I'm not going anywhere
Thanks to everyone who is coming back to see what's going on. There are some lively debates happening and I have even been emailed requests to remove news reports, as well as a couple of less savoury emails, asking me to remove the entire blog. I have asked for comments from political parties, and whether or not they get back to me is up to them. I'll include the list of parties I mailed below. I don't think I missed any, but let me know if I have.ANC, DA, FF+, UDM, ID, ACDP, IFP, MF, UCDP, AZAPO
SABC News won't comment on the whole Crime Expo SA web site because they don't want to give creedence to it. I understood that, until someone told me that Mr Watson was interviewd on SAFM. Did anyone catch that interview? What do you think? I'm worried that there are press agencies and news services reporting inaccurate and biased information using only Mr Watson's site as a reference. It doesn't listen to ALL South Africans.
Visit one of the sites on the right. They're all good.
Cheers
Addy
posted by Addy @ 2:44 pm
26 Comments:
Remind me what exactly your website is doing? Other than obviously ignoring and underplaying the crime catastrophe.
Do you think that as South Africans we don't know why we love the place. You don't need to try and tell me.
What I don't know, because parastatal censored organisations like SABC don't tell me, is the exact status of the crime problem.
Crime Expo does not try and replace the death of a policeman on the front page with the potential sacking of the Springbok rugby coach. South African lives are more important than sport!
If FIFA are lobbied to put pressure on Charles Nqaluka and the others within the SA government to do something about crime then I am all for it. Why would you be against that?
I think your worry about press agencies using only Mr Watson's site as a source of information ia a little silly (and I'm sure you know it). Most likely they would follow the SABCs lead and not publish any story that shows SA or its estemed leadership in any type of negative light.
From what I read on Mr Watson's site, the goal is really an attempt to get the powers that be to get their act together. We have serious crime issues and a minister of safety and security that puts out a message "If you don't like it, leave". To me that says he expects it to deteriorate and does not really care.
Hi Dave
I think you're misunderstanding my aim. I'm not against putting pressure on government, but tell me. What more can I do? What else? I'm against throwing gory images on the web without a solution to the problem, and no, holding your own government at ransom is not a solution.
People seem to think that there is a vast divide between 'government' and 'people'. I don't believe there should be, or that there even is. I'm not trying to work against my government. I will work with them. I voted for a different party to the one that is ruling. It is still my country and my government. Because I didn't WIN the election doesn't mean I am a loser for five years until I have another chance to compete.
If we create a positive, fair forum in which to analyse, discuss and possibly find a way out of our problems it is a better alternative to simply scaring off tourists because this country is broken and can't be fixed.
I'm not telling South Africans to love our country. The South Africans that don't love it have left. I believe Mr Watson loves South Africa, and he wants to live here safely. I also want to live safely. Tourism and the money they bring to our country can help us. By not promoting tourism, one thing that we REALLY have going for us, we are not shooting our government in the foot, we are shooting oursleves.
Lobby the government, but there is no need to take the leap out of our countries borders in order to be heard. We have solved bigger problems in the past, and that is something everyone is forgetting.
South Africa is my country. I love it. I don't want a web site devoted to negatives and obviously in accurate information to ruin that for me. I have driven on the N2 in Cape Town many times. I have a friend who uses it every day, day and night. Let's not blow problems out of the water. Let's see them for what they are and do something. Thanks for your comment by the way, I hope I've managed to explain myself better.
And please, how about coming home from grimy London, people like you can only help.
Cheers
Addy
...and for eveyone else, sorry this post was so long.
Hi Len, I can't get hold of an address for the PAC. I've found a site that seems to link me to the ANC. I'll keep trying though.
'Vanishingly small arrests'
10/07/2006 15:11 - (SA)
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Neuss, Germany - German authorities made about 9 000 arrests and temporary detentions at the World Cup, a figure that a senior official described on Monday as tiny.
Police registered about 7 000 offences during the month-long tournament, with bodily harm, theft and damage to property accounting for most of them, said Michael Endler, the head of the agency that oversaw deployments.
Of the 9 000 held in temporary custody or arrested, "80 percent were German, and the second-biggest group was probably the English," Endler said.
Endler noted that about 14m people gathered for outdoor screenings of World Cup matches, and said that "we have to see the figures against this background." He described them as "vanishingly small."
Police saw less violence than expected from both German and foreign hooligans.
"The bad boys from eastern Europe did not come in the numbers that were forecast," he said. Nearly all known English hooligans stayed home, he added.
In total, 850 people were injured - 350 troublemakers, 200 police officers and 300 bystanders. Sapa-AP
Addy
It seems that time and time again this site is being criticized for ‘trying to hide the truth.’ I think the (flawed) reasoning of ‘short-term’ visitors is as follow:
Premise: Crime Expo SA states its goal as exposing the true crime situation in South Africa.
