You think Iraq is bad...

News & General Discussion
1

I keep seeing these places on telly where the people are permanently at war and I think to myself that I have no reason to complain, but this simply isn’t the case…

I lived in the UK for 6 years and had absolutely no run-in with any crime of any sort for the entire duration. I have been back in South Africa for 1 year and during that time my mother (who lives next door) has been put to sleep with noxious gasses twice and they robbed her blind while she was asleep in the house, they poisoned my cousin’s dogs… twice (my neighbor on the other side), they robbed my mom of her cellphone three times, held me at knife point and stole everything I had on me (including my 1 month old iPhone), broke into my house 3 times, raped my other neighbor, broke into her neighbor’s house twice, stole from my cousin’s store 3 times, held up the staff twice at her other store and took hostages at her depot, they stole our telephone cables 7 times, threatened my mom and followed her as she drove off because they wanted to rob her delivery vehicle for the 4th time and the list just goes on from there… I never leave the mouse without my pepper spray in my hand. Not on my belt, in my hand.

It is illegal to do anything more than that to anyone who attacks you. Just last week I read about a woman who shot one of 3 robbers and when the police arrived on the scene the guy still had the knife in his hand. She is under investigation, now. Some kids steal from a farmer’s plantation at night so he shoots a shot into the air. The kids flee and run into the barbed wire and get cut up. Next week there are protests in the street with closed off streets, podiums and scores of people demanding for this guy’s incarceration… This is South Africa…!

Apart from my dad, nobody else close to me has been killed so far this year, although my work colleges had (all of the ones in my office) been held up at gunpoint during this year. Don’t get me started on the nature of murders in the news over here… The criminals run riot in this place. So much so that when they ganged up on my mom in an elaborate robbery and she noticed her phone had vanished from her pocket, she asked them if she could just get her sim back and they proceeded to tell her who had taken her phone, how he passed it over and where the pone would be at this point… Don’t deny stealing it, admit your great accomplishment.

On Wednesday this bloke calmly walked into a classroom during class, picked up the kids suitcases (they are required to leave their phones in their suitcases during class) and just walked back out again. No fear at all. When the teachers grabbed him he just said he is not worried because he is only 16 so nobody can touch him. True to form, the police came and went and the guy was left untouched…

Am I right to hate my country? Am I a traitor for wanting to leave this place with such a sense of urgency that cannot be expressed? Is it all right for me to hate this country so much that I would gladly swear allegence to any country to protect them from anybody, including South Africa?

Unfortunately South Africa is not classed as a “dangerous country” and is not on the list of countries from where people can claim asylum. At least not in the UK it isn’t… last time I looked…

Programmers. Modelers. Those are sought after skills, aren’t they? Games programmers. Surely that is something sought after as well? Can this skill not be used as a means of escape? Could it be possible that Unity could save my life?

Or should I just say: “At least they aren’t shooting people around me… at least not daily” and stop complaining and just sit back and await my fate?

This was one of my goals in life. To make a video game and distribute it world wide. Although I will meet an untimely death, at least there will be something left behind to prove I existed and hopefully this will live on long after I’ve stopped doing so… At least that goal is achieved. I do not dare to hope to reach old age, but at least I can hope to live long enough to afford a pro license…

Le sigh… All this knowledge and skill and it doesn’t help me one bit…

If you can help, please do…

2

Life has many faces, your country is just another error of our sick human society.

Considering what the world is now, with all the misery, conflict, distractive brutality, aggression, and so on; Man is still as he was, is still brutal, violent, aggressive, acquisitive, competitive, and he has built a society along these lines.(From Zeitgeist:Addendum)

There are worse or better places on earth from your country but that’s not the case. You can’t just sit there and say “Thank god I’m not living in a country where there is war and tens of people die a day by bombs, gunshots etc.” Patriotism is nothing but a lie humankind has created in their minds. A lie that rule the citizens in a country to obey the politicians ideas. An excuse for wars, an excuse to die “for your country”, an excuse to accept living in lower standarts than a human being…

Before being South African, you are a human being which deserves to live free from all these violence, and it has nothing to do with being traitor. All the human society needs a deep change, the money economics, the politics, the countries and borders must all be a thing of the past which someone will see in a history writing in the future and say “wow in 2009 the humankind were really primitive.”

