Brilliant post from the Adam Smith Institute blog on why there's always something of the Leni Riefenstahl propaganda film about the Olympics...

In order to bring about the great Socialist future, Venezuelan President and leader of the Bolivarian revolution, Hugo Chavez, has banned The Simpsons from daytime TV. Apparently, the programme about the family of yellow graven images from Springfield contains “messages that go against the whole education of boys, girls and adolescents”. Ironically, it has been replaced by Baywatch which is obviously much more suitable for the whole family, especially pre-teen boys.

Now, we in the Northern Ireland political class are deeply concerned at the tendency of our youth to indulge in wanton violence in the streets, which seems to be a particular problem in Derry, especially when assisted by child-unfriendly technology like the internet. While the left and right each have their pet theories for the outbreak of child indiscipline in the Maiden City, perhaps it has nothing to do with the breakdown of the family or the legacy of Thatcherism, but instead is a result of The Simpsons' undoubted popularity with Derry Wans.

Which is convenient, because Derry already has a local representative in Martina Anderson MLA who has strong ties with the Bolivarian Revolution. Martina has already told us that Venezuela has "the kinds of policies which advance equality and economic and social justice ... which we could all support". Indeed, she tells us that, "The policies of the Venezuelan Government seem primarily to be one of equality, improving people’s lives through social changes, ensuring the right to health, education and to live free of outside interference" (although that presumably doesn't extend to interference in one's choice of TV programme). So, I'm waiting for Martina to propose that the The Simpsons be banned in Derry and replaced by non-riot inducing programming like Baywatch. Although, speaking personally, I might find the sight of David Hasselhof's naked hairy chest too overwhelming and start a disturbance on the street.

I generally have little time for the prevailing zeitgeist of Sinophobia; moaning about China is normally useless and tends to ignore the fact that China, for all its faults, is a vastly better place, for her own people and the rest of us, than it was a generation ago, or two generations ago, or frankly at any time since the 16th Century. Besides, are the Chinese in Africa doing anything as bad as what Europeans, North Americans, Arabs and Japanese have been doing there since decolonisation?

I’m also not generally a fan of Olympic boycotts, nor am I fan of Americans (who have little to brag about themselves in terms of imperialism or human rights) coming over all Sinophobic because they’re afraid of losing the planet’s pole position. I also don’t run around shouting Free Tibet, because I don’t know what the general Tibetan point of view on independence is, given China’s generally poor record on free speech and a free press, both of which would seem to be a necessary precondition for a free anything. Once every one in Tibet and elsewhere in the PRC enjoys these fundamental rights, then Tibetans and Chinese could have an honest debate on their future, the outcome of which is, frankly, none of my business.

However, I just got this nasty little e-mail via the Alliance Party website complaining about Anna Lo, and her pride in the fact that her son Conall was arrested at the Free Tibet demo in London on Sunday. The sender purports to be living in Tibet and has a serious nationalism issue, of the Chinese variety. As the sender was anonymous and I can’t send a reply, I’ll just put the reply here.

( reply below the jump )

Cuba is a model for how industrialised economies should develop in the event of an oil peak? Er, is this some kind of joke? While any discussion of Cuba's economy must take into account the impact of the disgraceful US trade boycott, Cuba's soporific economy which squeezes the life out of anybody with ideas or initiative isn't a model for anything. If you want to see how successful Cuba is, just compare its economic progress with that of Barbados since the Cuban revolution.

I think these greenie doomers have a few superfruits missing from their vegan diet.

What gets me is the way Cuba is held out to be some model society by the sort of students who hand you out silly tracts on Royal Avenue on Saturday afternoons. What's the level of immigration to Cuba from industrialised countries? Er, uh, nearly zero. If it was such a good society surely people would be falling over themselves to move to it. Great model there.

There is much excitement over on Slugger about Marcel Berlins’ article on the recent change to the name of the metropolitan area in which Durban sits and the change in the name of some of the streets.

I’ve always been interested in South Africa. Like Northern Ireland it was one of those nasty ethnic conflicts that happened in English and got correspondingly high media coverage. People, especially Republican and Leftish people, try and draw parallels between South Africa and Northern Ireland, some good and some not so good.

Oddly, you can’t have a debate for more than about two seconds about South Africa these days without somebody telling you the country is going to hell in a handcart and it will end up like Zimbabwe. Usually prefaced with “I’m not racist, but…” and ended by “…if they’ve any sense the whites should get out.” And always with the undertone that the whites are, to coin a phrase, our ‘kith and kin’ and the blacks… well, of course it’s their country and their welcome to it, but can you name an African country that isn’t a mess, they’ll be begging for aid soon, etc., etc.

