Margaret Thatcher Passes away.

[freddie*rooster]

Not a bad innings at the age of 87yrs.

[izabsmiling]

You clearly don't understand Africanism in its broad sense.

If you did you would know that no black MAN would ever consider working the fields as it is seen as being beneath them, and no black WOMAN will work them if they have children to do it for them, especially when they have alcoholic issues, but both the male and female will expect the rewards of the child's labours to be handed over to them as their right, be it money or alcohol.

Hi Moorna,None at all ?

I know some Australians who have done so in this Country .

[izabsmiling]

my son's Oma's family lost what they owned .Good German surname wrong colour skin.Thankfully Australia is more tolerant than her and her ancestors Country of birth.It may very well take much longer than 20 years to undo the damage done in the past.

[purple.cow]

my son's Oma's family lost what they owned .Good German surname wrong colour skin.Thankfully Australia is more tolerant than her and her ancestors Country of birth.It may very well take much longer than 20 years to undo the damage done in the past.

I see yet another war in SA coming, this one will be African against African and the bloodbath will be beyond anything previously experienced as there will be yet another 'cleansing'

I can only hope and pray I'm proved wrong.

The tensions are so high there now and hope is withering on the vine.

[crystal-gems]

An interesting history lesson and prognosis from the Afrikaan/Boer/British colonial version of events,  which they consider 'the truth'..

I would like to hear the other side's versions of events.

I have a number of SA friends (some of whose families migrated to SA during the Irish potato famine and some Jewish from Jo) who would not agree with you because they are aware that their families exploited the natives and considered them sub human (to my friends' shame).

We don't need a lesson about traditional tribal conflicts in SA.  Australians were probably aware of events in SA, a lot more than South Africans were aware of events in Australia. .

The Australian history was always accepted as truth,  told and taught from the British colonial version of events.....and it was full of lies.

At least we are now moving forward and having that history revised.

Colonials are so careless......they tend to make a mess and leave it to the following generations to clean up the mess they created.....if it is possible to clean it up.

[lakeland27]

"just another Tory with short-term  fixes and no genuine long term solutions"

 "The European single currency is bound to fail, economically, politically and indeed socially, though the timing, occasion and full consequences are all necessarily still unclear." .

Trade union reforms:  ending the closed shop and secondary picketing, and introducing strike ballots. Lifting exchange controls and the privatisation programme including British Telecom and the utilities. Liberalising the stock market and opening the doors to a wave of fresh ideas and capital from overseas.

"short-term  fixes" ?

And not a mention in her speeches of bad bad misogynists

the general belgrano, the rise of rik mayall .. sons who attempt to overthrow african governments but let others take the fall.. :^O

[lakeland27]

 keeping dennis in a locked room..

[crystal-gems]

The 2 milion workers who lost their jobs within 6 months of her reign.

The public housing being sold to private enterprise and the tenants being unable to pay the new rents and were chucked out..

The current public housing shortages because of her policies

The people losing their homes because she promoted the banks to adopt the same mortgage practices that caused the meltdown in the USA.

Her close alliance with the odious Murdock press, against the advice of her ministers and even she admitted that Rupert got her over the line in the re-elections....but she subsequently made it pay off in spades for dear old Rupert and his gang.

He knew the public were gullible enough to swallow his lauding of her so called virtues and never criticising her or her policies.   He wanted control of the unions for his benefit and he got it.

Sure, she was a strong woman......without a heart.  .

[katydidthat]

My Dad grew up in a mining village in Wales.  It was pretty typical of many such places ... valleys, mountains, fantastic views, sheep, the railway track and the trains that moved the coal ... there was the Co-op, the Post Office, the Chinese take away, the fish and chip shop, the clubs and the pubs.  EVERYTHING was dependent on the mines.  

Thatcher killed it ... and lots of other similar places ... the mines were still productive and would have been so for many years. Communities were destroyed across Wales and parts of England ... why?  To crush the unions.  

[purple.cow]

An interesting history lesson and prognosis from the Afrikaan/Boer/British colonial version of events,  which they consider 'the truth'..

I would like to hear the other side's versions of events.

The absolute truth about both South Africa AND Australia is that a great many wrongs have been done on all sides, wrongs that can never be undone, and often cannot be forgiven.

Another sorry truth is that the African blackman has only ever considered to be worth the value of his labours, but that's not much different to a whiteman working in Australia.

This means that if the African is not able to work no-one is going to care if he lives or dies, but the old style Boer isn't dumb and will go as far as caring for the black if /when a labour shortage is a possible result of not caring for the black, but now the blackman rules the country the whiteman feels no obligation to worry about any part of the population beyond himself.

The blackman in charge is far more interested in padding out a Swiss bank account than caring after his own kind, particularly if the other black is not of his tribe.

No-one has to take my word for this because they only need to look at what happens in every other black African run country.

The day Mandela dies will see South Africa change yet again, and that change isn't going to be to the benefit of anyone beyond those who will be in power at the time.

Another Zimbabwe will then be in the making.

[purple.cow]

  To crush the unions.  

The best thing that could have happened too.