Anyway, I’ll cut this short because I know there is a lot of people who hates talking about a brighter future and an “utopia”(what they think).

What I’m saying is, if you ever find the opportunity, move to a better place, start a new life, work on what you are passionate about. I wish you the best, good luck.

3

Thanks mate. Yeah, trying to. Some of the people I know have remarked that not loving your country is just plain wrong, but the way I look at it is that my parents happen to be in this place when I decided to come out. For that reason it is simply expected of me to love the hills and trees so much that I must be willing to fight to the death to protect the mountainside… Patriotism doesn’t make sense to me, either…

Having actually lived in this place and elsewhere I can honestly say that there is nothing here to make me WANT to love this place…

I just want to live… and I am hoping just the right person notices me and offers me a way out of here…

This post is the act of a desperate man… :frowning:

4

MrDude,

I am sorry to hear about your situation and the current situation in your country. To your question on patriotism, I have always felt you need to evaluate things for how they are, not how you’d like them to be. Fustrating, yes, but I’m a realist.

I can’t speak to asylum laws internationally, however, depending on your education and experience there are likely options for you to relocate.

Being from Canada I can speak to there best, currently Canada has a warm climate for immigration through work visas. As long has you have no criminal record, you basically need a job offer from a Canadian company and the rest is relatively easy. One thing to keep in mind, immigration in Canada is half federal, half provincial so opportunties to enter Canada are harder/easier based on which province you look at (Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are probably some of the easiest to gain a work visa in right now). Once you have permanent residence you are free to work anywhere.

So, if you are so inclined, I’d have a look at the Canadian job boards (Workopolis.ca is one of the biggest).

Now, mythbuster mode: it’s not that cold :slight_smile:

Of course, I live in Minnesota for the heat, so … take that with a grain of salt :lol:

I hope this helps, I wish I could offer more.

Thanks,

Galen

5

Yup, I’m with Galent. I think Canada is your best bet, plus Canada is an awesome place to live IMO. I’m an American but have often thought about emigrating to Canada. One thing you should know though is that you have to start the immigration process while you’re out of Canada. You cannot do it while visiting Canada. If there’s a Canadian Embassy in S.A. you can visit / call them and get the process started.

Good luck and remember that once you move to Canada that you’ll have to end all sentences with “eh?”. :wink:

6

Patriotism is bogus. Stand for what is right. If your country at large doesn’t stand for it, don’t stand with your country. Maybe where you live now will become a better place eventually. However, as it is, it sounds like you either need to become a vigilante in a militia, and do your part to make things better for people, which probably will involve killing a lot of corrupt people, or move away and do something less violent, leaving it for someone else to take care of.

I have no idea how the U.S. fares, compared to alternatives, as I’ve only lived in the U.S., and have only visited Canada. I’ve never lived in a place that met the level of barbarism you’re describing, even when I wasn’t in the better neighborhoords, however. Where you live now is not conducive to peace. Either embrace the brutality, and turn it into something useful, or get out with your life ASAP.

7

5 gold stars to you for hitting it spot on :slight_smile:

Unfortunately there are probably 1000 militant groups already and all I have to fight with is a rubber band and a kitchen knife. Not much use, me thinks :stuck_out_tongue:

Nah, “get out or die” are the only options…

We have actually looked at Canada but we failed to qualify. As it is, it looked like I qualified, but the people from “Canadian Expert .com” (I think that was the site…) anyways, he reckoned I don’t. Thing is, we could never afford anything as extravagant as further education over here. 1 year’s tuition costs 5 times my wife’s annual salary before deductions. I had to sell everything I had to buy the plane ticket to go to the UK. I arrived there with 400 pounds to my name and nothing else in the world.

6 years later I had a house full of stuff and an education behind my name. All the while staying within the rules set forth by the government in terms of allowed hours to work (max 20), studying time per week (min 20), state benefits (none) but, then they brought in new legislation and we had to return here for them to take a photograph of our left index fingers… Only that… and then they decided we can’t return any more because we can’t provide sufficient evidence of how many holidays we had in the 6 years.

