{"id":54009,"date":"2014-03-07T00:05:49","date_gmt":"2014-03-06T22:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=54009"},"modified":"2014-03-07T16:01:23","modified_gmt":"2014-03-07T14:01:23","slug":"is-south-africa-a-failed-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/54009\/is-south-africa-a-failed-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Is South Africa a failed country?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Economists have dismissed claims by a US lawyer, that South Africa is a &#8220;failed country&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Alan Dershowitz, who is a US\u00a0attorney, jurist, and political commentator, was speaking to\u00a0Piers Morgan on CNN to discuss the Oscar Pistorius trial.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I\u2019ve spent some time in South Africa recently, and people don\u2019t want to hear this, but South Africa is a failed country,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is a lawless country, it\u2019s a country with extraordinarily high rate of violent crime, and it\u2019s a country with deep, deep racial divisions and problems that we wish had disappeared because we all love Mandela, but that\u2019s not the reality.<\/p>\n<p>Morgan contested Dershowitz\u2019 view noting that he too, had visited South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought it was an absolutely wonderful country, I have to say, although there is clearly a lot of crime there, gun related crime,&#8221; Morgan said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I remember walking through the township of Soweto and thinking it was one of the single most inspiring places I had ever been in my life. So I would take issue with Alan saying it\u2019s a failed country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IRExK-MlCuI\" height=\"338\" width=\"600\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Legal analyst, Kelly Phelps said that, while South Africa was beset by deep seated social problems, in many respects the country is a fundamentally functional country, including its legal system.<\/p>\n<p>Dawie Roodt, chief economist at Efficient Group said: &#8220;He\u2019s wrong; depending on your definition of a failed state of course.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In Roodt&#8217;s opinion, a\u00a0failed state does not have:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Protection for private property rights;<\/li>\n<li>An independent judiciary;<\/li>\n<li>An independent central bank;<\/li>\n<li>A free press;<\/li>\n<li>A democracy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;Granted, many of these institutions are under attack by politicians. Also, the state is hugely inefficient and corrupt. But calling SA a failed state is just untrue,&#8221;\u00a0Roodt said.<\/p>\n<p>Stanlib economist, Kevin Lings said that in order to characterize South Africa as a failed state, one would have to take in to account significant factors including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Widespread civil unrest;<\/li>\n<li>The rule of law has broken down;<\/li>\n<li>Civil\u00a0society is no longer functional;<\/li>\n<li>Access to basic services.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see any of that. Obviously there are concerns&#8230;it&#8217;s a very dangerous categorization,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Lings pointed to record tourism numbers in the country in recent months, adding that South Africa also successfully hosted a football World Cup, in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yes there are infrastructure and social issues to deal with&#8230;[but] we are far away from being a failed state, that view is too simplistic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lings noted that South Africa has recorded only one negative GDP number in 20 years, and that was during a time of a global financial crisis.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on South Africa<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"South Africa\u2019s most violent city\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/53824\/south-africas-most-violent-city\/\"><strong>South Africa\u2019s most violent city<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"South Africa in 2030\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/53241\/south-africa-in-2030\/\"><strong>South Africa in 2030<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to South Africa\u2019s critical skills shortage\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/52918\/south-africas-critical-skills-shortage\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">South Africa\u2019s critical skills shortage<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Sexting and cyber-bullying in South Africa\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/52849\/sexting-and-cyber-bullying-in-south-africa\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Sexting and cyber-bullying in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Where South Africa\u2019s corruption takes place\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/52791\/where-south-africas-corruption-takes-place\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Where South Africa\u2019s corruption takes place<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Economists have dismissed claims by a US lawyer, that South Africa is a &#8220;failed country&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":54010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[7570,1459,26,5932,7571,1482],"class_list":["post-54009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-alan-dershowitz","tag-dawie-roodt","tag-headline","tag-kevin-lings","tag-piers-morgan","tag-stanlib"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54009"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54073,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54009\/revisions\/54073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}