor (not me by the way - I'm querying this). Please discuss this to ascertain whether this is appropriate or not - and act accordingly.-- Zleitzen^(talk) 13:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the link mentioned above. It has probably been removed. Wynand.singels 21:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Lead Section does not conform to Wikipedia style

This article has a long and unwieldy lead section. The purpose of such a section (see Wikipedia:Lead section) is to provide an overview of the principal points about a country: admittedly South Africa has a wealth of notable features, but four paras is the suggested limit. Also the first sentence is unreadable because of the number of alternative names. This is the English language section of Wikipedia and, having a wealth of names in other languages, they should be a separate para, once the country is defined in English. Rexparry sydney 00:57, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that having the name in all 11 official languages is not practical in the opening sentence, and is also not in line with Wikipedia style. Switzerland has four official languages and uses the Infobox to list the name in all of them (as well as the opening sentence). India has 23 official languages, and the names in all of these languages are listed on a page Official names of India linked from the Infobox. That seems like a practical solution, so I've added a link to Official names of South Africa from the infobox. Any comments on whether the names can be deleted from the opening sentence now? Zaian 20:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Flag

Why is the old South African flag present in the info box? Could this be changed please...

That's just the result of some tired old vandalism by someone living in the past, which has been done many times before; you can just click to undo it (see Help if necessary). Rexparry sydney 03:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The vandal has been blocked indefinately. See [2]. -- Chris Lester ^talk 19:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Why can't the old South African flag be added? It was part of the country's history! What are you so afraid of???? Things evolve - let's not forget what came before - stop trying to pretend it never happened! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.128.35.243 (talk • contribs)

Nothing wrong with showing the old flag. In fact, if you'd bothered looking, it's shown in a number of places on Wikipedia. In this case, some fool had placed it in the infobox in place of the current South African flag, thus making it look as though the old flag is still in official use. That's nothing less than vandalism and the previous users are perfectly right to be annoyed at that sort of behaviour. — Impi 21:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

The current flag (Svg) file does not open correctly in illustrator.

ZAF/RSA

ZAF redirects here, and RSA (disambiguation) links here. It would be useful for the article to tell in which situations one abbreviation or the other is or has been used. -- Jao 14:33, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

ZAF is new to me. ZA is well known as the internet "top" domain name for South Africa - e.g. www.invalid.co.za. It is also used in international trade as ZA Rand or ZAR to denote the currency. RSA is simply the initials of Republic of South Africa and is used the same way as USA is used for the United States of America. (For the record I am a 40 year old white male South African.) Roger 22:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Getting Tired

I'm starting to get tired of Americans... Firstly, just because it's Africa, doesn't mean it's above 90 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer AND winter. Hearing that just makes us Africans cringe. Secondly, just because Americans are the only poor bastards stuck with the British Units system doesn't mean they should make others use it on other articles. It's called SI, try learn some of it. You can play with your Btu's and Slug's on your own articles about America. Gilawson 17:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

FYI, the British don't use Fahrenheit. The Americans are the only ones that can't be bothered to use Celcius (and still use absurd imperial measurements for almost everything). I totally agree, Fahrenheit shouldn't be anywhere NEAR any commonwealth countries articles, leave it for the Americans. I have mind to get rid of the ( F) stuff, but someone would probably put it back again. Bennelliott • Talk • Contributions

Well, you know, you should leave in the bracketed Fahrenheit conversions. The very first point in WP:UNITS says "Conversions should generally be included and not be removed.". Of course, all figures on a page about South Africa should be in SI units primarily with the US/Imperial units given in brackets. - htonl 16:01, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I thought that there would be a policy on it, so good job I left it at that. Bennelliott • Talk • Contributions 19:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Pretoria or Tshwane

Saw that someone had changed the name from Pretoria to Tshwane. This is an important edit and I decided to undo it for the meanwhile and then ask the community what they think should be done about this matter. Gilawson 19:31, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The South African government's website refers to Pretoria as the Administrative Capital [3] (its the third or fourth instance of Pretoria on the page, dated November 8, 2006), so I would argue that Pretoria it should be, unless the RSA govt changes it. Flyguy649^talk_contribs 20:17, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Too right! Bennelliott 08:17, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

This is quite difficult, especially since Ramokgopa (Tshwane mayor) said Pretoria is a suburb, not a city, and that the union buildings fall outside of Pretoria, as reported in Afrikaans by Beeld on 4 May 2007. But I agree with naming it Pretoria for consistency within the article, and if the SA government websites reflect it as such.Goodlucca 08:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for your input. If you would like to keep adding your comments and opinions, please feel free to, but it seems this issue has been resolved. Gilawson 17:21, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Article quality

Am I the only one to notice a significant decline in the quality of this article since it achieved FA status? It's riddled with pro-ANC and pro-Apartheid POV, rather than a simple neutral view, as well as just filled with items of irrelevance. Examples:

• "apartheid, which was instituted in 1948 by the National Party" (pro-ANC)
• "(although segregation existed prior to that date)" (a poor attempt to defend Smuts or whoever)

Why not just state that the National Party expanded on previous segregation to the level of apartheid?

• "Two philosophies originated in South Africa: ubuntu (the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity); and Gandhi's notion of "passive resistance" (satyagraha), developed while he lived in South Africa."

Who cares? Only a pack of feel-good intellectual fools care. Irrelevant to the country as a whole.

• "South Africa is often referred to as "The Rainbow Nation", a term coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and later adopted by then-President Nelson Mandela. President Mandela used the term "Rainbow Nation" as a metaphor to describe the country's newly-developing multicultural diversity in the wake of segregationist apartheid ideology."

Multiculturalist POV

• "By 2007, the country had joined Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Canada in legalising same-sex marriage."

Homosexual POV

• "the Black majority remained disadvantaged by almost every standard, including income, education, housing, and life expectancy."
• "However, the average income and life expectancy of a black, 'Indian' or 'coloured' South African compared favourably to many other African states, such as Ghana and Tanzania."

Another attack / defence bit like my first example. Why not just state that "South African blacks, Indians and coloureds had the highest average income and life expectancy on the African continent, yet their incomes were one tenth (?) that of White South Africans."

• "This is partly attributed to the legacy of the apartheid system" (pro-ANC POV)
• "(although poverty is also a problem throughout much of Africa)" (pro-Apartheid POV)

Things of this nature should be removed altogether as evidence and sources are dubious. The entire last paragraph of the history section is an attack (with subtle defence) on the ANC.

There are more examples throughout the article. Michael ^talk 03:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

South African GDP now stands at $13,300 PPP according to the CIA figures. Why is this not updated?

LOL

I can't begin to imagine the irony at play here; the only picture of an apartheid camp shows Boers suffering at the hands of the British! Tragic, funny and patently banal! To the insensitive David Duke follower who put that picture up, at least be consistent and put one up of Black kids suffering at the hands of the apartheid government. uNSIGNED - JULY 22 07

I fail to see how Boers suffering at the hands of the british is "funny" to you. You obviously have no idea what effects this war has had on the South African people. See Anglo-Boer war. — Adriaan (T★C) 15:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Abahlali baseMjondolo

Is Abahlali baseMjondolo notable enough to be discussed in the main South Africa article (it was recently brought in)? Are there any subarticles about current events in SA that would be a better place to discuss it? Smmurphy^(Talk) 16:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm a South African and consider myself to be fairly media-savvy and this page is the only place I have ever seen this organisation mentioned. As far as civil society organisations go this one is not a big deal. Organisations like the Treatment Action Campaign or South African Council of Churches have a much higher profile. I think the editor who added this section is soapboxing Roger 18:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Roger. The article claims that the organisation has very high media attention, yet I have never heard of them either. Wynand.singels 19:15, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll second Roger (or is that third?). I'd like to consider myself up with current things but I don't see a lot of media attention. The issue itself does get plenty of coverage, but protest action does not appear to rise from a single organisation; it often originates from flashpoints in various residents' organisations, etc. Kit Berg 21:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

/* capitals */

I thought Jo'burg, Cape Town and Queensland are the three capitals of South Africa. But found they are different than whats i m thinking. --Jayanta (Talk) 08:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Funny... They are in fact Pretoria (Administrative), Bloemfontein (Judicial) and Cape Town (Legislative), and if you look carefully, you'll see that they represent the three branches of the trias politicas.

Abolition of slavery date

http://www.bbc.co.uk/abolition/ - states On 25 March 1807, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed. On that basis I amended the year. Klynchk 16:37, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Genocide in South Africa

There is clearly genocide going on in South Africa against Whites, Indians, Somalians, and all other non Black African groups. The nature of many of these killings are no different than what happened in Cambodian or Rwanda.

Someone needs to have the balls to cover this in the article. Angry Aspie 01:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you need to familiarise yourself with the exact definition of genocide, and perhaps even the real situation in South Africa. As a white South African I can assure you that these rumours are nothing but rumours.

Sure crime is rampant in SA, but it is nowhere NEAR what happened in Rwanda. Wynand.singels 18:32, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

You forget that they called the recent killings in Kenya a genocide, yet the numbers are far smaller than those that are being killed in South Africa every day! If they can say that opposition in Kenya are calling what happened there a genocide why not ZA see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_Kenyan_crisis

Independence Dates

I noticed the dates of Independence are different from the last time I was here and if you go to the Union of South Africa page, it displays different ones as well. Am I missing something or is this a mistake? Fatla00 07:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The dates are correct as they appear currently

Mid-2007 Population estimate

More information here: STATS SA

Going back to the HIV/AIDS and citations as I see this has been discussed a bit, how is it thought that demographics of the country are changing? I mean there's some fairly clear ideas here which are pretty much intuitive regarding age particularly, but I'm not sure if it's just me being oversensitive but there's also a potential race slant there given the preceding details, which are more focused on race prevalence than age group prevalence perhaps? That for me would be a massive grey area. This isn't a simple case of more infection in the black population as there are other moving parts here. It would only apply ceteris paribus - but obviously things like migration, birth rates, non-HIV-related death rates, etc. have an impact as well. And a pre-emptive apology - put this query here under population as (a) it's more recent and (b) I guess it's a more relevant query on population than HIV itself... Do move it somewhere more logical if there is somewhere. Kit Berg 00:40, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

165.139.160.4 changed the population from 47.9m to 50m. The latest estimate I can find is the mid 2007 estimate [4]. Please discuss or source if you wish to update the population. --HiltonLange 16:17, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Discovery of gold

I see the date of the discovery of gold in ZA was pushed back by two years by an anon. editor. Does anyone have a proper ref? --Slashme 09:09, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know who pushed the date back. I did a search and cam up with this link - http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2898.htm , which gives the date as 1886. Wynand.singels 18:29, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I know we can't use Wikipedia articles as references, but check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barberton,_South_Africa (it says 1881 is the date). -- leuce 13:56, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if we take gold rushes as the standard (not specifically the discovery of gold by white people), then gold was discovered earlier in South Africa. There was a gold rush from 1873 in Pilgrim's Rest area, and from 1876 in Knysna area. Gold was been discovered in South Africa by white people as early as 1840, but there were no gold rushes in those cases. Black people have mined gold in South Africa for many centuries before that, but again, there were no gold rushes (or records of gold rushes). -- leuce 14:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Languages Categories

Why is South Africa listed under Categories: Dutch speaking countries at the bottom? Is news to me; AFAIK, except for a few stray expats Dutch is not spoken at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.54.202.242 (talk) 17:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC) 198.54.202.242 17:07, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree - remove the category. Roger 20:09, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I have already removed it. Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 21:42, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Cities

This article - List_of_largest_cities_in_South_Africa_by_population - possibly should be linked to somewhere here; however, to do this would need to have more believable figures... census 2001 website is a mess though, good luck trying to find anything. Are there any other standard sources used to quote city populations. And yes I know I'm a bit naughty for writing about problems in a separate article on this page, under the guise of linking to this page, but I really think it is probable that it should link to it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Garble (talk • contribs) 16:43, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

IMPORTANT!!!! MASSIVE VANDALISM

Someone edited the article so that the "edit this page" link was disabled, and was replaced with the words "god hates niggers and jews and they should all be gased." IN ADDITION, someone he seems to have managed to erase the history of this change and my corresponding revert. It doesn't seem to appear in the history tab even though I clearly saw it and reverted it. This is one of the worst examples of vandalism I have ever seen. I managed to change the article back by manually typing in the edit this page URL in my web browser (since the "edit this page" link was taken away). This NEEDS TO BE REPORTED! Whoever did this obviously had some knowledge of html to be able to disable the edit this page tab and erase a record of it from the history page. I don't know how to report this incident since I am not very experienced with wikipedia. In addition, the person posted contact information oddly enough. Perhaps in an attempt to take credit? He claimed to be someone named rolfcopter or something to that effect. He then listed a contact address in Massachusetts. I don't know if this was a genuine racist/racial supremacist or if he was trying to cast blame on someone else (perhaps a wikipedia rival?) and did it in a disgusting way. But regardless, THIS NEEDS TO BE HANDLED and investigated. No one should be able to disable the edit this page link other than a moderator or admin, and no one should be able to delete history of reversions and edits. I don't know who this person is, but he must be dealt with immediately. 12:00, 01 March 2008 (UTC)