Premise: Addy criticizes Crime Expo SA and its methods.
Conclusion: Addy is against the exposing of the crime situation in South Africa .
Perhaps you should focus less on Crime Expo SA and more on the changes you hope to cause and how you intend to do it? I myself sometimes wonder whether the MAIN goal of this site is to improve the situation in South Africa or whether it merely is to respond to Crime Expo SA?
Hi JP.. You do have a very good point, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting be to take every opportunity to shout to the world that CrimeExpo is giving a very skewed view on South Africa. And once again I have to point out that I know SA has a huge crime problem and that something has to be done about it. We seem to be a very apathetic Nation, sitting back and expecting problems to be solved by others and not willing to actually do something to help. I don’t think that setting up a sensationalistic site like crime expo is the right thing to do! I don’t believe that trying to harm the tourist industry is justifiable. The next people will start attacking and harassing tourists and all the "Proudly South African" companies because that will also harm South Africa.
Addy,
You have taken on a huge task, and done a good job so far in showing others outside SA that its citizens still believe in the country regardless of what is published on Crime Expo. Obviously the site has garnered massive interest since it was publicised on IOL, I just hope others outside SA are reading your site.
Obviously you love SA, that was never in question. I can't help feeling though that you are portraying a subjective point of view whereas Crime Expo is portraying the facts.
Yes, it does leave a bad taste in the mouth because he is so vindictive towards South Africa in the way that he portrays crime. But all the same he is not making anything up.
Perhaps he could have channeled the way he has done it in a more positive way.
As for me, I live in London because I can earn more money and travel the world, not because I don't like South Africa. Crime probably has a lot to play with this reason, if there was no crime our economy would be lot stronger, thats for sure. Its sad that a country as resourceful and dynamic as ours has to rely on tourism as our primary form of income. It should be industy, business, manufacturing etc.
Hi Barbara
I'd like to respond to your post :)
but that doesn’t stop me from wanting be to take every opportunity to shout to the world that CrimeExpo is giving a very skewed view on South Africa
This is exactly what I'm advocating against – shouting out to the world that they shouldn’t trust Crime Expo SA but rather this site because, well, we say so. Like it or not Neil Watson’s site contains ‘facts’, fabricated or exaggerated they might be and the average visitor is far likelier to believe his ‘facts’ than Addy’s ‘blogs’.
I do not believe that posting ‘Crime Expo SA is delivering a skewed view’ or linking to other blogs will convince any person who is not already (at least partially) convinced. The only way to gain credibility is by focusing and reporting on the positive aspects of South Africa, rather than focusing on Crime Expo SA.
Johannesburg - A woman was raped when she and her husband were hijacked in Brakpan, East Rand police said on Monday.
Superintendent Andy Pieke said the couple were attacked in Raasblaai Street in Dalpark on Sunday after 19:00 by two men armed with a gun.
"The men forced the husband and wife into the back seat of their car and drove to Vosloorus."
The husband was tied up and the wife was taken into the veld where she was raped," said Pieke.
The robbers then fled with the couple's car.
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1965634,00.html
My two cents' worth...
I agree with what you guys are saying about the discourse on this site. I think we need to drop some agendas.
Firstly, we need to drop the "people positive about SA vs people negative about SA" distinction and the "people living in SA vs people living outside SA" distinction. Whichever side of either of these two fences you're on, and no matter how passionately you occupy that side, your position on these matters is irrelevant to the practical issue of crime in SA and in no way affects your eligibility for that debate. Arguments that focus on these issues are unconstructive, and serve only to distract and confuse.
Secondly, the sooner we drop the "Unbroken Barometer (UB) vs Crime Expo South Africa (CESA)" agenda, the better. The issue of crime in SA is a serious problem and the debate should not be mired in a conflict between two websites, which is a peripheral issue. The UB has made its point about CESA. Now it can best distinguish itself by completely ignoring CESA and concentrating on more important things, like debating crime in SA carefully and bit by bit.
Thirdly, perhaps Addy should ban anonymous comments on the UB. Free speech is a right in SA, but this is commensurate with personal accountability for that speech. The anonymous comments on this blog have by and large been disruptive and immature, and anonymity serves only to protect the immature disruptors.
