No turning back as Africa’s hour arrives
The 2010 World Cup has been a memorable and momentous occasion not only for me, but for South Africa, the African continent and the rest of the world.
It has indeed been incredible. It has been a unifying factor, with people beginning to appreciate the importance of their national symbols such as flags.
As a photographer for an institution such as Reuters, one can say that I have been privileged to be a part of this historic occasion. It was indeed a privilege to be among hordes of international media covering the event. I was here during the Confederations Cup, but the feeling of covering the World Cup is enormous – it is part of history.
This has changed the perception of those who doubted that South Africa, or Africa as a whole, could stage such a magnificent tournament. Everywhere, people have been consumed by the World Cup. Cars have been decorated with flags, houses and shops – many with the South African flag.
Hardship deepens for South Africa’s Poor Whites
Children walk through a squatter camp for poor white South Africans at Coronation Park in Krugersdorp, March 6, 2010. REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly
Sitting in a deck chair at a white South African squatter camp, Ann le Roux, 60, holds a yellowing photo from her daughter’s wedding day.
Taken not long after Nelson Mandela became the country’s first black president in 1994, it shows Le Roux standing with her Afrikaans husband and their daughter outside their home in Melville, an upmarket Johannesburg neighborhood.
Sixteen years later, she lives in a caravan and a tent shared with seven other people, including her daughter and four grandchildren, at a squatter camp for poor white South Africans.
She is one of a growing number of whites living below the poverty line in South Africa who blame affirmative action and the ANC-led elected government for their plight.
Le Roux had to sell her house after her husband died and she lost her job as a secretary at the city planning council — where she had worked for 26 years — after she took time off work to recover from the loss of her husband.
“They wouldn’t take me back because of the political situation,” she says, looking down at the fading photo.
@ rewdy41.
Your response is the exact image of what the previous comments were saying; this just proves that with the new south africa comes just another new attitude. The persecution and starvation they found in their own lands? It was the age of discovery! Your speaking like your barely educated.
I quote
“You fill Isreal with white European jew converts so you could claim the biblical stories and paint Jesus as a white man, and therefore make god into a white man.”
Jesus was a dark palestinian at the time and therefore was not white, acknowledged. European Jew converts? The Jewish population in Israel fled from their European countries because of persecution and at no time were given the chance to convert because the ruling authorities wanted to class them as Jewish.
But this convert idea is nonsense, for pitty sake the war with the palestinians is because of religion; they would not let themselves be converted by another.
Try reading a history book or two before you start judging and abusing it.
South Africa’s child-rape epidemic
“Don’t ask me to smile, I don’t know how to smile,” says Fumana Ntontlo, as she poses for a portrait, hands folded in her lap, on the bed of her one-room shack in South Africa’s Khayelitsha township.
The walls and roof of her tiny home are made from corrugated metal, insulated on the inside with splintered and stained plywood, from which hangs a faded blue fabric pouch holding several pairs of well-worn shoes. Some yellowed and curling magazine pictures are taped at eye-level and a lace curtain flutters in the breeze of a small window protected by metal burglar bars. A bare bulb hangs from the ceiling by a wire.
Ntontlo is a “survivor” – the word used by health workers to describe victims of sexual violence.
She was eight years old and playing hide-and-seek at a cousin’s house when another distant relative, who was about 15 at the time, convinced her to hide behind the couch with him. He then lay on top of her, pressing down hard on her small frame. He lifted her skirt and entered her, says Ntontlo.
“I was crying, but he slapped me and threatened to beat me more.”
Now 30 years old, Ntontlo was too embarrassed and confused at the time of the incident to tell anyone.
These people need to find a place to go to heal. Please see http://www.thelamplighters.org. They are an international organization for recovery from incest & childhood sexual abuse. They currently have 65 chapters in eleven countries; 7 of their chapters are in Africa. If Lamplighter chapters can be started in South Africa it would help a great deal. It doesn’t cost anything and is is so easy to start. The Blog site is also in 6 languages and the Guide to starting a chapter can be accessed from the site (also in 6 languages).
Violence in South Africa: Audio slideshow
Reuters photographer Siphiwe Sibeko talks about his experiences capturing dramatic images of the outbreak of violence in South Africa.
okay, so last time i checked, the goverment was elected by the people, so were is the milk and honey that was promised??? sorry, no sympathy here, deal with it, its what people voted for. just a shame so many good and hardworking black and white people have to suffer because of ignorant others
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Resident Photographers Blog Expert
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The Wall
All I can say is I was so excited for world cup to be played in Africa soil, but mostly I big up the Ghana’s for showing off what Africa are made of. I had faith in them and they did made us proud and hope on next world cup, the trophy will be coming to Africa.