Emigration numbers

The article states: "In the first decade after the ANC took power, a million white Africans emigrated.". The referenced articles for this section give significantly lower estimated numbers. Does anyone know a source with a fairly reliable estimate? Perhaps the sentence should be reworded to "Thousands per year", or "Over 100 000 since 1994"? --HiltonLange (talk) 16:14, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I've read Statistics South Africa numbers from 1996 to 2007, the numbers don't tie up at all with the "Demographics" section of the article. All of the referenced links for that section speak about the brain drain, but the numbers are significantly lower. The 10% white undercount is unreferenced. The 1995 population of 5.3 million is wrong. I'm going to remove it unless someone can source better figures for emigration. Also, the South Africa article is far too large, this section is a good candidate for some trimming. --HiltonLange 16:31, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I am continually worried about this famed 'undercount'. I have also seen it pushing the point of view that thousands of census takers were sent out to make sure that every non-white person was counted but the 'gated communities' weren't. This seems to just be implying that there is an active agenda to minimise the number of white people for whatever political reason; but yet I see no sources for these. Will see if I can find the link I saw this POV on.... Kit Berg 18:09, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I see that the "million whites" emigration number has resurfaced. There's a reference to a study done by The South African Institute of Race Relations, and the comment from Teatreez that it's a "well-known fact". The problem I have is that there are 4 links, and 3 of them support numbers in the low hundred thousands, whereas only one supports the "million" number. If you are interested in the trends, a very comprehensive document can be found analyzing emigration trends: HSRC skills migration document. This is in addition to the current 4 links in the South Africa article.

This document analyzes the discrepancy between the official emigration numbers, and what appears to be a far higher reality. It arrives at a final estimate of around 250000 emigrations per decade. However, the most interesting thing to me was the table on page 11 which broke down professional emigrations by decade. It shows, interestingly, that there have also been a similar number of emigrations in the 2 previous decades.

This has made me wonder whether the line "Since 1994, X white South Africans have emigrated" might be entirely misleading, akin to writing, "Since 1994, X number of people have died of cancer". It may be true, but it's not indicating what the context my imply.

Please read the HSRC document I've linked, as well as [5] and [6]. Let's resolve this on the talk page before radically changing numbers by a factor of 10 in the main article. --HiltonLange (talk) 22:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Advance fee fraud

Kit Berg removed the reference to 419 on this page. I do not mind if, on here, it takes one sentence, but I found this rationale:

• [7] "bit specific for this page? left it on crime page, but common in US etc too"

In order to support "common in the US" too I would like a citation - I gave one with 419. What I will do is pare the mention so that it takes one sentence and does not explain what AFF is. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:25, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[8]

This is Secret Service advice, details in the article of amounts, etc. involved relating to American financial institutions.

[9]

Here the FBI's website refers to this type of crime under the heading 'Common Fraud Schemes' and details.

The citations that you provided seemed to be fairly common examples of government advice, as are the US examples above, and I don't think they are enormously persuasive.

I'm sorry if my explanation wasn't clear. The reason I removed it from the South Africa page was because it seems to be a description of a crime which is commonplace in many areas of the world and there is no evidence brought to support it as being 'different'/worthy of mention on the main SA page. I noticed it at The Netherlands' page as well. Was there any specific reason for including it on these two pages but not others? Kit Berg (talk) 18:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Kit Berg, the USA secret service may give advice, but it is not talking about massive 419 operations within American borders. When the American FBI talks about 419, most of the time it is assumed that such crimes take place in other countries. Notice that I chose a South African citation that admitted that 419 took place in South Africa

I agree with Kit, it seems a very tangential topic to introduce in an article about South Africa. Crime is a relevant subtopic as it has a large influence and is a very relevant factor in South African life. But 419 scams in particular being something particularly relevant to an article on South Africa? I wouldn't think so. --HiltonLange (talk) 18:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Hilton, perhaps I can show you more. There have been high profile kidnappings and murders in South Africa related to 419. I can show you the citations here:

"

• Kensuke Matsumoto, a Japanese national, fled his kidnappers in Durban, South Africa after falling victim to a 419 scheme in June 1999.
• Joseph Raca, a former mayor of Northampton, England, was kidnapped by scammers in Johannesburg, South Africa in July 2001. The captors released Raca after they became nervous
• Danut Tetrescu, a Romanian who flew from Bucharest to Johannesburg to meet with con men in the Soweto area of Johannesburg, was kidnapped in 1999 and held for $500,000.
• 29-year old George Makronalli, a Greek man, was murdered in South Africa in December 2004 after responding to a 419 scam.
• Kjetil Moe, a Norwegian businessman, was reported missing and ultimately killed after a trade with Nigerian scammers in Johannesburg, South Africa (September 1999)."

All in South Africa. It is very important to become informed before making an opinion. This page does not need to go in detail about 419; one sentence is what it needa, and one sentence is all I am asking for. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not denying that 419's occur in South Africa, I'm stating that 419s are not relevant to an article on South Africa. South Africa doesn't even make the top 10 locations from which 419's originate. (419 stats) It's just an issue of notability. Perhaps we should add a sentence about cell phone theft. And one about purse snatching, and another about ATM muggings. All of these occur in South Africa, but they also occur in most countries in the world. --HiltonLange (talk) 09:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Interesting document; reading it I agree the Netherlands flag up, together with UK, USA, Canada, Spain, Germany and Belgium (depending on which table you take). Let's add the scam as the most important crime in all those countries.

Not a good idea, I agree, the logic for adding the scam to this (and the Netherlands) article is flawed as there is no comparison whatsoever to overall crime; and other forms of crime in the country.

Furthermore listing example only proves it exists in SA (nobody disagrees) it does not prove anything about the size of the problem. Arnoutf (talk) 18:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

There is also a similar discussion, (caused by the same set of edits), on the Crime in South Africa talk page, (Talk on Advance fee fraud).

There is still a discussion going on as whether the AFF section sould be removed altogether.

We added a section on financial crime to try and accommodate it, (originally it was a similar section as the one added here). FFMG (talk) 05:30, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

vandalism in history section i don't know how to fix it or if it needs fixed

under history it says:south africa has some of the oldest "faskflijdklfjkldsajfkl;fjieurag(pronounce that!)" sites in the world; is all that jiberish vandalism or is that an actuall word and if it is a word surely the pronounce that should be taken away if it is not a word what word goes there--Charlieh7337 (talk) 00:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

oh i see it has been replaced with "archeological" Charlieh7337 (talk) 01:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

archaeological was replaced with "faskflijdklfjkldsajfkl;fjieurag".... obvious vandalism in this case. You can use the history tab to view recent changes if you mistrust something like this. Arnoutf (talk) 14:17, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Economic crisis?

When did the economic crisis section arrive? The text itself doesn't reflect an economic crisis in and of itself (and I have no objection to it elsewhere, it's perfectly valid) but under the heading as it stands it's a little odd. I'd call the continued dichotomous nature of the economy an economic crisis; the influx of refugees a driver of a potential economic crisis; current trade discussions relating to 'air miles' for fruit and vegetables in the European Union; AIDS/HIV... The electricity crisis is indeed a driver for a potential slowdown - but would anyone mind if I moved this text/reformatted it to make it a bit less 'today' driven? Kit Berg (talk) 20:35, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The current power crisis might be important enough to warrant a mention in the article, but I agree that the section "Economic crisis" isn't really appropriate. It's obviously very topical right now, but even the Eskom article has trouble referencing facts. I agree with removing the section, at least until it can be placed and written more appropriately. --HiltonLange (talk) 04:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I also agree that the section should be re-worded to be less 'current'. But it is a bit tricky to find the right section heading for it. I would be tempted to mention the various problems/crisis in the economy section itself rather than start a new one. FFMG (talk) 05:41, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I saw the diff in my watchlist and edited before reading here, but I guess I'm not too far from the growing consensus anyway! --Slashme (talk) 06:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Since you got there first, cool - and that's a bit better. I don't even object to it being described as aging, etc., etc. - it is - but in African terms it's still a reasonable infrastructure, even in developing country terms. Still not sure it merits its own subheading but I think I'm going to start giving up on arguing about subheadings... Kit Berg (talk) 07:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I guess we all have to pick our battles on Wikipedia as a way of managing the motivation level and Wikistress. --Slashme (talk) 10:28, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I find the rephrasing of the subsection "Electricity crisis" acceptable. Let's hope it remains a small cloud on the horizon, no bigger than the palm of your hand. Fred Talk 19:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Soccer vs Football

I am under the impression that the game is called soccer in South Africa. Even though there is the South African Football Association, there is also the Premier Soccer League. Even on the South African Football Association's website, they keep talking about soccer, not football. We talk about the 2010 Soccer World Cup, not the Football World Cup - in fact, I'd find it strange if any of my South African friends had to talk about football. Anyone else share this view? Mulderpf (talk) 06:39, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you, (I am the one who replaced soccer with football), but the governing body, (safa), calls it football.

Having said that there are examples of football vs soccer. This afternoon SABC 1 is showing a game and the show is the soccer zone I think. But e.tv calls it football when they show games on Mondays or Thursdays.

Also we, (my friends and I), don't call it the 2010 soccer world cup, but rather the 2010 world cup and more often than not, simply, 2010. Maybe avoiding the football/soccer issue altogether.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that it would be strange if one of my friends used soccer vs football. I think either way I would understand what they mean.

I don't think South Africans have a preference for either word, they both mean the same thing, there is no confusion or anything strange about it.

But seen that the governing body calls it football, maybe we should to. FFMG (talk) 07:37, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd say there's definitely a bias towards soccer but they're both used. I think it's mainly in the US that it's a really confusing topic where soccer vs football refers to completely different sports. I know South Africans who use one or the other, no one seems to make a big deal about which one uses. I'm not really that fussed which appears in the article although I'd lean towards football simply because that's generally what the associations call themselves. Kit Berg (talk) 10:02, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I know a number of South Africans who mean Rugby when they say football. These are people who have never in their lives watched a soccer match and they probably never will. They are utterly indifferent to 2010. Roger (talk) 19:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Really? I must admit I have never spoken to a South African who ever called rugby, football.

We might swap soccer and football, but I never, ever, heard of rugby called football by a saffer.

I was at the Sharks rugby game tonight, (we were lucky!), and we all spoke of rugby, not football. FFMG (talk) 19:29, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Your vocabulary and writing style leads me to think that the people I am refering to are probably old enough to be your grandparents. (I have never come across anyone older than mid twenties who uses the word "saffer") Roger (talk) 20:13, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I wish I was that young, I pickup that term in my 10 years 'sabbatical' in the uk. FFMG (talk) 20:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

People really call rugby 'football'? Wow. I suppose they might if there's only rugby on offer but must admit I've never come across it. Am very pleased that my occasional use of the word 'saffer' (usually spelled 'saffa' in my case, displaying my inherent laziness) would place me a good many years younger than I really am though and shall continue to use it therefore at every opportunity.  :)

I'd still say that these are reasonably isolated examples of rugby vs football confusion, although I certainly know that there are significant numbers of people for whom soccer/football in SA really don't exist and rugby is the sport; the reverse is true as well. Kit Berg (talk) 21:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Highest temperature

The 51.7C temperature is wromg. It has been discredit already because the termomeyer was highly overexposed. Correct record and official is 48.8C (jan 1993) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.13.78.30 (talk) 22:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you point out a source to justify that claim? Thanks, htonl (talk) 14:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Was the current form of South African government "born" in May 1910?

According to the List of countries by formation dates article, the "Birth of current form of government" of South Africa was in May 1910. This is not reflected in the South Africa article. Which date is correct? --Mais oui! (talk) 13:06, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think South Africa, (or most of the countries in the article), was 'born' at any specific date. The history section shows what happened. Over many years, the constitution changed and evolved. The latest change been 1994.

What is your definition of when a country was formed/born? FFMG (talk) 13:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I do not make any claims at all! However, due to some horrific WP:OR and WP:UNVERIFIED the List of countries by formation dates article is making a whole load of ridiculous "definitions" and claims. All totally unreferenced. --Mais oui! (talk) 13:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should ask for some kind of references on the other article. We cannot really change the South Africa article to accommodate another article.