Well, I looked at the crime website. And all I see is a raging shout outwards, because there is a terrible need for security and peace. This is NOT about painting SA as a terrible country! This is a absolute last end of the line plea (read desperate and fed up) for the government (the people that the majority in SA voted for democratically) to lead them. Take the shepperd and his flock. The shepperds we have now is letting the wolves run free. We are bleating sheep! I truly truly love SA. But I canot live there. I am forced to find employment outside South Africa because of the color of my skin, and it is the only way I can at some level see to it that my family will be cared for. There is not a day that I want to go back and see my mother, father, sister and brother. But I also sit at night praying so hard that I never have to recieve a phonecall stating that my brother has been murdered, my sister raped, my parent s throats slit. Is it too much to ask to just go to bed one night, and sleep in peace? Without having to go to sleep with a gun in your hand? South Africa ROCKS!!!! But why must we tollerate people MURDERING in our midst every day. 20 000 people! (that they know of!) That is over 50 people a day dead! That is 50 families, 50 murderers. A day. Be damned black or white. Screw apertheid this and apartheid that. This is people getting killed NOW!!!! And to be honest, blacks are getting even more of the bad stick that whites are! Do your stats, and your families ticket is up sooner or later. Pardon my bad language, but it is fucked up to have a bunker mentality. People cannot defend themselves, we are ordinary people. We apply for weapons to defend ourselves, but we get disarmed. Our last vestiges of some safety force is disbanded, now the rural areas have nothing to defend themselves and their communities with (This goes for ALL the inhabitants of a area!) We are not crack army commandos that can use a half eaten apple to kill a person at 10 yards! We are mothers and fathers, schoolchildren, grandmothers, and the person next to you on the street. What can a 50 year old man do against 5 20 year olds. Nothing. But the old man did nothing wrong. Nothing. And he gets killed for what. For what? For a ideal? For a purpose? No, just because he was in possesion of a cellphone. Murdered. He has a knife inserted into his neck by force, and sliced acros his throat in a sawing motion, till he falls over, and bleeds to death, pleading for his life, and this happens 50 times a day. 2 Each hour. In the time it took me to write this, it has happened once, and somewhere a woman was raped. Think about it. Picture one of your family members in that position. And there are people it already happened to. You cannot tell me that all this can be stopped by the man in the street? WE chose THEM to lead us. And WE are asking THEM to help us. THEY are not helping US (the people that put them in that position of authority in the fist place) so what must we do? The struggle against apartheid turned into the struggle for survival for most people now. All we ask is for the government to pull their heads out of their 24 hour securely protected arses, and look around. Crime this big cannot be loosely organised. I beg the government to save it's own people from the violent death they face each day.
ANONYMOUS REPORTING: THE GOOD NEWS FOR TONIGHT IS:
Shot pregnant woman, unborn baby doing 'fine'
July 10 2006 at 07:55PM
An eight-months pregnant woman was "fine" and her unborn baby "unharmed" after she was shot in a robbery at her home in Lewisham, Johannesburg, on Sunday night, police said.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=qw1152548284362B265
and
Body found floating in Mpumalanga dam
July 10 2006 at 07:59PM
The partly-decomposed body of an unknown man was found floating in the Graceland Dam, near Secunda, on Monday afternoon, police reported.
Mpumalanga police spokesperson for the Eastern Highveld region, Superintendent Abie Khaobane, said nothing was known about the corpse.
Earlier in the afternoon, human bones were found on Zandkraal Farm, near Kinross, he added.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=qw1152548283689B265
HURRAY FOR THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA! C'MON ALL YOU OVERSEAS VISITORS, WHAT ARE YOU SCARED OF? THINK OF IT AS AN ACTION ADVENTURE HOLIDAY, THAT'S ALL
Just a question: how many of you like to buy things from vendors at traffic lights?
There is some good stuff out there. I bought a sweet world map the other day for R80.
But I was most impressed by a big lizard, made of wire and green beads, with a lightbulb-holder built into its frame - you could put it on the wall and the lizard would be a lampshade, illuminating the green of the beads from the lightbulb inside. The guy asked R300, which I thought was pretty steep, and didn't have any cash in any case, having spent it on the world map. But I might go back and bargain for R200.
Suppport local industry. Put a bit of cash into the informal economy - in my experience it's worth it.
Hey people
Maybe this is old news...
But check out what someone did with the URL:
http://www.crimexposa.co.za/
Addy,
From your profile, as much as this is going to sting, and I don't intend that, I can see that you are a young man. Probably fresh faced and idealistic about the world.
I'm not. I'm twice your age, an old man at 42 and all my life experience tells me you are well meaning but so very wrong.
The country is going to hell in a hand-basket and all the fruit lubes lining up to stand four-square behind you are complicit and colluding in it's slide into anarchy.
Taking nothing away from you, Addy, I respect what you are trying to do.
You are just wrong, wrong, wrong.
Please will everyone get over the age issue. I am 47 and tend to agree with Addy and many of the other young and not so young contributors to this site that we need to be getting off our butts and doing something, not sitting on them and bewailing our situations.
Hey,
I am possitive about the country and will never leave as I believe friends like the Boeremag will clean it up for us.
