The problem with POSITIVE South Africans

I'm often accused of being too negative about South Africa, so let me try and explain why I believe negativity is the most postive approach we can take - in the same way that saying NO is often the best response to something that is unacceptable.

The thing is that the solutions we need are so radical - nothing short of a wholesale purge of all levels of government and the police and the declaration of martial law is going to save us. You can't stop a flood by sticking your fingers into the holes in the dyke. Extreme situations require extreme solutions - and no-one can deny that we are in extreme crisis - the latest being that our police force has just declared that they are too scared to fight crime because they are just getting fucked up, and the Commissioner of Police is implicated in organised crime on a massive scale, while the President says, "Oh don't worry, trust me, he's a good guy."

And how many people have gone on strike and marched on the Union buildings and refused to pay taxes in protest?

None. Because that would be a "negative" response wouldn't it? And we need to be "positive", don't we?

We're all looking on, going "oooh, let's not be negative, let's be positive - negativity is BAD!"

Meanwhile if more people took up radical negativity and said - STOP! we have had enough and we are not going to carry on trying to be positive while we are being driven over a cliff, then the more positive the future of this country would be.

I agree with JG Ballard on this type of thing - we need people (like me? lol) to keep rubbing our faces in it, cos we are so complacent and scared to confront what is actually going on outside of our little electrified picket fences.

If the black people in this country had taken a more "positive" attitude towards apartheid we'd never have escaped it!

I am not at all negative about our ability to have a healthy society - as long as we stop using positivity as a way of not confronting the task that lies ahead if we are going to get there.

Not to mention, it's easy for whites to be positive in this country when most of them are drinking or drugging or taking prescription medication to make themselves feel better about things!