I don't think that South Africa was 'born' at any specific date, (what about the Zulus and so on), but I would guess that then end of the 2nd Boer war would probably be the end of colonial rule.

Maybe others have another opinion on the matter. FFMG (talk) 14:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The article List of countries by formation dates confuses three entirely separate concepts. "Current form of government", "formation of a country as a separate entity" and "aquisition of sovereignty/independence". South Africa became a country in 1910 with limited sovereignty as a British Dominion, this was modified by the Statute of Westminster. It became a Republic (but kept the Westminster parliamentary form of government) in 1961. The current (Republican) constitutional system dates from 1994 though the constitution itself dates from 1996. The example of France is a good comparison: The area of the Roman Empire called Gaul became a separate entity by the Treaty of Verdun in 843. Then a whole bunch of wars and revolutions later, the current 5th Republic was established in 1958. Roger (talk) 14:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, exactly!! That article is an utter dogs-breakfast, and goodness knows how on earth it can be knocked into shape from its current sad state. --Mais oui! (talk) 14:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the article, (List of countries by formation dates), should be a bit clearer on the mater.

Many folks here would argue that the country, (South Africa), existed long before the Dutch landed.

In my opinion, List of countries by formation dates is a lot of hogwash. FFMG (talk) 14:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

South Africa did not exist as a country before 31 May 1910. Before that it was a patchwork of a wide variety of different forms of political entities (some were countries in their own right). Chiefdoms, kingdoms, colonies, republics, etc. The Treaty of Vereniging establish a single entity with a unified system of government over the entire territory. See Country Roger (talk) 18:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Really? You might want to edit the Republic]] article, looks like some people thought it was a country, (see Country), back in 1857. FFMG (talk) 18:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

(resetting indentation) The South African Republic was the name of the Transvaal when it was an independent Boer Republic. It's not the same thing as the country of South Africa in its present form. The significance of the 1910 date is that it is when the whole of the geographical area of what we now call South Africa was first governed as a single political entity. All the dates are important: 1910 for unification, 1931 for independence, 1961 for republicanism, 1994 for democracy. - htonl (talk) 21:09, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

My mistake then, I didn't know that a country was not a country until it was colonized.

I did not know that RSA was not the same as ZAR, it makes sense. FFMG (talk) 21:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

You're still not getting it; this has nothing to do with when SA was colonised. 1910 was the year in which South Africa came into being as a unified political entity with jurisdiction over the entirety of the country's territory. This isn't a value judgement on what came before, nor does it deny that other countries existed in the area before then (the ZAR is one example). It's just that South Africa, as it exists today, began in 1910. — Impi (talk) 21:56, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Please do not edit my replies or my indentations to suit your talk. FFMG (talk) 22:02, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

A lot of people in 1857 thought they were from a country called South Africa, they even called it South Africa.

Please feel free to edit the article South African Republic, (with references of course), if you think that South Africa did not exist then. FFMG (talk) 22:19, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

You are mixing up the name "South Africa" with the geographical area which is now called "South Africa". I do not deny the existence of the country called the "South African Republic" before the Anglo-Boer war. The point is that that South Africa was approximately the area that we call the Transvaal. It was not the area that we now call South Africa. And the government that was then called the "South African Republic" did not evolve into the government that we now call the "Republic of South Africa"; it was subsumed into/replaced by the 1910 Union Government. - htonl (talk) 12:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Your indentation, FFMG, is unnecessarily restricting the space for replies and making it more difficult to edit. Common practice on Wikipedia once the indentation level becomes ridiculous is to reset it so that the space might be more efficiently used. This is done in order to be polite and to make discussion easier, so I'm at a loss to understand why you object so vehemently to it. As for your point, I have little to add to what Htonl has said, which is accurate. The fact remains that the ZAR has no political continuity with either the Union of South Africa or the Republic of South Africa, and shares only a similar name. South Africa, as it exists today in its structure and form, traces its ancestry directly back to 1910 and no earlier. — Impi (talk) 18:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Never heard of such practice in wikipedia, the indent is fine for now.

In any case, we are going around in circle, remember, I did not start the discussion. I just think that the article, (List of countries by formation dates), is wrong for many countries, (including South Africa). The fact that some of us, (me), do not agree on when a country was formed goes to show how quickly the article , (List of countries by formation dates), can get out of hand. I am not even going to entertain the name argument that was given, I am not confusing anything, feel free to read the links I gave.

I suspect that user Mais oui! started this talk because he does not agree with some dates as well. FFMG (talk) 19:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

If you, or Mais oui, wish to argue with the content of List of countries by formation dates the correct place to do it is on that article's discussion page. I'm not unsympathetic to your criticisms of that article, but this isn't the place to air them. The specific query raised here was which date given as South Africa's foundation date was correct, and that is what the discussion has mostly been about. Both my and htonl's replies to you have dealt not with the other article, but with your incorrect assertion that South Africa in its present form was not created in May 1910. I think this is a fairly important point, since it has an impact on the dates we include in this article.

I have read the links you provided, but they have revealed to me nothing beyond what I already know. Which is that the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek and the modern Republic of South Africa are distinct and separate political entities with no similarity in political structure or geographical area. The ZAR was subsumed into the Union of South Africa in 1910, it did not become the Union. In fact, there was no country or state prior to 1910 with the structure and geographical area of the Union, which is why that date is universally regarded as the date on which South Africa as it exists today was "born". I honestly don't understand why this is so controversial; after all nobody gets in a huff about the United States of America's founding date being 1776, when the history of the American people precedes that date by over a century. — Impi (talk) 20:10, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Mais oui! raised a point, I replied, we are not arguing anything, look at what my original reply to him was. I think you guys are getting confused as to what is going on here.

I am not trying to change this article, (did I ever say we need to change it?), all I said was that I don't think all countries are 'born' at a specific date. Some countries, (the US for example), have an exact date when the country was created, but most countries don't have such a date.

South Africa evolved over many, many years and many people called the country 'South Africa' well before 1910. FFMG (talk) 21:41, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

That is true. Certainly people talked about "South Africa" to refer to the area well before 1910. As to the indentation, the thing is that people with low-resolution screens (or just using narrow browser windows) find the text being forced into a really thin column down the right, making it difficult to read. So there is an unofficial convention of resetting the indentation to zero when it gets too far over. But it's not obligatory. - htonl (talk) 10:47, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) FFMG said "Some countries, (the US for example), have an exact date when the country was created..." This is also true of South Africa and 31 May 1910 is that date. Prior to then the term "South Africa" was used loosely to refer to a variety of colonies, chiefdoms, republics, kingdoms and "no man's lands". The term even sometimes covered places that did not become part of South Africa, such as Lesotho and Botswana. No amount of saying "The sky is mauve with green polka dots" will ever make it so. One of my high school teachers had a favourite saying "Facts is facts!" See South Africa Act 1909 Roger (talk) 11:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Again, we are going around in circle and you guys missed the original point made by someone else, (and most of my replies to him). I am not making any changes, I am not claiming anything, I just don't agree with your definition of when the country was 'born'.

No need for cute sayings, (did you even read the fact you gave?), as I am not trying to reach a consensus or to change anything. Re-read my original replies if you have any doubts.

Also, feel free to reply to the person who originally started the discussion while you are there. FFMG (talk) 12:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

language

I got a simple but not stupid question: The english talked in SA is from UK or from US? Rainbow Nation with many colours or with many colors ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.195.19.145 (talk) 16:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

There is only one kind of English :), the rest are local variants.

But the South African English is closer to the UK english. But there are a few exceptions, (such as 'cell phone' vs 'mobiles' or 'traffic lights' vs 'robots').

To answer your question, it has many colours. FFMG (talk) 17:50, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Who calls traffic lights robots? SGGH ^speak! 13:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

South Africans do. It is a strange linguistic curiosity. - htonl (talk) 15:19, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

What part of South Africa? I don't remember ever hearing that term when I lived there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.148.123.76 (talk) 09:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

That's because you lived in Welkom —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.54.202.74 (talk) 08:36, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

What, the folks from Welkom don't call them Robots? That's a surprise to me. I've never met a South African who doesn't use the term. --Slashme (talk) 14:32, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Is Ndebele not a language?

The sentence saying Ndebele people speak Zulu should be removed because Ndebele is an official language and i personally know 4 people who speak ndebele —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.106.240.12 (talk) 12:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Real GDP?

What is the correct GDP? I see an article http://www.fin24.com/articles/default/display_article.aspx?ArticleId=1518-25_2290513 in which Schüssler a reputable south african economist says that it is R1.9 Trillion which if you divide by lets say 8 gives 238 Billion dollars not over 500. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.198.44.16 (talk) 20:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

The data comes from List of countries by GDP (PPP), (but even that would mean that the article needs to be updated).

The discrepancies are probably in the exchange rate as well as the definition of the GDP itself. FFMG (talk) 20:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

List of countries by GDP (PPP) has 3 lists. IMF, World Bank and CIA World factbook. IMF lists South Africa as 20th ($660b), whereas the other 2 lists have South Africa as 25th ($400b-$470b). I've been to the IMF website, and the 2008 South Africa data shows $300b, very out of line with their 2007 numbers. Given that there are 3 sources, 2 of them say that South Africa is 25th, and the last is very inconsistent with their own latest data, I'm reverting South Africa's rank to 25th. --HiltonLange (talk) 13:20, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, maybe we should update the GBP page as well at some stage.

You must also update the info box to 25th. FFMG (talk) 13:23, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure, the IMF is more reliable than the CIA factbook. Also the second ranking with South Africa at no.25 was way back in 2005. So perhaps it should be stated that in 2007, the country was ranked at no.20. Teatreez (talk) 15:32, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

south african homogeneous core

does any body know the core of people and cultures in south africa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.192.6.64 (talk) 05:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Predominant core would be Southern African/Bantu people and associated cultures; predominant home languages isiXhosa and isiZulu but English is widely used in commerce, etc, Afrikaans less so. Legal system is predominantly Roman-Dutch with influence of English law and African customary law to a lesser degree.

But 'homogenous'?? Not sure what the background to this question is but we're talking here a country with 11 official languages and many others which don't have 'official' status, numerous ethnic groups and subgroups, numerous tribes and subtribal groupings....I don't think the word 'homogeneous' in any way has relevance unless I'm misunderstanding your question. Perhaps if you rephrase it you'll get a more complete answer. Kit Berg (talk) 09:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

well i am writing a paper on the 5 themes of geography....in the region we have to identify the homogenous core and ambigous boundries within this country..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.192.6.64 (talk) 22:47, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Well that's going to be a bit difficult...I'll let someone else have a shot at answering that question if anyone else will. I think that it's probably best if you do slightly wider research than asking around here on that - that's a pretty daunting task if you try to go beneath the surface.

If you just stick to the very basics of the five themes then it's much easier. Location is pretty easy....borders aren't disputed except perhaps in terms of sea boundaries and Antarctic. I'm not aware of any significant disputes externally although there are internal disputes as to towns which sit over provincial boundaries (see Khutsong).

People - diverse but you can get that info anywhere if you're prepared to go into the detail, same with physical geography.

Maybe just sit down and brainstorm a list of specific questions you need to answer from your core question and then do your research on the answers. If you can imagine doing a paper asking about the homogenous core of the USA....this is as broad a topic if not more so. Kit Berg (talk) 12:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Just as a matter of interest the CIA World Factbook lists a dispute with Namibia about the exact position of the border along the Orange River. The Factbook is a great source for the basic facts & stats which you can use for your paper. Roger (talk) 14:10, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

"Illegal" evictions

The section added by 41.244.248.39 about a UN report on illegal evictions is misleading. The reference is to the UN homepage for the human rights council and not to "UN report on housing rights violations in South Africa" as the link title suggests. Reading the South African report, there are well over 100 major points in 29 pages, with both the strong and weak areas. There is no clear reference to "illegal evictions". Some concerns are raised about the post-eviction support, but there is certainly no outright condemnation as the edit suggests. In fact, the government's "Breaking new ground" policies are praised, with concerns being raised about their implementation. I am reverting the edit unless a source is added which supports the text --HiltonLange (talk) 08:46, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I saw the same edit in the Durban article but I didn't have time to read the report, (glad you did). I will remove it from that article as well. Thanks FFMG (talk) 08:57, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

It appears that the edit has resurfaced, this time in multiple articles and with various references. However, the references still vary significantly from the inserted article text. One reference is an advocacy site, another is a misnamed link which is a generic link to a UN conference. Another is subscriber only. Certainly none support the text "human rights abuses are widespread", or "international human rights reports have regularly condemned abuses against shack dwellers". Even if the references were accurate and the incident was accurately portrayed, I'd have to question if it's significant enough to feature on the main encyclopedia page about South Africa. --HiltonLange (talk) 11:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I have been trying to keep it out of the Durban article as well. I have looked at the references and some of them barely even mention Durban at all.

