Colin McL

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[Colin McL @colmac3]

@Leon_Schreib pointless when you upgrade systems and rules, and you have a useless partner in @vfsglobal whose website keeps crashing. Trying to access for 2 months to apply for Waivers for staff but cant get past the password stage without hanging and no contact numbers availab

[Colin McL @colmac3]

@qatarairways Really??? Clearly he's been misinformed or he's a liar

[Colin McL @colmac3]

8 counters 2 staff. Shambles from "the World's Best Airline"

[Colin McL @colmac3]

@qatarairways 300 people in Q at Doha to reschedule flights. 2 people at the counter and its taking 10 minutes to sort each person out. Do the math! 50 hours = 2 days. Get extra staff here

[Colin McL @colmac3]

Now nearly 400.people waiting. 8 counters with only 2 manned

[Colin McL @colmac3]

@statedeptspox How about helping all our great Entrepreneurs who have also been victimized by the system for 30 years? If really want to #MAGA help us to get there too

[Colin McL @colmac3]

@MarkSham For me the highlight of this post is that we don't trust the ANC with a law like #EWC . Many other countries have it - at least change the name & don't allow people to weaponise & sensationalise it

[Mark Sham @MarkSham]

Depending on who you follow online, white South Africans are either living their best life or facing a mass genocide. Trump is either a saviour or a disaster. You’re either ‘woke’ or a bigot.

If you do take the time to read my "long post", I’m super keen to hear what you think. My aim isn’t to add to the clutter or extend the division, but rather to help cut through the noise and challenge the way we think about these issues.

Donald Trump has signed an executive order to cut financial assistance to South Africa based on its "land policy" and its genocide case at the International Court of Justice.

When you open any social media platform right now, there are wild opinions being shared across the board. People are either cheering this decision or raging against it, with very little in between.

That’s why I’d like to share a more balanced perspective; one that I don’t think we’re considering enough.

Last week, Trump alleged on Twitter that South Africa was “confiscating land and treating certain classes of people very badly.”

As a white person living in South Africa, I’ll be the first to say that mass land confiscation isn’t happening, at least not as far as I can see.

But let’s not pretend everything is fine.

There is a rhetoric that started subtly but has grown louder and more pronounced over time, painting white people as the enemy, sometimes literally evil.

Certain political parties sing songs like “Kill the Boer,” and more race-based laws against white people exist today than ever before.

Even though white people statistically enjoy a higher standard of living, the shift in rhetoric is impossible to ignore. It genuinely feels like it's getting louder and becoming more extreme.

If you log onto social media right now, especially Twitter, the sheer amount of hostility from some black South Africans toward white people is palpable. The resentment is real, and it’s being fuelled by years of political rhetoric that blames white people for every problem in the country.

At the same time, let’s not pretend all white South Africans are all saints. Many still carry deeply ingrained racist tendencies, some subtle, some more blatant. And whether they admit it or not, there are white people who don’t actually want true equality because it's an inconvenient change from what they're used to.

The other real challenge lies in the fact that South Africa is still one of the most unequal societies in the world.

Despite decades of democracy, we haven’t meaningfully redressed our economic disparities. Wealth, land, and opportunity remain heavily skewed in favour of a small elite, with the vast majority of South Africans, particularly black South Africans, still struggling to escape generational poverty.

My point is: MANY of these ideas can be TRUE at the same time. And until we acknowledge that, we’re going to keep talking past each other.

One of the biggest reasons the world feels so politically polarising right now, whether in the US, South Africa, or beyond is because people struggle to "live in the grey".
We think in binary terms:

❌ On or off.
❌ Up or down.
❌ Good or bad.
❌ Left or right.

But life isn’t binary, neither is politics. And this is where the law of unintended consequences comes in.

The US is at a point where someone like Trump could only rise to power because of how radicalised previous governments had become. If the US had a more moderate, functioning government, like it did 30 or 40 years ago, Trump wouldn’t have the power to rile up so much of the country.

Look at the broader context. Never have we seen ideological movements push further than in recent years:

❌ A $40 trillion debt crisis spiralling out of control.
❌ Censorship and cancel culture.
❌ Open borders and mass migration policies.
❌ Pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates.
❌ Multiple gender identities becoming mainstream.
❌ Men competing in women’s sports.

When things get too extreme on one end, a reactionary force always emerges. In other words, Trump is the symptom, not the cause and ultimately, Trump is the unintended consequence of a system that pushed too hard in one direction.

Now, back to South Africa.

As I said, mass land confiscation doesn't seem to be happening, but our government recently signed the Expropriation Without Compensation bill into law. And giving the ANC that kind of power is a disaster waiting to happen.

