Democracy is wonderful, but it doesn't necassarily stop people living in squalor or starving from lack of basic food. Would democracy mean the people of Cuba would be better off, currently they have better health care than we do, almost 100% literacy and enough food to live on and having stayed in Havana on a number of occasions, you rarely see them not smiling. All this is likely to go once a pro-American 'free' Cuba becomes reality and all the criminals, drug dealer etc that Castro allowed to 'emigrate' to America make a return.

I would argue that society in this country has gone backwards in the last decade and quality of life has suffered. Are we as humans happier than we were ten years ago - would you say culturally this country is moving forward?

That bad things still happen doesn't mean that black people were 'better off' being treated like animals by white people. That you would even suggest such a thing is mind-blowing.

That is one in this country compared to 40-50 every day in South Africa, the occurrences of rape - something you quite rightly hold dear - are rising annually. I ask again is the average black South African in a better place now than they were?

Do only black women get raped?

No, I wouldn't, culturally we are being more and more Americanised ... and not just Americanised but the dumb-end of Americanised.
But, as we were granted universal suffrage nearly a hundred years ago, I fail to see the correlation bwteen violent crime and democracy in the UK.

Well there you go - always willing to poke a stick at the politically correct lefties on here.

T'Other Half got back here in 1983 and wouldn't return until the end of apartheid. We went together then, in 1988 – my first real trip out of the country (I'm excluding four hours in Dieppe). We've been back together once since.

He still has family in Pietermaritzburg, so that was where we were based, although the first trip, we did quite a bit of travelling around.

It is very beautiful – but what I saw most of was also quite bonkers.

The Afrikaners are a right snotty lot in my experience – and stuck decades in the past. My faux pas on the first trip included buying a round when I considered it my shout and wearing football shirts. These are not things that respectable women do – in the case of the latter, that's the sport that the 'blecks' watch.

We had some really weird experiences – and I mean weird. On the second trip, the exchange rate meant that we could spend a week at a resort in the Drakensberg – which is an amazing area. It's a big, rather posh resort, and the majority of guests were Afrikaners, with a smattering of Europeans. The former will not talk to you – simple as.

The various Europeans chatted with each other, in a variety of pidgin tongues, and made that effort at informal pleasantries.

There were two bars. The cocktail one, which the Afrikaner guests used, we tried and then abandoned. Stilted, false, insanely quiet – the 'sports bar' was used by staff and almost entirely European guests and was a massively better place to be; sociable and with atmosphere.

After one trip, I read Tom Sharpe's first two novels – [iRiotous Assembly[/i and [iIndecent Exposure[/i. Sharpe had started writing shortly after being deported by the South African government of the day for sedition. Ex-Marines, he'd moved to SA in 1951 and was a teacher in Maritzburg. The books are a kind of vicious, angry revenge on the apartheid regime, which he came to be appalled by.

The extraordinary thing is that all the years in between don't stop you recognising Maritzburg itself – and I swear I actually met one of two of the characters, including one ex-school acquaintance of The Other Half's with whom I developed what was clearly an entirely mutual dislike.

I met him and some of his other old friends at a [ibraai[/i. They included the occasional religious fundamentalist, and – although none of them had ever supported apartheid, oh no – some of their comments suggested that, if they hadn't supported it, they'd certainly imbibed the core ideological point of superiority.

Mind, that [ibraai[/i was an experience in its own right. We were guests of honour, but I was expected to sit with the female relatives and children at one end, with no booze and in silence. I presume that they didn't talk because I was a stranger.

As I said, weird on so many levels.

Mind, I hate the f**king cockroaches!

Given the blacks make up 80% of the population it doesn't take a huge leap of faith to suggest that the majority of those subjected to rape will be black women. Maybe you are going to pull a rabbit out of the hat to suggest otherwise.

I'd say that this country has gone backwards in the last 30 years, as the income gap has widened, along with inequality; as job security has diminished and as the push and pressure for everyone to be überconsumers has grown.

Of course, under apartheid, that blonde broad might not have been shot to death by her crippled boyfriend.

Anything you fancy extrapolating from that?

While you're at it, perhaps levels of homophobia in, say, Jamaica, which result in rape and murder, would be removed if it was still ruled by the Empire that introduced the buggery laws?

As your society descends culturally the higher values of that society decrease - the way we treat each other our respect for other citizens reduces. I never suggested it had anything to do with democracy - it is about the culture of a country. Is black on black violence more prevalent now than it was under whites?

On the face it the drugs he was taking to remain a public figure and maintain all the millions he was earning had an affect - roid-rage, perhaps if he had relied on natural talent she might still be alive?

In Jamaica?