I have tried to explain it to the user but I think, (by the number of pages that are edited), that they are not really interested in a neutral entry. FFMG (talk) 14:35, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Tembe?

I was trying to find definition and info on the word "Tembe" on Wikipedia. I can't find much. Tembe Elephant Park says "The park was developed by Tembe Tribal Authority and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife." Is there a "Tembe tribe"? Is Tembe the name of a place? Thanks. -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 13:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes they are a tribe. The phrase "Tembe Tribal Authority" is a clue. Roger (talk) 14:42, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I think that ideally Wikipedia should not contain "clues", but clear presentations of facts. (Making redlinks here for Tembe and Tembe tribe, and for Tribal authority as well, in case anyone feels inspired to create articles.) -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 12:44, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Just remember that it's spelled "Thembe", not "Tembe." Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 20:06, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thembe, Thembe tribe -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 04:14, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Tebello - Both spellings appear to be in common use, I got hundreds of Google hits for both "Thembe Elephant Park" and "Tembe Elephant Park". The wikipedia article is Tembe Elephant Park and the park's own website www.tembe.co.za, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife www.kznwildlife.com as well as the Tembe Wilderness Trust www.tembetrust.com all spell it without an "h".

201.37.229.117 - I was being just a little sarcastic when I said "The phrase "Tembe Tribal Authority" is a clue", Surely if you read a phrase like that it is quite obvious that the word "Tembe" is the name of the tribe who's authority it is. Would the phrase "French Language Academy" really leave you in doubt whether French is the name of a language? Roger (talk) 22:06, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Since I had no clue what "Tembe" means, it certainly was not "quite obvious" that Tembe is the name of a tribe -- that's why I asked. I "assumed" that it quite likely was the name of a tribe, but you know what they say about "assuming" ( http://www.google.com/search?q=assume+makes+an+ass ). Better to ask. For all I knew, "Tembe Tribal Authority" could have meant "Central Tribal Authority" or "New Tribal Authority", or many other things, or "Tembe" could have been the name of a place but not a tribe ("Johannesburg Tribal Authority" would be a reasonable name for an organization, but there is no tribe "Johannesburg".) In all likelihood there are institutions called "New York Language Academy" and "London Language Academy", yet neither of those is the name of a language.

As I said before, let's just say what the facts are, or ask if we don't know. Why criticize people for not guessing? Wikipedia edits are full of "guesses" that aren't actually correct and have to be fixed, when just checking in the first place would have saved trouble.

Have a good one. -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 04:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Point taken. Thank you. Roger (talk) 15:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

natural resources

what are the natural resources of south africa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.30.36.61 (talk) 16:25, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Olympic Banning

Why is there no information about South Africa's being banned from the Olympics in 1964 due to its apartheid policies? 130.160.193.236 (talk) 13:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

See South Africa under apartheid. This article is a general overview of the country - not a comprehensive record of everything that ever happened there. Roger (talk) 16:51, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Repeated demographic edits

The same unsourced, seemingly inaccurate edits are being made to this article every day. Each edit is from a different IP address, but the parts of the article edited are consistent. The demographic racial breakdown is being changed to show a far higher number of white South Africans, the AIDS infection rate is being increased, various other minor details are being tampered with. Examples of these edits are [10], [11], [12] and [13]. All edits come from an IP address allocated to Bell.

I initially assumed good faith, but after the 3rd and 4th edit, this appears to be vandalism. Firstly, please be on the lookout for these unsourced changes and roll them back promptly. And secondly, I'm struggling to return the national population to a "correct" figure. CIA world factbook has 43.8m, Statistics South Africa has 47.9m. That's a very big discrepancy, simply choosing one over the other seems arbitrary. --HiltonLange (talk) 05:32, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the South African Government would have a better idea of the number of people is South Africa that the CIA. The CIA probably just haven't had time to update their site; they're all out looking for Osama bin Laden.

Re the comments above about figures being changed....rubbish. Moenie kom kak praat nie. It is the South African government that lie about the figures these days not the "whites". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.9.123 (talk) 19:55, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

3 capital cities?

The article states:

South Africa is the only country in the world with three capital cities. Cape Town, the largest of the three, is the legislative capital; Pretoria is the administrative capital; and Bloemfontein is the judicial capital.

So actually, the above is 4, if we were to include Johannsburg.. But doesn't Phillipines also have 4 capitals? And many countries have 2 capitals (e.g. Malaysia, Hollands etc). Albeit, Not sure about 3 capitals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Waqas1987 (talk • contribs) 11:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Johannesburg is not a capital city. --HiltonLange (talk) 13:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, even Bloemfontein is no longer a 'capital city', as the Supreme Court which is based there has been superseded by the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg. SA is fairly unique in that it has split the three power centres of government (the executive, legislature and judiciary) into three different cities. This was done for political reasons relating to the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. But to be honest, the whole concept of having three capital cities is flawed, since it's based on the incorrect assertion that your capital city is the city which houses your executive, legislative and judicial HQs. In reality, your capital city is whatever you declare it to be or (in the case of Israel) whatever other countries accept it to be. South Africa has always had only one capital city, Pretoria (Tshwane). — Impi (talk) 14:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

But on what declaration, then, are you basing the claim that Pretoria/Tshwane is the only capital city? When has the government made a declaration of that nature? The only argument for Pretoria being the only capital is that Pretoria is the location of the administrative headquarters, which is exactly the type argument you describe as flawed. - htonl (talk) 08:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

No, my argument was that believing that the cities holding your legislative, judicial and executive headquarters were all automatically 'capital cities' as a result of their having these institutions was flawed. After all, were we to still abide by that, then we'd have to conclude that Johannesburg had now replaced Bloemfontein as the judicial capital as the result of the ConCourt now being the highest court in SA. The South African government treats Pretoria as the de facto official capital of SA, since it is also the location of the head of government and where most government duties are undertaken. This is, in effect, a declaration of sorts. Furthermore, all foreign countries, correspondents and so forth regard Pretoria as the capital city of SA, which is why their embassies are based there. Look, I'm ok with compromising and referring to Pretoria as the 'administrative capital' for the sake of Wikipedia and I don't think my personal rant is justification for changing the article, but come on, we all know it's a sham. It was silly when it was done to placate provincial governors in 1910 and it remains silly now. I just don't see the merit to it. — Impi (talk) 16:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Whoops, you are right that Johannesbourg is not the capital, my stupid mistake. However do u have a citation to show that it is the only country in the world with 3 capitals. From the top of my head, as I mentioned before, Phillipines has 4 capitals and many countries have 2 capitals. I am not sure how many countries have 3 capitals from the top of my head, but hoepfully someone can provide a source to that statement.--Waqas1987 (talk) 16:58, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

(Semi-) Protection requested

This article is prone to petty vandalism from unregistered users. It is my feeling that a semi-protected status of the article would be highly useful if we want to get it back to FA-status. Any support for this proposal? Michel Doortmont (talk) 22:46, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

And again vandalised twice today... Michel Doortmont (talk) 15:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Requested semi-protection with the administrators. Michel Doortmont (talk) 16:15, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Article semi-protected until 2 May 2008; let's hope it helps. Michel Doortmont (talk) 16:21, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Asked for semi-protection again in view of large amount of vandalism by IP users. Michel Doortmont (talk) 19:36, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protection issued until 27 May 2008; let's hope it helps this time. Michel Doortmont (talk) 21:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

GDP Accuracy

I think that the GDP listed might be a bit high; $470T is more than the rest of the world combined. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.181.6.230 (talk) 05:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

You have missread - it is $470Billion, not $470Trillion. Roger (talk) 12:40, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Help w SA English

Can someone with some knowledge of the IPA help with SA English at IPA chart for English? There's a column there waiting for ya. It seems silly for SA to be left out. kwami (talk) 20:04, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Mining Industry?

I don't want to edit this article, since it is of fairly high quality in most parts. However, as a South African, I find it astonishing that there is little or no mention of the mining industry. Given that it really is the backbone of the economy, should it not be discussed in more detail? Companies like Anglo American PLC and De Beers were founded there, but at this point, the words "mine" and "mining" don't even appear in the article. (Gold, diamonds and "minerals" are mentioned as an aside under International Trade.) Warrickball (talk) 13:43, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Early History of South Africa

The early history of South Africa is complete rubbish on this page, it is full of inaccuracies and blatant falsehoods- especially regarding the Dutch period and the Batavian Republic. I was attempting to edit this material but had it deleted, I had not had time to put the references in, I shall try again, maar kom man, moenie die voorslag so hard klap nie!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.9.123 (talk) 19:52, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

You need to have sources ready before adding potentially controversial claims. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 20:02, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Khoi and Bushmen

So I bother to type up and source very carefully verifiable information from reliable sources regarding the history of the aboriginal Khoi and Bushman peoples and it is deleted. What is the point? I suppose this page is just the mouthpiece of the ANC and the South African Tourism Board. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.9.123 (talk) 18:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Cutting and pasting (as you did from here is not permitted. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 18:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I have now edited and corrected the early history sections and endeavoured to provide as many sources as possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.9.123 (talk) 19:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:South Africa/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Preliminary Review

Unfortunately, I do not believe this article is yet ready for GA status. The main reason for the fail is because the sections are severely under-referenced. Any other information that cannot be verified and cited should be removed. Please provide adequate references as required by Wikipedia:Verifiability. Along with those changes, check out comparison articles such as Australia, which is considered to be a prime example of how country pages should look or at Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. I will leave the article up on the GAN page so that other editors can have the opportunity to add their own comments. Best, Epicadam (talk) 20:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Editors should use the following comments as a guide to improve the article to the GA status aside from the reference issues.

Overall

• While not a hard and fast rule, citations typically go after punctuation marks. For example:

Good: The cow jumped over the moon.

Bad: The cow jumped over the moon.

Worst: The cow jumped over the moon.

• There are currently too many subsections. Make sure the article follows the proper outline as suggested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries:
  • Lead
  • History
  • Government/Politics
  • Subdivisions
  • Geography
  • Economy
  • Demographics
  • Culture
  • Any other topics
    • As for sections on "Health" and "Crime", I'm not sure how to best handle these subjects. Normally, I would say they should be included under a larger topic, but in the case of South Africa, where they are such major issues, they may qualify as their own. Input from other editors would be appreciated especially on this point.
• Websites should be part of external links
• Use a citation checker to verify all links are working properly.
• Article can be better Wikified to supply internal links.
• Make sure that in-text external links like this are avoided. If there is material that needs to be referenced, it should be done so properly using citations.

Lead

• "Due to this it is the most socially, economically and infrastructurally developed country on the continent." This is a pretty lofty claim that I do not think is supported by the material provided, especially about the country being the most "socially-developed".
• "South Africa has experienced a different history from other nations in Africa because of early immigration from Europe and the strategic importance of the Cape Sea Route." Not sure what a "different history" means? I'm sure all countries have different histories. Other countries in Africa do also have European immigration, though not as much, and other countries also have extremely significant trade routes, Egypt for one.
• Ensure that information present in the lead is repeated later in the article.
• "South Africa is often called the "Rainbow Nation", a term coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and later adopted by then President Nelson Mandela. Mandela used the term "Rainbow Nation" as a metaphor to describe the country's newly developing multicultural diversity after segregationist apartheid ideology. By 2007, the country had joined Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, and Spain in legalising same-sex marriage." Not sure this belongs in the lead.

History

• Subsections are unnecessary, they are not present in other GA-status country articles.
• The following sentences are long and/or awkward. Revisions would be best to ensure flow:
  • Sentence starting: "Settlements of Bantu-speaking..."
  • Sentence starting: "The southernmost group was the Xhosa people..."
  • Sentence starting: "When he returned to Lisbon carrying news of the discovery..."
  • Sentence starting: "A long period of harsh suppression by the government..."
• "Along with the accounts of the very early navigators, the accounts of shipwreck survivors provide the earliest written accounts of Southern Africa. In the two centuries following 1488, a number of small fishing settlements were made along the coast by Portuguese sailors, but no written account of these settlements survives." Why does the topic sentence introduce "written accounts" but then the next sentence says that there are none?
• "Cape Malay mosques in District Six were spared, and now serve as monuments for the destruction that occurred around them." How does that relate to anything else being discussed in the paragraph?
• "The Boers successfully resisted British encroachments during the First Boer War (1880–1881) using guerrilla warfare tactics, much better suited to local conditions." The Boers are a rather important group in SA history... perhaps best to explain who they are first? There's no mention of Boers nor the Boer republics before then.
• "(See also the article on the History of South Africa in the apartheid era.)" Use the {{seealso}} or {{main}} tags to provide such links.