For years, the ANC has looted, plundered, and mismanaged this country. That’s not an opinion but rather a statistical fact. They have systematically degraded almost every aspect of South Africa, from infrastructure to education to governance. And now, we’re supposed to trust them with laws that allow them to take land for “nil compensation”?

Sadly, the real cost of the ANC’s failures hasn’t fallen on them. It has fallen on the general public. And instead of holding the ANC accountable, we’ve normalised their failures. They get a free pass because their incompetence is expected.

When things go wrong in South Africa, we don’t tend look at ourselves. We look to blame other races, foreign countries, or anyone else but the people actually responsible.

I'm going to try make this point one last time: Two opposing ideas can be true at the same time!

❌ White people in South Africa, statistically, live the most comfortable lives compared to any other racial group. Also true? The continuous public rhetoric against them is what's causing this outsized reaction from the West.

❌ Elon Musk is probably our generation’s greatest entrepreneur. Also true? He often speaks absolute nonsense, riles up systems unnecessarily, and trolls when he shouldn’t.

❌ Trump is incredibly off-putting, and his rhetoric often fuels extremism. Also true? The U.S. government needed drastic change, and he might be the best option available to make that happen.

People struggle with this and they feel they have to pick a side:

❌ Trump is either a saviour or a disaster. If you like some of what he’s doing, then you’re a full-blown Nazi or if you dislike him, you’re a brainwashed leftist who hates freedom.

❌ White people in South Africa are either living in luxury without a care in the world, or they’re facing a full-blown genocide, depending on who you ask.

❌ Capitalism is either the driving force behind innovation and prosperity, or the system that keeps the rich rich and the poor struggling forever.

❌ The climate crisis is either the greatest threat to humanity or a manufactured hysteria.

❌ If you’re not ‘woke,’ you must be a hateful bigot. If you reject woke culture, you’re obviously against progress.

Next time you read an article on this topic, or a friend/colleague goes off on social media, consider that most people are missing the part that actually explains what’s going on.

The truth doesn’t always sit neatly in the middle. Sometimes, it exists in multiple opposing ideas at the same time.

The world isn’t black or white. It never was. The sooner we accept that, the sooner we can start having real conversations instead of screaming into the digital void.

PS. Even if you disagree with me, we can do very little about Trump and Musk but we can take responsibility for our own actions as a country. Maybe we should just focus on that.

[VIEW4YOU @view4you_sa]

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[Colin McL @colmac3]

@Jonathan_Witt @WeBuyCars_SA WBC need to decide if they're a wholesaler and sell to trade ( so let buyer beware) - or a retailer in which case CPA applies. They seem to hide behind the fact they wholesale & "declare" what's wrong. In our market that problem that will lead to many cars on side of the road

[Colin McL @colmac3]

@FloydShivambu Yes Floyd - unfortunately you're still here

[Colin McL @colmac3]

@mayemusk @elonmusk Hey I had that same jacket here in SA at that time :) ! The rock walls & that old dodgy white wire garden furniture also very 70s SA . HB, EM

[Colin McL @colmac3]

@OpenserveZA Bridle Park intermittent (minutes on and off) failures since yesterday

[Colin McL @colmac3]

@randburg_sun not sure if saw that Randburg has a Restaurant of the Year Finalist - Tipu Cafe @ Old Parks Club https://t.co/7BUq6QdDxt

[Colin McL @colmac3]

Most common response to 5G related posts. Is Rain the problem or is it the 5G network?

[Mr D @MrD_108]

@MichaelJordaan Fibre - no need to pull hair and stress out as it just works

5G Wi-Fi , more like No-G...
What @rainSouthAfrica 5G really stands for? 5 God damn hours before you have internet ( if you lucky that is... )

[Colin McL @colmac3]

@PiCoreTeam Do you actually test your links? pi seems to be a classic example of clever people with good ideas but zero commercial acumen. Even implementation in making even basic things like Web links is laughable and you end up in endless loops.

[Colin McL @colmac3]

@bensmithrugby The back-to-back AllBlacks are not, I repeat, are not, the greatest of all time. One cakewalk and one decent run where they got by on miraculous comebacks. Oh wait - no - they lost

[Colin McL @colmac3]

I'm not a fan of @piersmorgan but @mohammed_hijab is clearly a total moron with low EQ & IQ justifying his "legitimacy" doing softball studies, clearly only capable of 1 way communication. "Philosopher of Religion" my ass! It's more like watching Lauren on Catherine Tate

[Colin McL @colmac3]

@MagnusHeystek Most definitely the downfall of most South Africans. It should be criminalised for the greater good

[Thapelo in Charge @ThapeloAmMad]

Another failed "mobilisation" by @EFFSouthAfrica. Time to rebrand with their mantra "Point Of Order" Party or POOP which is ironically relevant I think #NationalShutdown