I had just completed my diploma and my wife wanted to go study. We had enrolled her in the local college, which turned out to be the number 1 college in the UK for graphical design studies. We had paid the year’s tuition in full and was just awaiting the start date… The UK government decided that we didn’t provide sufficient evidence of how many holidays we took so deduced that my wife had no intention to study and that our intention is to stay in the UK for as long as possible by any means possible and it is our intent to work more hours than they allow and we intend to steal benefits wherever we can… That was the final decision. As a result, I couldn’t complete my degree and my wife couldn’t get any further education either. They actually said that she has had unskilled jobs up till now so why does she want to better herself this late in her life?

So yeah, I am 1 year’s study away from getting the degree and my wife is still lacking any further education. As it is, all the places we tried to go to keep turning us down based on qualifications. Even the UK. I did an online assessment and failed simply because the new rules demand that you have at least a masters degree. Saying I have a bachelors, I failed to qualify. Saying I have a masters I do qualify.

As for Australia… sorry, it was Australia, not Canada… Australia also turned us down due to not having a degree. Canada turned us down also, but I can’t recall why… Will have to look at it again. If only we could have stayed in the UK for one more year I would have had the qualifications to move anywhere I want… but due to the people who have a “you never had higher education up to this point in your life, why would you want it now?” mentality, we are stuck right here…

Hence, my application for work. I am working on getting that degree. Hard pressed since I was robbed of R20 000 twice this year (that’s 2 years wages that was stolen from me and the guy who is renting our house hasn’t paid rent in 6 months and the law states I can’t evict him or do anything at all against him so I have to pay his rent for him every month also). So yeah, once I get that degree, a job offer is something I will definitely need… Once I have those two things we are gone… Once again, leave everything behind, travel light and start a new life… while we still have ours…

As it is, things are just stacked against us left and right making it near impossible to get away, but I am not giving up. I will try until I succeed or they kill me while trying.

My philosophy in programming has always been:
“If it can’t be done, find a way”

Heck, we can send people to the moon using the same programming language (C++, that is) , so why should anything else at all be impossible? It’s a nice philosophy to have and I am applying it to leaving here also.

8

Canada declined you sounds a little too clear cut for Canadian immigration law. PM me the details and I may be able to help you find another way (Canadian federal and US immigration departments were cut from the same cloth, but don’t let them (Canadian officials) scare you. They don’t have the same rules to work with as the US officials. If you are not a criminal (and if the UK let you in at all you aren’t), then you may have other options.

In all immigration laws I’ve ever encountered asking the straight question “can I” of the officials the answer is almost always NO! Now, phrase the question differently, or better have someone else ask the question, and the results are quite different (Ask yourself how so many “actors” (without formal education) from around the world seem to find a way to move permanently to the US despite the relatively high requirements for entry… Depends on who’s asking :wink: )

Thanks,

Galen

9

I’m not going to address the main thrust of your post. My attitude growing up in one of the highest per capita violent crime places in the US has made me jaded about such complaints… to my own detriment I guess. But… this caught my eye

The above is 19th century thinking of little efficacy today. Nationalism is artificial social programming that benefitted the despots of the pre-modern era (pre world war one) as it was a tool for quicker mobilization of populations for war. Modern military organization is rooted in Nationalism. And while that is not bad in and of itself, it is revealing of where such thinking can lead.

Loving the place and people and culture of home provides the root for loving your country, but is not the same thing. Conflating those emotions with an artificial national identity is both irrational and extremely dangerous (while often counter to your own best interests). The history of the Balkans is written in blood spent for the realization of these very notions. And the psychology of a suicide bomber is not all that different than a devout patriot. They are two sides of the same coin, a coin of a currency that has outlived its usefulness.

10

Why limit yourself to the UK, Canada or Australia?
There’s game development studios all over the world.
EA for example:

http://aboutus.ea.com/locations.action
India, China, Singapore, etc.

Or how about something in your own country? I can’t believe that your entire country is a horrible place to live. I mean, for the love of god, Charlize Theron came form there! That’s got to count for something.