Government

• Law can probably be merged in here.

Provinces, districts and municipalities

• The populations of each province is best left to the demographics section. No need for a table here, just list the states and say what their status is in relation to the national government.

Geography

• "South Africa is located at the southernmost region of Africa, with a long coastline that stretches more than 2,500 kilometres (1,550 mi) and across two oceans (the Atlantic and the Indian)." I think "across" is the wrong word here... perhaps "along"?
• Information about flora and fauna can be moved here.

Economy

• Information from the tourism section should be moved here.
• Split: "By UN classification South Africa is a middle-income country with an abundant supply of resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors, a stock exchange (the JSE Limited), that ranks among the top twenty in the world, and a modern infrastructure supporting an efficient distribution of goods to major urban centres throughout the entire region."
• This seems more like demographic info: "South Africa has one of the highest rates of income inequality in the world. A decade of continual economic growth has helped to lower unemployment, but daunting economic and social problems remain. The average South African household income decreased considerably between 1995 and 2000. As for racial inequality, Statistics South Africa reported that in 1995 the average white household earned four times as much as the average black household. In 2000 the average white household was earning 6 times the average black household. [3] The implementation of affirmative action policies have seen a rise in black economic wealth and an emerging black middle class.[11] Other problems are crime, corruption, and HIV/AIDS."
• The sentence starting "With high unemployment levels amongst poorer South Africans..." is too long.
• Agriculture is a part of Economy, merge there.

Demographics

• Merge religion and languages into this section.
• "Even though South Africa's population has increased in the past decade[25][27] (primarily due to immigration), the country had an annual population growth rate of −0.501% in 2008(CIA est.)" This is supposed to say had an "annual natural population growth rate of -0.501% in 2008", correct?
• "Despite high emigration levels, a high level of non-South African white immigrants have settled in the country, in particular from countries such as Britain and Zimbabwe. For example, by 2005, an estimated 212 000 British citizens were residing in South Africa. Since 2003, the numbers of British expats coming to South Africa has rose by 50%. An estimated 20 000 British expats moved to South Africa in 2007. The reasons cited by many expats are South Africa's family values, the weather and a better quality of life. South Africa recently overtook New Zealand as the 6th most popular destination amongst the British expat community." First off, just because somebody is from the UK does not mean that he or she is white. Second, according to the article, many of those British subjects are retirees who are looking for alternate places to retire (and where their pensions will go much further) or are native South Africans who wanted to return home (most often their British spouses). That should be made clear.
• "The major part of the Asian population of the country is Indian in origin (see Indian South Africans), many of them descended from indentured workers brought in the nineteenth century to work on the sugar plantations of the eastern coastal area then known as Natal." Earlier in the history section it says this, "To ease Cape labour shortages slaves were brought from Indonesia, Madagascar, and India. Furthermore, troublesome leaders, often of royal descent, were banished from Dutch colonies to South Africa." So were the Indians slaves or indentured servants? It makes a difference and highlights the need for proper sourcing.

Culture

• "South African cuisine is heavily meat-based and has spawned the distinctively South African social gathering known as a braai, or barbecue." The description of a "braai" doesn't sound any different than a barbecue that takes place anywhere else...
• "South Africa has also developed into a major wine producer, with some of the best vineyards lying in valleys around Stellenbosch, Franschoek, Paarl and Barrydale.[43]" Probably better off in the economy or even geography sections.
• "White and Coloured South African singers are historically influenced by European musical styles including such western metal bands such as Seether (formerly Saron Gas)." What is this nonsense?
• Move to demographics:

"The country's black majority still has a substantial number of rural inhabitants who lead largely impoverished lives. It is among these people, however, that cultural traditions survive most strongly; as blacks have become increasingly urbanised and westernised, aspects of traditional culture have declined. Urban blacks usually speak English or Afrikaans in addition to their native tongue. There are smaller but still significant groups of speakers of Khoisan languages which are not included in the eleven official languages, but are one of the eight other officially recognised languages. There are small groups of speakers of endangered languages, most of which are from the Khoi-San family, that receive no official status; however, some groups within South Africa are attempting to promote their use and revival.

The middle class lifestyle, predominantly of the white minority but with growing numbers of Black, Coloured and Indian people,[44] is similar in many respects to that of people found in Western Europe, North America and Australasia. Members of the middle class often study and work abroad for greater exposure to the world's markets.

Asians, predominantly of Indian origin, preserve their own cultural heritage, languages and religious beliefs, being either Christian, Hindu or Sunni Muslim and speaking English, with Indian languages like Hindi, Telugu, Tamil or Gujarati being spoken less frequently, but the majority of Indians being able to understand their mother tongue. The first Indians arrived on the famous Truro ship as indentured labourers in Natal to work the Sugar Cane Fields. There is a much smaller Chinese community in South Africa, although its numbers have increased due to immigration from Republic of China (Taiwan)."

Military

• This is just a suggestion, but military is usually part of a larger section that also deals with foreign policy.

International Rankings

• I'm not sure if these should be present. Relevant rankings are typically available on the main country factbox template. Perhaps a main page for south africa rankings with a link should be provided?

2nd opinion by Nikki

I agree that this article isn't yet up to GA standards. Here are some suggestions for improvement (which may or may not overlap with the above, as I haven't read through it completely):

• Per WP:LEAD, the lead should be up to four paragraphs, not more.
• Definitely take care of citation in every section that was tagged as needing them.
• In the image captions, only add a period if the caption is a complete sentence.
• Several of the references need to be formatted using Template:cite web.
• There are a few paragraphs containing only one or two sentences. These should be expanded or merged into the surrounding paragraphs.
• A copyedit or two wouldn't hurt either, as I saw some comma and grammar problems in the article.

Good luck with improving the article. Nikki311 02:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Re your comment:- I find the historical inaccuracies on the South African page controversial, who put them there in the first place? If you wish to play that game then the early history section should be deleted entirely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.9.123 (talk) 17:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

See this edit, the paragraph starting with "Embedded in the rocks found in...." and compare it to this page. Word for word. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 19:45, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

South_Africa#Oldest_human_group

Do we really need this section in the South Africa article? It is already covered in Khoisan where is seems to belong better than in South Africa. It would make a lot more sense to remove this detail from the history section and include more detail on the migration of the Koisan, the Bantu expansion into South Africa, the different tribes, their leaders, settlements and wars. Any opinions? --NJR ZA (talk) 18:12, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Agree, it's copy-pasted from the Khoisan article, and has far too much detail for the main South Africa article. --HiltonLange (talk) 19:13, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow, there's masses of copy-pasted stuff in the article since this weekend. 81.157.8.160 has replaced the entire history section, and IMHO the new content is far less organized than the old. The edits border on entirely unconstructive. I'll look through them and see which of them improve the article and are better referenced than the old. --HiltonLange (talk) 19:38, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Is very irritating as I worked through and summarized the history article a week ago - and come back to find it such a mess! Have started working through the first half of the history section (though it still needs refs) and have got up to the independence section. Glad that you'll also be working on it. --Cazo3788 (talk) 19:56, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Military

The statement. "It has become the first country (followed by the Ukraine) with nuclear capability to voluntarily renounce and dismantle its program and in the process signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991." is at best misleading. It may have been the first with an indigenous nuclear programme to have done so, but if so, why was the Ukraine included in the same category (I believe that the latter's nukes were inherited from the former USSR).

Numerous NATO nations had a nuclear capability, using US warheads, during the Cold War. Canada got rid of the last of her nukes in the 1980s and Greece followed c.2001.

Suggest amendment.

137.186.55.228 (talk) 13:14, 11 July 2008 (UTC)Bob Herold

The NATO example is not at all comparable. Those weapons were US owned and controled even if they were located in other NATO countries (in some cases there is/was "dual key" control). The Canadian, Greek, etc. government could not use "their" nukes without the agreement and participation of the US. The post-Soviet Ukrainian nuclear weapons were not owned or controlled by Russia, they were entirely under Ukranian ownership and control, which makes their situation comparable to SA.

How about saying: "It is the first country (followed by the Ukraine) with independent nuclear capability to voluntarily renounce..."?

That would "eliminate" the foreign based US controlled weapons from the meaning of the sentence. The phrase "has become" can also be replaced by "is" without changing the meaning. Roger (talk) 13:07, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

While I agree with the need to clarify the above statement, to be fair, the Nukes in Canada were owned by Canada, not the US, even though they were built in the US. Also as Canada was part of the Trilateral Agreement (with the US and UK), Canada has had the ability to build Nuclear weapons since 1945, and most US nuclear weapons were made from Canadian parts (enriched Uranium) until the 1980s. As to the Ukraine, why would Belarus and Kazakhstan not also be referenced? Both countries were in the same situation as the Ukraine, and voluntarily disarmed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.148.123.76 (talk) 08:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Having "the ability to build nuclear weapons" and actually doing it are quite different things. I would also like to see some evidence that a Nato country has the independent ability to use nuclear weapons without first kowtowing to Uncle Sam. Afaik only France has the ability to act entirely independently from the rest of Nato. But anyway this is a rather pointless debate for this page: I think it is quite enough to simply state that SA was the first to unilaterally disarm, there is no need to tag on a list of all the others that followed in this article. Roger (talk) 15:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Too many cooks?

Perhaps I'm the only one that feels this way, but this page seems to lack homogeneousness.

Much of the article does not read well, and lacks "flow". Try reading it from top to bottom and you'll see what I mean. It reads like a high school student's assignment that was done the night before. All "cut and paste" from different sources.

My feeling is that its become more of a soap box, a platform for people to air their views. Look just because you have an opinion, and a fact to back it up, does not mean it should make its way into this page. How about we have another look at the page, and see it through the eyes of others, non Safers. Think about what Jo Blogs expects to find when researching South Africa, what he or she may be looking for,and not what you want him or her to find or know. Compare it to pages on other countries if you're not getting the gist of what I'm saying.

And please don't be take offence. I'm truly trying to give some constructive criticism. I just feel that the page could be a lot better than its present state.

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.222.6.200 (talk) 10:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think most people would agree with your sentiments, have a look at the post titled GA Review. My objection is somewhat more philosophical in nature.

South Africa is a country with large differences in equality, that roughly follow racial lines.

South Africa is also a country where internet access is primarily reserved for those who are privileged.

Bearing this in mind, it would be safe to assume that the contributers here on Wikipedia are from a more privileged background. That would mean that the opinions here, backed by "fact" or not, are not representative of the larger majority.

The result is that this article is anything but NPOV (not the whole article, but certainly parts of it). It aims to nudge or lead the reader into thinking a certain way. Even though some of these claims are referenced, the writers clearly start out with a point of view which they wish to back up.

Ordinarily, on any other Wikipedia page, these views would be balanced by opposing views that would be equally well referenced, debated on the discussion page, and then a compromise struck and entered onto the main page.

But on a page about South Africa, written by privileged South Africans, it seems that the Wikipedia model fails.

And to top it all, some don't even bother to reference.

Perhaps the goal should be to take a more balanced approach, rather than flaunt our cleverly referenced views on Wikipedia?

A fellow privileged South African. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.183.134.129 (talk) 12:53, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

International rankings

This section is not necessary on the main country page and is not accompanied by explanations. Am placing section on the talk page - however, section requires either separate wikipedia article or totally unnecessary to the topic.