None of this is terribly new. Back in the days when apartheid was in full flow, it seemed to be generally accepted that it would all end in a blood bath where the blacks finally got the upper hand and massacred the whites. In variants of this, the whites would withdraw and set up a stronghold over the Kimberley diamond fields, but the rest of the country would be taken over by blacks with attendant bloodbaths. All the great science-fiction authors predicted this in throw away lines in their novels – Arthur C. Clarke, Harry Harrison, you name it.

In fact, the only person I can think of who could envisage a remotely positive future for South Africa back in those days was General Sir John Hackett, that great evangelist for liberal capitalism with a welfare state and batteries of nuclear weapons. He saw democracy and capitalism leading to racial reconciliation and harmony (after we beat the Rooskies toe to toe in nukular combat).

Then when apartheid ended, the doom and gloom merchants were convinced that it would all end up in tears (especially the Torygraph) when the poor duped whites would be duped into giving up their army, left defenceless and then massacred by blacks. Of course, it was their country and they were welcome to it, and the Torygraph certainly wasn’t racist, but they needn’t come begging to us when they want aid…

So seventeen years after Nelson Mandela was released and thirteen years after the ANC took power, how close are we to any of these nightmare scenarios? Well, not very close at all really. Is the ANC perfect? Of course they aren’t. They’re politicians for crying out loud. Not just that, they’re ex-revolutionary Marxists, with all the nastiness that usually clings to ex-revolutionary Marxists when they become rich and capitalist.

Yes, some of the renaming of cities in South Africa is stupid and seems vindictive. But I don’t really blame anyone for not wanting to live or work on D F Malan Drive. Yes, the ANC is power hungry, somewhat corrupt and intolerant of opposition. Yes, positive discrimination has gone too far and is panicking whites into emigrating and damaging the economy (but don’t forget who still holds most of South Africa’s wealth). Yes, crime in South Africa is at appalling levels. Yes, the ANC’s handling of AIDS was barbaric until the courts made them change their approach and their Africa policy is a curious mix of pseudo-imperialism and an hyper-sensitive need defend any crook and gangster against white people just because they’re black.

But look at the positive side of the ANC’s record and they have many, many positive stories to tell. Too many South Africans are poor but a hell of a lot less that would be poor if apartheid was still in place. The ANC’s rural electrification and sanitation projects have transformed the lives of millions of South Africans who had previously been ignored. The ANC avoided the trap of trying to build an industrial economy on a Marxist ideological base and sold their soul to good old liberal capitalism. Sound macroeconomics have led to solid economic growth that attracts millions of illegal migrants from all over Africa, particularly Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

The ANC repeatedly subjects itself to free elections. The judiciary often rule against the government, and the government respects those decisions. The press is robustly free. For the moment, there are still living apartheid-era heroes like Mandela and Tutu who publicly rebuke the power-hungry in the ANC.

Yes, South Africa has problems. But it doesn’t have problems of people having their land seized, being evicted and dumped on poor land in a ‘homeland’ 1000 miles away just because of the colour of their skin. The government is not locking up people just because of their political beliefs. Children aren’t being shot for protesting and elections aren’t restricted to people likely to be supporters of the government. Billions of pounds are not wasted being wasted creating non-jobs in state enterprises because having an unemployed Boer would threaten the ideological basis of the state. It used to have all these problems.

I’m not a starry-eyed lover of the ANC. I think they are way too big for their boots and would not vote for them if I was a South African. They have some Grade A creeps in their ranks like the appalling Jacob Zuma. But when I listen to people compare them to ZANU-PF, who within a few years of taking power where butchering Ndbeles in their tens of thousands, I get annoyed.

Equally ludicrous is any comparison with the National Party. So there’s no difference between the NP and the ANC except for the colour of their skin? Then where are the Sharpevilles? Who are the Mandelas? Where are the forced deportations? Why aren’t whites and coloureds being coralled into an ‘independent homeland’ around Orania? And why are there prominent white ANC activists like Martinus van Schalkwijk?

People have been expecting the ANC to go bad since the day and hour they took power. They haven’t, at least not in the gross sense. They are, by any reasonable measure, a vast improvement on the National Party administrations and the only people who claim otherwise are people who benefited greatly from the old administration and from apartheid, no matter how distasteful they might have found it all.

There’s plenty to criticise the ANC about - the cronyism, the intolerance of internal dissent, the complete inability to get to grips with crime. But pretending that they are in any way comparable with the National Party is not only stupid and wrong but allows them to claim any criticism comes from whites with a secret hankering for the glory days of apartheid. And actually, a lot of it does. This would not be being said if the ANC were not a largely black political party.