We have a crime problem and only a war can sort it out now. Stay positive, stay alive, get a gun.
I heard a rumour that Neil Watson works in the insurance industry. Is this true? Selling insurance through selling fear is a well used tactic!
Neil Watson sells Insurance or works for an insurance company!!
Go figure!!
On his site he charges R3 per sms!! Do we know where this money is going??
GO S.A
Someone here wrote:
I am possitive about the country and will never leave as I believe friends like the Boeremag will clean it up for us. We have a crime problem and only a war can sort it out now. Stay positive, stay alive, get a gun.
I do hope that's a joke, even if its a poor one, because anyone who actually believes that is even more crazy than the people who think they can "prevent" crime in this country by "buying local" or "taxing alcohol."
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Neil Watson works for an Insurance company. What's the best way to sell insurance?? Through FEAR!!
Where does the R3 you are charged per SMS on his site go to????
Hi Willie
I am removing your duplicated posts. This is meant to be a place for discussion. Your link appears many more times than is necessary to get your point across.
To make you happy, I'll leave the post above, but if it is posted again, it will be removed.
It is not a question of 'legitimacy'. It is an attempt to give the readers of the comments a fair debate. Most of your posts are "check out this site". In my mind that amounts to advertising which is something I have chosen not to tolerate.
Addy
If anyone want to read the racist drivel on africancrisis.org so be it BUT Watson said that he was going to post pics from families of victims - since they come from the other website I seriously doubt they were sent to him personally by the victims families. Come on people don't be so blind to propaganda. Watson has lied! Do a google search for a story on a baby burned to death in a farm attack as stated on Watson's site - no such story can be found and most certainly it would have been prominent if it had. Same goes for the guy who was tied behind his car - he was not tied behind his car - he accidently got caught in the under carriage of the car after being involved in a fight after a rugby match. The guy who dragged him under the car was fetching his father and trying to get himself and his car away from the fight. TIED to the car doesn't equate to accidently dragged!
If he lies about that who is to say he has not made up some of the SMS's and e-mails. I don't trust and rely on facts from an obvious liar!!!!
Your subject prologue says that you asked the ACDP to respond. I am not making an official response from the ACDP but I am in their organisation and would like to ask to whom you sent the request. Please send a message to me at glenton at hotmail.com and I will ensure that the person actions your request.
The view of most ACDP members would probably be that we essentially want to see the World Cup 2010 as a success for our beloved country. We must support it and not use it as an opportunity for cheap opposition politics at the expense of our country's development and prestige. The negative slant of the websites is regrettable, but understandable in the face of the current government spindoctoring on the crime situation. There are many kneejerk reactions to the crime situation, including the action of Combat security in chaining people to poles and putting signs around their necks that say "Criminal, caught by Combat security" This does not help the situation! The ACDP have taken much criticism for their stance on strong punishments for criminals, but we feel that one cannot proclaim a person to be a criminal until he has had a trial. If we do this the judicial process becomes undermined. The suspect gets off when the case gets chucked out because of the circumstances and has the opportunity to sue the security company for defamation. When we questioned the methodology that was being used, there were howls of "soft on crime" and calls for the implimentation of Sharia law. Most did not understand that Sharia law is also a judicial process and although the sentences are harsh enough to satisfy the angry people, it still involves a judicial process before the suspect is judged a criminal. I question the suitability of a punishment that cuts off a thief's hand so that he is no longer able to earn an honest living. The early Biblical response was to place the convicted criminals into slavery as a form of criminal servitude until he had payed back his debt. The Biblical commentaries on slavery are often quite misinterpreted on this ( yes there were instances where slaves were taken as a tribute, but the commentary moves toward an abolition of this) So you were made a slave until you were redeemed, instead of being thrown into prison. This forms the basis of restorative Justice, which simply put, means making the punishment fit the crime.
The anti crime websites are another angry reaction, that are a little bit misdirected. They should not be used as an attempt to sabotage World Cup 2010 in order to punish Quackula, and hence allow the law of unintended consequences to bring punishment on the whole nation. 20 or 30 million black soccer supporters will not thank anyone for this and may even react like Zidane. The focus should be on the more productive goal of exposing the incompetence of Quackula and getting him sacked. The other prime focus should be on developing a more efficient judicial system that addresses the problem of our now overcrowded jails which is causing the judges to give lighter sentences.
The other aspect that should be put before Quackula before any people is that not all crime is perpetrated by blacks and not all of the victims are white. The burden of crime is doubly felt in black communities who do not have the option of emigrating if they do not like it. So let's make him aware of the crime against Black people and then he will be hit with something that really hurts him.
Having done this we will then be able to cope with the crime wave that will arrive alongside the European Soccer hooligans.
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