International rankings

Organisation	Survey	Ranking
A.T. Kearney/Foreign Policy Magazine	Globalization Index 2005	48 out of 62
Heritage Foundation/The Wall Street Journal	2007 Index of Economic Freedom	52 out of 157
IMD International	World Competitiveness Yearbook 2005	46 out of 60
Reporters Without Borders	Press Freedom Index (2007)	43 out of 169
Save the Children	Children's Index Rank 2005	65 out of 110
The Economist	Worldwide Quality-of-Life Index 2005	92 out of 111
Transparency International	Corruption Perceptions Index 2007	43 out of 179
United Nations Development Programme	Human Development Index 2006	121 out of 177
World Economic Forum	Global Competitiveness Report 2006-2007	45 out of 125
Yale University Center for Environmental Law and Policy and Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network	Environmental Sustainability Index	96 out of 146 countries

--Cazo3788 (talk) 14:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The history of apartheid

The independence section under "History" has become a to-and-fro edit battle about exactly when apartheid started. The last edit lists each and every act that was passed pre-1948, all unreferenced, in an apparent effort to show that the National Party did not start apartheid. This has the net effect of making the section of the article unreasonably long and straying from the core topic of that section. I would suggest that we trim it back to the original core text, it's simply not the correct location for an essay on the full evolution of apartheid. --HiltonLange (talk) 13:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. There is a comprehensive article for Apartheid where such detail would be more welcome. Roger (talk) 15:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

1928-1994 flag and the Union flag

Looking closely at the RSA flag on Wikicommons, it clearly carries a few other flags upon it, including the UK Union flag. However this appears (the relative widths of the red and white diagonals) to be placed upside down - usually regarded as a sign of distress. Is this correct for the RSA flag? Is there a particular meaning to it? Andy Dingley (talk) 17:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Not upside down, just in reverse or viewed spread towards the hoist (with the flagpole on the right rather than the left). Including the Union Jack was apparently rather controversial and the final compromise seems to have been to keep the flagpole in the center and hang all three flags from it, the Union Jack to the left, the Orange Free State vertical and the Transvaal to the right. More info here --NJR ZA (talk) 17:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Is this somehow POV?

"Statistics South Africa reported that in 1995 the average white household earned four times as much as the average black household. [etc.]"

Considering that white South Africans are a (relatively) highly urbanised minority, and consequently have an income distribution that is much more normally distributed than more rural black South Africans, how meaningful is this statistic? Couldn't a better indicator be the racial composition of the urban middle-income bracket? I can't decide, since as a white South African I obviously have a POV of my own, and I don't want to pollute the article with it. Is there a statistician in the house? -- WolfieInu 09:47, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a statistician, but wouldn't the lower numbers mean that the distribution is less normally distributed than that of "rural black South Africans"? I'm just thinking about the central limit theorem, and the law of large numbers...

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 14:30, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Neither am I a statistician, but I think what Wolfie is saying is not about the actual sizes of the groups. Rather, it is that the income statistics for black South Africans are going to reflect the large number of people with no income or very small income, which means that they will not be normally distributed around the average. Which may or may not mean that comparing the average incomes as a ratio is less meaningful; I don't personally have any particular opinion about that. - htonl (talk) 14:50, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Ohhh.... It makes sense now! Though it sounds a bit weird to say that the larger numbers would make the variable less normally distributed, which is what it sounded like he was saying with "...a (relatively) highly urbanised minority, and consequently have...".

Anyways, that's irrelevant...

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 15:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I see what you're saying... but I don't think the Central Limit Theorem and law of large numbers will have much of an impact with samples of this size... I meant to say that the one sample is highly skewed to the right, whereas the other sample is almost symmetrical about its mean. -- WolfieInu 09:13, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the input :)

So... opinions, or do we just keep things as they are? -- WolfieInu 12:43, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

date formats

No South Africans at WP:MOSNUM or WP:MOS, it appears. This is a great pity, because as one of the seven countries with large numbers of native anglophones, you're having no say in the debate on the choice of date formats. This debate is occurring about five years too late, since our readers have been viewing raw date formats since the year dot. It has been brought into focus by the recent deprecation of date autoformatting.

I wonder whether you can urgently provide answers to the following questions:

1. What date format is currently used in South Africa? dmy (11 October 1989), mdy (October 11 1989), or both?
2. Is usage different for native anglophones compared with others?
3. Do WP articles with strong ties to South Africa use one or other, or either? Tony (talk) 11:07, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

1. We use dmy - the American style mdy is frequently misinterpreted if the month is indicated by a number rather than a name and the day is between 1 and 12. Ymd is also occasionally used (I think that is the ISO standard format.

2. No.

3. Preferably dmy, ymd would also be acceptable but never mdy. Roger (talk) 17:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

No government

Not sure how the editors want to represent that, but essentially there isn't one. At least until Thursday 25th Sept 2008 and it's totally unclear of who is actually going to step in.

I crossed out Mbeki in the mean time.

ColinAlston (talk) 14:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Mbeki's resignation is only effective on Thursday the 25th, as are the resignations of members of cabinet. Mbeki is the current president of South Africa, a few editors have jumped the gun with this one. --HiltonLange (talk) 17:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Well technically speaking his resignation became official at midnight on the 24th.

So currently, (while they are busy voting in his replacement), the speaker of Parliament is president. But there is no point in changing it for a few hours. FFMG (talk) 11:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Khoisan

This article seems to completely ignore the Khoisan who are after all the original South Africans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.245.131.195 (talk) 11:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

If you can find sources to back this up and then propose an edit, we could do something about that. Not that it isn't a good idea or that I don't agree with you, but it would probably be better if you phrased this as a (more specific) proposal rather than as an accusation. -- WolfieInu 11:13, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Barbara Hogan

I am certainly not very respectful of her. She is completely unqualified for the position. In a recent interview she was unwilling or unable to express any opinion on the South African healthcare system what so ever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.240.107.122 (talk) 19:11, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, but what exactly does this have to do with the article, or with Wikipedia for that matter? -- WolfieInu 11:15, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Until before an edit, the article referred to her as "Highly Respected" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.145.93.174 (talk) 20:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Ja, I agree the page had a POV at the time, but in that case you should either

a) just sommer remove the "highly respected" statement (as per WP:BOLD), or

b) refer specifically to the passage you want to change and propose a change on this talk page.

But in neither case should you insert your comments on the encyclopaedia page itself, otherwise it could mislead readers. We're aiming for WP:NPOV here, after all... not to replace one POV with another (even though I agree with your opinion).

By the way - you should get yourself an account. Wikipedia needs you :) -- WolfieInu 06:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Long article "leader"

I wonder if we could cut down the length of the article leader. It's actually supposed to be nearer to a paragraph in length, but a lengthy (and arguably irrelevant) discussion of history makes up the most of it. It should probably be cut down to a few terse sentences and a link to History of South Africa. -- WolfieInu 15:53, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Is South Africa a Western Nation?

Probably only Western and Northern Cape can be considered part of the West as a consequence of their clear Western European heritage (language, religion, ethnicity) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.31.72.58 (talk) 22:52, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

African Savannah

The average day time temperature is 75 degrees farenhight. The extreme temp is 90 degrees and coldest is 64. Seasons are distant but differ. Tropical seasons are dry or wet, hot or cool but not ever cold. The savannah covers 1/4 of Africa.

Lion King takes place in the African Savannah.

Safaris, riding elephants, camping, horseback riding and gorilla tracking are things you can do on the African savannah.

Dangers to humans are: 1) Floods 2) Fires 3) Wild animals

The African Savannah Rules!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

As a South African, I'd just like to ask, why the hell are you using Fahrenheit temperatures? And in South Africa we don't have 'Savannah', Savannah constitutes open tropical grassland with scattered trees, what we have is sub-tropical woodland ('Bushveld') with occasional large clearings and plenty of grass, and on the Highveld we have temperate grassland. There is no Savannah in SA, you'll find that further north in Africa.--Zimbabwe for the British 14:58, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Savannah covers over a third of South Africa. Take a look at: Rutherford, M.C., Mucina, L., Lötter, M.C., Bredenkamp, G.J., Smit, J.H.L., Scott-Shaw, C.R., Hoare, D.B., Goodman, P.S., Bezuidenhout, H., Scott, L., Ellis, F., Powrie, L.W., Siebert, F., Mostert, T.H., Henning, B.J., Venter, C.E., Camp, K.G.T., Siebert, S.J., Matthews, W.S., Burrows, J.E., Dobson, L., van Rooyen, N., Schmidt, E., Winter, P.J.D., du Preez, P.J., Ward, R.A., Williamson, S. & Hurter, P.J.H. 2006. Savanna Biome. In: Mucina, L. & Rutherford, M.C. (eds.), The vegetation of South Africa , Lesotho and Swaziland , pp. 438-539. SANBI, Pretoria.

Federal?

South African Dream (talk) 19:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC) South Africa is a constitutional democracy and a parliamentary republic, but it is not a federation. The 9 provinces are not partially self-governing states. This was a major discussion point during the 1993 CODESA and multi-party negotiation process. The white conservatives and Buthelezi's Inkatha wanted a federation where they could ensure some kind of cultural autonomy, but the ANC did not want to budge, since their philosophy is clear on the "one South Africa" issue. (See the Freedom Charter).

According to the South African Constitution (1996):

1. Republic of South Africa The Republic of South Africa is one, sovereign, democratic state founded on the following values:

• Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms.
• Non-racialism and non-sexism.
• Supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law.
• Universal adult suffrage, a national common voters roll, regular elections and a multi-party system of democratic government, to ensure accountability, responsiveness and openness.

Maybe someone with proper sources/references could research this properly and change the 'federal' references in this article and the "politics in SA" article?

This is a point that has frequently been debated. According to the article on federalism

“ The term federalism is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and constituent political units (like states or provinces). Federalism is a system in which the power to govern is shared between national and state governments, creating what is often called a federation. ”

I would say that this describes quite accurately the system of government in South Africa, even if the constitution doesn't explicitly mention federalism. - htonl (talk) 21:33, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect, I don't think it is up to us to decide or discuss whether the country should be a federation or not, that is up to the "founding fathers" - the writers of the constitution. As such, it is a well-known fact that Germany and Switzerland are federations (Switzerland officially a confederation) where the individual states have considerable autonomy - as per the constitutional design - and the word is even used in the country's name, e.g. "Federal Republic of Germany". That is NOT the case in South Africa and in no way can a South African province be compared to, for instance, an American or a German state or even a Swiss canton. According to the CIA World Factbook, South Africa's government type is listed as "republic", while Germany and the United States are listed as "federal republic". —Preceding unsigned comment added by South African Dream (talk • contribs) 18:55, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

South Africa is definitely a federation in the South African term of delegating provincial responsibilities like education, waste removal, and so forth, whilst still limiting the powers of each province in other respects. I believe the conventional international notion of federalism is however more autonomous states or as said above, the Swiss cantons e.g. The state of provincial autonomy in South Africa is not disputed, this is simply a matter of definition.  — Adriaan (T★C) 21:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Flora and Fauna

The section on Flora and Fauna includes "The book Scorched: South Africa's Changing Climate takes much of the modelling produced by SANBI and presents it in an accessible travelogue-style collection of essays.[33]" and links to a blog (http://www.scorched.co.za/). This information seems fairly inconsequential and smacks of shameless self-promotion. I suggest it is removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.171.193.104 (talk) 11:58, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree, and I've removed it. htonl (talk) 09:10, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Per Capita

Now, the per capita of South Africa go over $10,000; can anyone please update it, because Im not a autoconfirmed user, thank you P.S: Im going to watch the world cup next year, Im excited 41.249.33.1 (talk) 08:47, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but South Africa's GDP per capita has fallen since 1994, and its way below 10,000 now, sorry to hear that you think it's over 10,000 =/ Bezuidenhout (talk) 12:35, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

It depends on whether you adjust for Purchasing Power Parity. If you don't it's $4943.16; if you do, it's $10070.33. According to the IMF, anyway. - htonl (talk) 19:44, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Education

Education in South Africa for the most part is financially provided by the government with some fees from the parents. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.167.47.253 (talk) 18:22, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

This is not the truth. Parents pay exorbitant school fees for government as well as private schools and higher education is also not paid for by the government - only those who can afford the course or who has acquired a scholarship shall study. I do not know where you have come up with this statement, please provide a source for this controversial argument of yours.  — Adriaan (T★C) 21:02, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

It is true that higher education is not free - but I can tell you that the government subsidy per student to the universities is larger than the fee amount that students pay. That is why the fees for foreign students are so much higher than for locals. - htonl (talk) 16:09, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Surrounding Nations

The person who wrote the countries around South Africa mixed up Lesotho and Swaziland. Lesotho is to the West of South Africa and has coastline, meaning it is not an enclave. Swaziland is the enclave, surrounded entirely by South Africa in the center. I would have changed these but the page is locked. Can someone with the power to change it please do so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.220.154.84 (talk) 22:30, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid that the article has it right. It appears that you're thinking of Namibia? --HiltonLange (talk) 02:01, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Ja, the article has it right, please look up Swaziland and Lesotho and see where they are before you ask for a change in the article...--Part Time Security (talk) 15:28, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

. The article is right, you are wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaelphillipr (talk • contribs) 14:53, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

assignment

who are south africa's largest imports and exports? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.213.190.1 (talk) 13:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC) tyler mason —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.244.80.14 (talk) 21:51, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Crime

In the crime section it it is stated that:"Crime has had a pronounced effect on society: many middle-class South Africans moved into gated communities, abandoning the central business districts of some cities for the relative security of suburbs" the writer must mean white middle class when he or she states that " many middle-class..." since middle class black South Africans never lived in any significant numbers in both the city center or suburbs nor have they migrated in the manner suggested,this is obviously a falsehood that should be removed from this article unless the writer can provide proof for this claim,which does not exist since it is not true Boikanyo (talk) 20:33, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Great Ways to tour South Africa

In South Africa, they have many parks were animals are in their natural habitat and you can go to theses parks and stay there over night. They will feed you and take you on a tour in tour cars. You can go at night, early morning, middle day, any time and you will see lots of the wild life. Dont be afraid for they have security to make sure that no one gets hurt. It is fun and a wonderful sight to see while you are there.

