JoanA wrote:
That woman has a lot to answer for, Thatcher that is not your wife.
There are times when I'm ashamed to claim I'm English if you look back at some of the things they've done through history.
LOL, i know you didn't mean that read the way I'm reading it, but yeah, there are times when my wife reminds me of Thatcher as well!
About feeling ashamed... surely not much could have been worse than the South African apartheid system... some of the stories my wife tells me of her time there are truly jaw-dropping.
I won't, for obvious reasons talk about the worst of them online, and in no way do i blame or attribute any guilt at her, she was moved there when she was 12 and returned to the UK at 16... basically her formative years so she had no choice.
That said her time there did leave a scar, if that's the right word?... she is now vehemently anti racist and has no tolerance whatsoever for anyone who shows even the slightest inclination for anything other than equality for all.
I will share this though, her father moved her family to Vanderbiljpark to work in the steelworks there, a town not far south of Johannesburg, about 5 years ago we used Google Streetview/Satellite to see if their old house still existed.... not only did it still exist but from the outside it was EXACTLY the same, complete with what appears to be a garage without a driveway.
When i asked her why there was no driveway leading to the garage she explained that isn't a garage, that's where the servants lived... i was gobsmacked when she told me a family of four lived in there (parents with 2 kids her age) with no electricity, running water, toilet facilities... or rooms!
I almost couldn't believe it, what really struck me was that every house in the street (the entire town afaict?) had one of these 'garages' and most of them were to the rear of the main house, hers was on the side of the house because they lived on a street corner, hence why i thought there should be a driveway!
I can't look at those images any more so the current Streetview/Satelitte imagery may no longer show what I'm talking about, when she told me the stories of how she used to play with the 'black' (not her word but i'm struggling to find a better way of putting it) children and how kind and her caring their parents were i was reduced to tears... my wife's mother used to feed them in the house but she had to close the curtains while they ate because if the authorities found out that was happening my wife's parents would have been prosecuted and the servants beaten, or worse.
The neighbours would have reported them in the blink of an eye if they saw what was happening!!
If anyone should feel guilty it would be me, i didn't take the time to know more about what was happening in South Africa when there was a huge worldwide campaign to end it... i chose instead to carry on living my insular life.
I hope not to make that mistake again but i fear that i may already be to late, Syria, a Syrian refugee has cut my hair for the last two years... he took over the old barbers shop i used for many years when the then owner retired about two years ago... we discussed then how Syria was a beautiful country rich in history and how tragic it was that the country was being torn apart by war, by apparently one man (Assad)... i had my hair cut last week and I simply couldn't bring myself to ask him how he felt now that Turkey, Iran, and Russia have seemingly officially entered into the 'war'.
If anyone here can explain what the end game is in Syria i'd love to hear what your opinion is because it seems the whole world is bombing that country and not only is there no end game... there is no reason for it starting... the 'Arab Spring' and 'regime change' were apparently reasons in the beginning, but the 'west' has gone silent... meanwhile the world and their dogs are bombing innocent civilians and everything else in sight!