Who knows all superstition - the truth is you have no more idea than I do?

Of course not, you blithering idiot, but to suggest that an increase in sexual crimes means that black people would have been better off under apartheid is just bonkers. What needs to happen is that black people continue to have equal rights AND that instances of rape are reduced. There was probably a lot less unemployment amongst black people when white people were allowed to keep slaves. Maybe we should have left well alone, eh?

And if rape is increasing, it's likely to be increasing for all women. Of course, if there are more black women there will be more black victims, but that's really not the point.

I'm afraid that I do, since I actually report LGBT issues on occasion.

Actually, we have no idea whether there is "an increase in sexual crimes" or simply an increase in the reporting of sexual crimes or an increase in the interest of the country's mainstream media in sexual crimes (particularly in the black communities) – etc.

There are real issues with rape – including 'corrective rape'

There is still massive poverty too – not helped by South African governments since Mandela following neo-liberal economic approaches, which do absolutely nothing to dent poverty. But the idea that somehow apartheid was somehow an era to look back at with nostalgic longing does rather beggar belief.

I would concur with that based on my experience on the rugby tour. Reminded me of a trip to Madrid and Spain in the eighties when I saw evidence of a fondness for the days under Franco!

We also visited this: [urlhttp://www.voortrekkermon.org.za/[/url which is a monument to the Great Trek the Afrikaners made away from the southern end of SA in order to avoid (amongst other things) the abolition of slavery imposed by the British.

We played a team from an Afrikan's school in Pretoria and the lads went and stayed with the families. The attitude of the school was one of assumed superiority. That is the only way I can describe it. The home visits opened a few eyes as well. Barred electric gates, guard dogs, barred windows etc.

Compared to the first game played v a team from Soweto the contrast could not have been greater in atmosphere and attitude. The team also played games around Cape Town where the Afrikaner influence is much less and that was far better. Still differences in privilege in terms of the schools visited and hard to tell what underlying attitudes were compared to the more or less outright living in the past up north but still much better.

It certainly sounded like you were saying that having the vote and equal rights were responsible for poverty and high crime rates.
If you're not saying that ... then are you blaming crime rates on Mandela? ... or are you saying that it was so much better under apartheid that they should have kept it?

To keep it simple for me ... was getting rid of apartheid and gaining equal rights a good thing or a bad thig?

On my first visit, I got taken to the local bowling club (crown green), where my mother in law (or common-law mother-in-law, to use The Other Half's formula) played. She's a down-to-Earth Yorkshire lass. But of course, she's also white, so was accepted.

Anyway, she wanted to show off her son to her bowling chums.

It was the most extraordinary step back in time. We couldn't go in the main bar, so sat in an odd and nearly deserted other room. And there. we met women in (I guess) their late sixties, who were dressed in the floral prints 1939 in Malaya (I'm thinking [iTenko[/i here), with the lipstick to match.

A fan spun overhead and a large black woman worked quietly in kitchen beyond.

The situation reached utterly surreal levels when one of the women started talking about her son, who had died in a car crash, and whose picture, in his coffin, she carried. Fortunately, common-law father-in-law decided that was enough and we escaped before she could share the picture with us.

If you haven't read those two Tom Sharpe books, BTW, I'd heartily recommend them – very, very funny, in a very, very dark way.

Generally: I would never seek to suggest that there are not problems in that country – but goodness, what country doesn't have them?

Let's also be quite clear – I don't know all the reasons for those problems and some of them may well be connected with cultural issues. But 'culture' has, over history, been changed and is changeable. If it wasn't, we'd all still be living in caves.

And I'd suggest that poverty and lack of opportunity are absolutely crucial here. We know that these things increase crime. We know they increase birthrate. We know they increase all manner of things. This is why meaningful reduction of inequality should be seen as being in the interest of everyone.

You don't have to got that far to experience that, there are still clubs in Yorkshire and North East England where that happens too.

I haven't seen it to that extent, but hey - I'm not disputing it.

At least Cameron can keep out of the limelight over here for a few days when he attends Chavez's funeral. He will be going won't he?

I wish Cameron would go and not come back. Better still he should get in the coffin with Chavez ( Osbourne too ! ) as that'll be good news but then on the other hand I'd feel sorry for Chavez having to share a coffin with Cameron and Osborne.

In theory a good thing - in practise only those who live there can answer, which is why I ask the question?

It is interesting all those lefties on here who crave greater state control and suggest examples of where it benefits everyone yet cry wolf when increased democracy is challenged - hypocritical or what?

Apparently, El Presidente is to be stuffed and mounted, prior to being exhibited in a glass coffin.

I should imagine that is a must see for some on here!