Any references of the companies that provide this service? 65.51.87.2 (talk) 20:20, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

This is fantastically irrelevant, but try visiting the Kruger National Park, or go to wikitravel.org for info on visiting South Africa ManicParroT (talk) 06:08, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

APARTHEID

i think that a section should be added about apartheid, this would greatly help those studying history, and give them a better understanding of the subject —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.143.210.214 (talk) 13:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

It's discussed in the history section, and there's an article on South Africa under apartheid. - htonl (talk) 14:23, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

The introduction refers to the "establish[ment] of three classes of racial stratification". A very strange wording. Cannot this be re-worded into English?JohnC (talk) 06:57, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Innovation

I think it might be nice to include a few of the engineering achievements to the list. My favourites :-

• Tellurometer
• Deep level mining
• Dollos wave breakers

And a few more http://www.southafrica.info/business/trends/innovations/inventions.htm and http://zar.co.za/invent.htm Idyllic press (talk) 16:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Liberal Democracy? Hardly!

It is obscene to classify South Africa as a 'liberal democracy' when their leader is a lifelong member of the communist party and frequently talks about the people, the masses, peoples liberation, etc. Furthermore F.W. De Klerk himself even came out and said the 1994 election was rife with fraud. There's nothing democratic about a nation where the ruling party came to power via fraud and keeps power the same way. South Africa's government is no different than that of Zimbabwe, a de facto one party state by virtue of fraud, lies, violence, and corruption. With a lifelong member of the South African communist party in power, and communisty party officials frequently invited to attend national conferences and speak at public events, it seems that South Africa's government is increasingly taking on a communist appearance. I don't know if they're moving towards a centrally planned economy but classifying South Africa as a communist country instead of a liberal democracy is more appropriate, at least it deserves consideration. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.140.85.63 (talk) 17:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

F.W is hardly an impartial observer. In any case, even if there was fraud in the 1994 election, do you really think the ANC only won because of fraud? I'm pretty sure the majority of the population voted ANC. The ruling party came to power, and keeps power, by virtue of having the support of a majority of the adult population. As to the communism thing, I presume you know that the ANC has been in a formal alliance with the South African Communist Party since before 1994? It's not exactly a secret. Anyway, the fact that communists are part of the ruling party doesn't make South Africa a communist state. Communism is characterised by common ownership of the means of production, and the abolition of private property. Neither of these are the case in South Africa; the South African economy is a regulated capitalist one very much along European lines.

Now let us look at the characteristics of liberal democracy, and look if South Africa has them. Constitutional protection of individual rights from government power? Check. Universal adult suffrage in free and fair elections? Check. Multiple independent political parties? Check. An independent judiciary? Check.

The article on liberal democracy list South Africa (along with the US, Canada, the EU states, etc.) as a country that is "generally agreed" to be a liberal democracy. Freedom House lists it as "Free". What is "obscene" is - first - suggesting that South Africa is comparable to Zimbabwe in that respect - and second - assuming that because the Communist Party is a member of the ruling alliance, that it must be a communist state. - htonl (talk) 18:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

F.W. said that he didn't want to raise the issue of voter fraud due to his concerns that it might spark a civil war. Also, as for the ANC being a freely and fairly elected party do you have any idea what 'necklacing' is and what it entails? They were elected through fraud, intimidation, and corruption. Private property is increasingly under attack in South Africa due to squatters that take over entire buildings, farms, etc... Courts are very reluctant to evict these people since they seem to believe that the so-called "landless people" have a right to acquire the property of others. Nominally South Africa is a capitalist democracy, in actuality it is more in line with communist tyranny. They have elections but nothing ever changes and the ruling party always manages to receive a conveniently large majority of the votes. Furthermore they actually have their own variety of Zimbabwe style "land reform" which they call "willing seller, willing buyer" along the lines of what Namibia does. You are not free to sell your farm to anybody who wants to buy it, you must first let the government make an offer, which is a below market offer, and if you refuse you are not allowed to sell it. You certainly cannot sell your farm to foreigners. Instead of outright confiscating private property they create social conditions that result in people wanting to leave, with a requirement being they can only sell their farms to the government (at prices well below market rates). Thus they acquire your property that way, instead of outright confiscation. The end result is still the abolition of private property, only in a gradual fashion over time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.140.85.63 (talk) 20:38, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I know exactly what necklacing is. Do you know of any instance of necklacing in, oh, say the last ten years? How would necklacings over fifteen years ago affect election results now? The ruling party receives a "conveniently" large majority of the votes because a large majority of the people actually votes for them. All the foreign observers agreed that the latest election was free and fair. South Africa's land reform process could only be described as "Zimbabwe style" if you think that any type of land reform is "Zimbabwe style". Your explanation is not how "willing buyer, willing seller" works at all. And as to the "communist tyranny" thing, well, it's laughable; the economy is not "nominally" capitalist; it is capitalist. I live here and I think I could tell if there was workers control of the means of production. Hint: there isn't. - htonl (talk) 21:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

You're probably the sort of person who also does not believe the Soviet Union was a "real communist" county, am I right? Any land reform that puts artificial constraints on the right of a property owner to keep or dispose of his property as he sees fit is tyrannical, unjust, and most often communist in nature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.140.85.63 (talk) 21:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Nope, I believe the Soviet Union was really communist. And, based on living here, I can quite confidently say that South Africa is really not. If you believe that any restriction on land ownership is communist, then I'm afraid you have a definition of "communist" that varies wildly from the commonly accepted definition. In any case, this argument is entirely pointless: it's quite clear that the generally accepted view is that South Africa is a liberal democracy. - htonl (talk) 21:26, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Remember, Don't feed the troll :) Greenman (talk) 21:43, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm done here. That was going to be my last reply. - htonl (talk) 21:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

You throw out the term troll when I clearly did not say any restrictions but rather restrictions on the right of the owner to keep his land or dispose of it as he sees fit. If you are only free to sell your property at rates imposed by the government, to the government, you are not free to sell your land. If you are free to keep your land but not use it as you see fit, you are essentially forced to sell your land. As a matter of policy, South Africa's government is waging war on private property. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.140.85.63 (talk) 22:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Limited Information on the aboriginal Khoisan inhabitants.

Is it possible to add a bit more information on the Khoisan?It seems as though they have been largely ignored in this article.Seeing that they are the undisputed original inhabitants of this land,they should deserve more than a footnote.I am South African and descended from one of the Khoisan tribes,but I do not possess enough information on my own ancestors to venture an edit.I know surely,that this group is marginalised in my country.If you need proof,please refer to my original request. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theospeak (talk • contribs) 12:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

"Ethnicities"?

I'm not an expert on the subject, but I am pretty sure "Black", "White", "Coloured" and "Asian" are not real ethnicities (outside of outdated racist terminology). Are there any statistics on South Africa's different (real) ethnic groups? Emulsifier (talk) 05:31, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, those four (along with "Other", the numbers of which are minimal) are the classifications that Statistics South Africa uses for the Census and that the government uses for affirmative action/BEE. It's true that they're probably not ethnicities in a anthropological/sociological sense. - htonl (talk) 09:26, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh but they are very real, being a south african Black means of full 'Bantu Black African Blood'. White is being of pure european origin, Coloured being a mix between any two races (99.9% being between white and black), and Asian.. well.. anyone with origins to asia. One could sau 'African American' isn't a real ethnicity.--Bezuidenhout (talk) 15:09, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

These four terms may be considered racist but they are still used by many publications where cultural or demographic difference is important. Using them also makes it easier to compare statistics with old statistics, I suppose. The BEE Act mentions them but also states that all non-whites are considered "black" when it comes to BEE (though in practice, a black black person is more likely to be hired than an Indian or Coloured black person). -- leuce (talk) 13:54, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Changing the map in the infobox

Well, let's talk about the map in the infobox then. Personally, I prefer the new map (File:AFRICA Location South Africa.png) because I find it more graphically appealing, but some editors clearly prefer the older one (File:LocationSouthAfrica.svg). - htonl (talk) 01:52, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I prefer the long-standing map. Not only is the newer map (which is based on an abortive style devised fro some European countries, which didn't go over well there, either) inconsistent with the locator maps in most country articles, with a horrid Mercator projection to boot, but the creator has added them to a number of articles without any substantial discussion or consensus, or with incivility and edit warring; the map cretor has been temporarily blocked as a result. This map is disagreeable and not an improvement over the prior one; consequently, I have restored the prior long-standing map. I believe a renewed consensus needs to be demonstrated before the map is changed again. Thoughts? Bosonic dressing (talk) 02:36, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, I have to agree that User:TownDown's behaviour in changing the maps has been completely unacceptable, and I absolutely agree that we need to come to a consensus before changing it (which is why this discussion is here). I don't have any particular objection to the old map, and I am coming to feel that the newer one has perhaps too much detail for a locator map. - htonl (talk) 08:28, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Languages Unique to South Africa

Under the Demographics section of the page it is written, "Some, such as the Zulu, Xhosa, Bapedi and Venda groups, are unique to South Africa." I thought I should point out that there are Venda speaking people in Zimbabwe. This can easily be verified by contacting the Zimbabwean embassy or any relevant government official. The above quoted assertion is therefore misleading and Venda must be removed from the list of languages unique to South Africa. W Muzondo (talk) 08:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

That is true. The Tshivenda area straddles both countries. Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 01:36, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Why protected?

I do not understand why this is protected. I understand that there is a small possibility of vandalism from South Africa's creation of apartheid, but that is just a small amount more than the majority of other articles. I think that the "vandalism-police" would definitely be able to handle anything that may occur here. Could someone unprotect it for ~3 days as a trial period? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scouto2 (talk • contribs) 14:20, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The King of South Africa

The 1931 Statute of Westminster did indeed give effective independence to South Africa. However the idea of a distinct King of South Africa never actually arose, because until the death of King George VI, the British Dominions were still considered to have one undivisible crown. That is in fact written into the Statute of Westminster.

Following the death of King George VI in 1952, there was a meeting of commonwealth prime ministers at which it was decided that the new queen could have a royal style and title that differed slightly in each of the individual dominions, while retaining an element of commonality. That was the beginnings of recognition of the concept of divisibility of the crown. In the UK, this was given legal recognition by the 1953 Royal styles and titles act. Other dominions followed suit. David Tombe (talk) 20:45, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

It's a complicated question, isn't it? I agree with the edit you made; the text that was there was misleading. On the other hand, the monarchy was to some extent divided in law; for example South Africa (as with the other dominions) had to separately pass the act for the abdication of Edward VIII. The article King of South Africa seems to have a reasonable summary. - htonl (talk) 22:02, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, But it would be more the separate declarations of war in 1939 that created an ambiguity over the issue, rather than the separate abdication acts. The separate declarations of war did indeed confuse the issue and leave the matter in some doubt. However, it was clearly pointed out in the UK parliament by Enoch Powell during the Royal styles and titles debate that the new 1953 Royal styles and titles act would be the first legal recognition of divisibility of the crown. He pointed out that the preamble to the statute of Westminster is quite clear on the fact that the commonwealth has got one undivided crown. And on that basis, Enoch Powell voted against the 1953 royal styles and titles act.

I would maintain that there was no change in the legal position in respect of 'unity of the crown' between the time of the 1927 royal styles and titles act and the death of King George VI in 1952. The concept of King of South Africa never really existed as explicitly as the article of that name suggests. From the first moment in time when such a concept did exist in theory, it was actually Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of South Africa. And it wasn't until the early 1970's that Australia and New Zealand actually passed royal styles and titles acts that made the matter so explicit. Did South Africa actually pass an act in this regard in 1953? I have forgotten. David Tombe (talk) 12:32, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Military

There is no evidence that South Africa conducted a nuclear weapons test. The Vela incident is explicable as a technical malfunction. South Africa's nuclear weapons weren't ready at the time of the incident. The statement that South African may have conducted out a nuclear test is overplaying the evidence. "Some believe that..." would be more accurate.JohnC (talk) 06:54, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Official names

Neither this article nor Official names of South Africa has a reliable source for the official names. We cannot assume that there are eleven official names because there are eleven official languages. Green Giant (talk) 05:26, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

But we can assume that no editor here is fluent in all eleven official languages, thus these names come from an external source, and are not something invented at Wikipedia.

I would also love to know what this source is.

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 07:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Linked from here you can find the text of the Constitution in all eleven languages, and if you look at the beginning of section 1 it gives you the official name of South Africa in that language. - htonl (talk) 09:15, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

It's ref'd now; problem solved. Seb az86556 (talk) 09:44, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for finding the source for the names. Now I have come across another little problem. In the Provinces, districts and municipalities section, we do not really need a detailed table of the provinces as this can be covered by the relevant daughter article. The problem is the table is presented using a one-use template ({{SouthAfricaProvinces}}) which defeats the purpose of templates. I would like to see the table removed and the template deleted. Green Giant (talk) 10:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree that the template-idea is stupid (MfD is here), but I don't really see why the table should be x-ed.... Seb az86556 (talk) 10:27, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I think we need to summarise that whole section; move as much detail as possible to the daughter article such as the column on the former homelands and provinces, and the multi-colored map. I was thinking of something like this:

==Provinces, districts and municipalities==

Main articles: Provinces of South Africa, Districts of South Africa, and Municipalities of South Africa

After the end of apartheid in 1994, the "independent" and "semi-independent" Bantustans were integrated into the political structure of South Africa by the abolition of the four former provinces (Cape Province, Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal) and the creation of nine fully integrated new provinces. The generally smaller size of the new provinces theoretically means that local governments have more resources to distribute over smaller areas. The nine provinces are subdivided into 52 districts: 6 metropolitan and 46 district municipalities. The district municipalities are further subdivided into 231 local municipalities. The six metropolitan municipalities perform the functions of both district and local municipalities. The new provinces are:

Province Capital Area (km²) Population Western Cape Cape Town 129,370 4,839,800 Northern Cape Kimberley 361,830 1,102,200 Eastern Cape Bhisho 169,580 6,906,200 KwaZulu-Natal Pietermaritzburg 92,100 10,014,500 Free State Bloemfontein 129,480 2,965,600 North West Mafikeng 116,320 3,394,200 Gauteng Johannesburg 17,010 9,688,100 Mpumalanga Nelspruit 79,490 3,536,300 Limpopo Polokwane 123,900 5,402,900

Green Giant (talk) 11:42, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

make DRC a link

The economy section references DRC - many people do not know that it means the Democratic Republic of the Congo. So I suggest making it a link.

It's a small detail, but since I couldn't edit the page myself..

Olbion (talk) 13:03, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. Green Giant (talk) 02:37, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Rape capitol of the world.

So why isn't this mentioned in the article? Also, "corrective rape", which does exist elsewhere but has become a very South African phenomena, is mentioned nowhere. And yeah, I am going to need a response on this one. --RyanTee82 (talk) 02:51, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

From the section of the article entitled Social issues:

“ The reported number of rapes per year is 55,000. [...] It is estimated that a woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped than learning how to read. One in three of the 4,000 women questioned by the Community of Information, Empowerment and Transparency said they had been raped in the past year. South Africa has some of the highest incidences of child and baby rape in the world. In a related survey conducted among 1,500 schoolchildren in the Soweto township, a quarter of all the boys interviewed said that 'jackrolling', a term for gang rape, was fun. ”

It doesn't explicitly use the term "rape capital of the world", but that's emotive language that's wouldn't be encyclopaedic. I think that section is fairly clear. - htonl (talk) 17:22, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay then, "rape capital, per capita, of the world." How about that? --98.232.178.38 (talk) 05:22, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, like I said, that would be emotive language that's not really suitable for an encyclopaedia. Surely the statistics that I quoted above from the article make it clear enough? - htonl (talk) 06:37, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Mzansi

There is a redirect from Mzansi to South Africa. Is it possible to include an explanation of the name Mzansi? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.7.29.33 (talk) 19:48, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

better yet, I'll nominate the redirect for deletion. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 20:43, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

There is a brief explanation of the name at List of country name etymologies#South_Africa, and I'd suggest that Mzansi should redirect there instead. - htonl (talk) 21:31, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I know, and I thought of that, too... wouldn't be opposed to it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 21:58, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Geography

Article claims: Njesuthi in the Drakensberg at 3,408 m (11,180 ft) is the highest peak in South Africa. Link to Njesuthi then says Mafadi is higher! www.peakware.com confirms Mafadi at highest in South Africa - 3450m (11,315 ft). Please correct/update.

Thanks Diffmark (talk) 14:36, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

that language-thing (again)

It is completely pretentious to call the language isiXhosa or SiSwati on English wikipedia. We don't refer to German as "Deutsch" or French as "Français", even though those are the "correct" names. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 08:41, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

No one said they were the "correct" names. If you're going to cite a source, at least be so kind as to not interpret its content. That's what "NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH" means -- it's an official policy.

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 09:57, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

But then surely saying "Northern Sotho" or "Sesotho sa Leboa" is 'interpreting', given that the source in question calls it "Sepedi"? - htonl (talk) 10:50, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

That's a difficult issue. Sepedi, and the official language actually used in government discourse, are two different things. Basically, everyone acknowledges the fact that someone made a mistake when that name was included in the draft constitution and it wasn't corrected in time (or something along those lines; it was correct in the draft but get changed in the final version). We could include "Sepedi", but then offer an explanation of the problem.

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 11:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

a) Who is "everyone" here?

b) The constitution also calls the county "Republic of South Africa" -- maybe you should start edit-warring on moving the article to that title and violating wikipedia's naming conventions in that way? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 20:21, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

RfC: Naming conventions @ Talk:South Africa

This question constitutes a precedent and requires wider community-attention: How should wikipedia refer to the official language(s) spoken in a particular country? An author insists on referring to Xhosa as isiXhosa, Zulu as isiZulu, etc.

Pro: The constitution of South Africa refers to the languages by their respective endonyms; thus, it constitutes the authoritative official source and must be adhered to.

Against: Wikipedia's naming conventions ask for the most commonly used English term; thus, the article about France refers to the official language as "French" even though the French constitution calls it français.

(Note that if the pro-side prevails, it might mean changing all country-articles according to the wording in each country's official constitution and/or legislation)

Thank you for your input. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 20:21, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

We should use the common English name for the following reasons:

• It is a Wikipedia naming convention to do so.
• The rest of the world (and therefor the audience to this encyclopedia) uses the common English names
• The South African government uses the common English names in English publication: Parliament states that majority of MPs speak Xhosa, Zulu or Sotho.
• Local government uses the common English names: USING MULTILINGUALISM TO BUILD A BETTER MUNICIPALITY, Street Fashion, LANGUAGE POLICY OF THE CITY OF TSHWANE 2 August 2007
• The ruling party, the African National Congress uses the English names in English publications: Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
• Even on government websites describing our National Anthem, isiZulu etc. may be used once initially, but after than it is quickly replaced by the more common English names: National Anthem, National Anthem
• Zulu/Xhosa speaking people use Zulu/Xhosa rather than isiZulu/isiXhosa when speaking in English: "Listen to me, I am Zulu, I speak Zulu, but...", MS SEROKE: Hello Kellina. Which language do you speak? MS MANANA: I speak Zulu. ‘I speak Xhosa, Zulu, English and maths‘'

--NJR_ZA (talk) 21:48, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

NJR has pretty much said what I was thinking. Even if one feels that it would be better or more sensitive to use the autonym, the standard for Wikipedia is the most common usage in English. As far as I can see, currently the most common English usage is not generally the autonym. If the "autonym movement" (for lack of a better term) is eventually successful and the most common English usage changes, then Wikipedia would of course change along with it. - htonl (talk) 00:53, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

In addition to the above and for the sake of objectiveness, here are the opinions of some non-wikipedians on the subject:

• Naming African Languages in English Dr. Orville Boyd Jenkins
• LANGUAGE NAMING CONVENTIONS More on the way languages are named in South Africa
• Mesthrie, Rajend (2002). Language in South Africa. Cambridge University Press. pp. p. 74. ISBN 0511031467. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)

--NJR_ZA (talk) 07:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Awesome! That's more points than I could ever have raised. Thank you Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 07:24, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Commonwealth of Nations

Just a small edit but surely Commonwealth of Nations of which South Africa is a member should be added to the list of major organizations South Africa is part of in the last part of the opening section of the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dodger9 (talk • contribs) 03:34, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

It is mentioned a few lines above that list that South Africa rejoined the Commonwealth of Nations. You have a good point but that list is already quite long, avoiding unnecessary additional organizations would be better. =>t3rminatr<=  ✉  23:35, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps dropping ATS or the African Customs Union would be appropriate? Am unaware of the significance of either organisation to South Africa as a nation so maybe someone better qualified could choose some of the organisations in the list which are most important to South Africa. unsigned comment added by Dodger9 (talk —Preceding undated comment added 01:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC).

Revising the article layout

If no one objects I'll began to switch the section orders to a more logical order. Ltwin (talk) 02:37, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

i think it is a sensable idea to change the layout as the one at the moment is rather confusing and looks messy:)

Nicknames

It might be worthwhile as a sentence somewhere or even in the fact box (I don't know if there's a precedent) to mention that, in an English context, this country is sometimes referred to as Mzsantsi, Azania etc. Just a thought, take it or leave it. 196.210.167.134 (talk) 23:35, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I actually think that would be a good idea, but from checking a few other countries I know have well known nicknames, I can't find any article on a country in which that's done. --Irish South African (talk) 05:43, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Indians in South Africa

Indians in South Africa made a siginificant contribution to the apartheid struggle.In 1893 Mahatma Gandhi came to South Africa and witnissed the injustice of the Inidan people by the White government. In 1894, Gandhi founded the Natal Indian Congress to fight for Indian rights. They worked together with the ANC organisation to abolish aprtheid, and many Indians were imprisoned on Robbin Island. Inidans and Blacks used to live side by side until the Apartheid government separted them. Most Indians settled in the Durban area of KwaZulu-Natal, where their culture and cuisine are very popular. Local Zulu children are even learning the ancient Indian dance of Bharatanatyam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Melan325 (talk • contribs) 19:27, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

How to pronounce the motto

Someone should make an audio file that says "ǃke e: ǀxarra ǁke", the South African motto. I found this on the official site of South Africa government but I'm not sure if it's public domain.  Grue  08:28, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Wrastler118, 29 March 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} Under the article describing "South Africa," it should be added under the sports section, that freestyle and greco-roman wrestling are also, increasingly popular sports in South Africa, as well as the comments I've posted below.

South African wrestler, Heinrich Barnes, recently competed in the 2008 summer Olympics for South Africa. Heinrich Barnes was a Jr College National Champ in the United States for North Idaho College and later became a NCAA All-American, placing 8th for [Oregon State University]http://www.osubeavers.com/sports/m-wrestl/mtt/barnes_heinrich00.html in 2009.

South Africa has also recently started up once again, Cultural Exchange trips for youth wrestlers to the United States and vice versa. 2010, will be the 2nd time in as many years that a team from the United States has traveled to South Africa for such a trip. The South African Junior National Team, will be making its 2nd trip to the United States in the past 3 yrs.

(Richard RockwellWrastler118 (talk) 16:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC))

Wrastler118 (talk) 16:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Not done: Welcome. The first part needs a reliable source which supports that freestyle and greco-roman wrestling are also increasingly popular. The third part also needs a reference. I've added the second part, which is adequately referenced. Celestra (talk) 18:01, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

This is way too much detail for the South Africa article. At the same time as Heinrich Barnes was finishing 8th for North Idaho, the Bulls were beating the Force in rugby, Steven Pienaar was scoring a goal for Everton, etc, etc. Let's keep some perspective here :) Greenman (talk) 18:22, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't entirely disagree, but it isn't the sort of addition that the semiprotection is there to protect against. Feel free to work out a reasonable balance with Wrastler118. Celestra (talk) 18:56, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

The entry on Heinrich Barnes was very, very far below the notability bar. South Africa has had 70 medals at the olympics, and has sent over 1000 athletes. Listing a single olympic athlete who hasn't won a medal is very inconsistent with the rest of the article. --HiltonLange (talk) 21:58, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

this articall is by emily ann carlton —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.192.1.12 (talk) 08:27, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Languages

The infobox listed names of peoples and territories rather than languages, which is like saying people from India speak Indian, or the peoples of North America speak Canadian, American, and Mexican. I've substituted the actual language names.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 06:05, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

See Talk:South_Africa/Archive_5#RfC:_Naming_conventions_.40_Talk:South_Africa. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 06:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

76jz —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.174.41.7 (talk) 10:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)