Here’s an article from Gamasutra on game dev in South Afica. Maybe it would give some ideas…

11

Anywhere off the African continent is fine… I’m not picky. I just want to go anywhere save…

Charlize Theron left… That should count for something also :stuck_out_tongue:

Over the course of 5 years 3000 white farmers were murdered. I mean 80 year olds who had their genitals stuffed down their throught with horse dung before getting their heads bashed in. I am talking about guys gang-raping an elderly lady before cutting off her limbs to letting her bleed to death before each rapist takes a turn to shoot the gagged and bound husband who had to watch this. 3000 whites. 3000 farmers. 3000 people with nothing in common. The official statement in each case was that it was a robbery gone wrong. Nothing else 3000 white farmers had in common… Hmmm… Do the maths, that’s more than 2 people per day. I live on a farm, btw…

A country where the population BELIEVE that if you rape a white baby younger than 9 months old you will be cured of aids. A country where people gang rape a baby before putting it in a plastic bag and burning it to death…

Jeez… I hope I can find a job somewhere locally. The fact that every single one of my past girlfriends had been raped at some point in their lives, the youngest at age 7, makes me want to raise children in this place… Hmmm… no it doesn’t…

But, hey, at least Charlize Theron was born here :stuck_out_tongue:

12

Did I mention that I live behind 5 gates? Every time I want to leave I have to lock and unlock 5 gates. Even so, over the course of 2 weeks they managed to get to gate 3, 3 times… Nearly broke down gate 3 the last time…

Let me tell you the difference between living here and reading about here:
The current ruling party, and by extension our country’s president, had a logo once (not sure if they have it still). It went like this: “One farmer, one bullet”

So 3000 farmers were killed after they won the election and all matters were unrelated. None of the 3000 farmers that were killed during the reign of a political party that touted: “One farmer, one bullet” had anything in common…

Just to add insult to injury, a mass murderer is elected president before the farmers get murdered and now he is touted world wide as the greatest humanitarian in history with the entire world celebrating his birthday… Amazing!

It is so much nicer sitting over there, reading a news paper article about how South Africa is now becoming a free nation than it is to actually live here in a country where the president says: “Now the whites and the black are finally equal. Now the whites are gonna feel what it was like”. Does Stalin ring any bells? Or, as they said in that prescribed book in high school:
“All animals are created equal, but pigs are created more equal than others”

Make no mistake. South Africa didn’t change from a racist country to a free nation. All that happened was the whip was passed to the other side, but the other side has 10 times more in terms of numbers…

Did I mention that I was held up at knife point while they stuck their hands in my pockets and took everything I had on me? Did I mention they did the same thing to my sister-in-law’s 17 year old son 5 times thus far? Did I mention my cousin twice, my mother 5 times total so far, my other cousin once also…

Did I mention my cousin who was pushed off the side of the road, beaten with a baseball bat before getting wire stuck through his face? Did I mention the same thing happening to my uncle the next week? Did I mention the fact that I got a job as a security guard in a retail store because my predecessor got a knife stuck in his througt and the killer was left free? Did I mention the same guy offered to put one in my throught 5 days after I started working there? Did I mention my wife watching her friend get a knife stuck in his chest before getting a gun pressed against her head?

A few weeks back some kids snuck onto a farmer’s land and started stealing from him. He shot a single shot into the air and they ran away, but they ran into the barbed wire fence they had cut a whole into and the thieves got cut up. The farmer is now under investigation and ‘the people’ blocked off the roads on his hearing day and had themselves a mass protest calling for the incarceration of the farmer…

Heck, just this week, at the primary school where my mother works, a guy casually strolls into the classroom during class just as the teacher had left the classroom, picks up a few suitcases(children are required to leave their mobile phones in their suitcases during class) and casually strolls out of there. The children shout their heads off and the teachers catch the guy. He simply tells them: “I’m not worried. I am underage so you can’t do anything to me”. True to form, the police arrive and leave and the guy is left untouched…

They ganged up on my mom a few weeks ago in an elaborate scheme of attacking her and someone coming to her aid etc, When she noticed her phone is missing from her pocket, she asked the guys if they would at least give her back her sim card. At this point they stop the act and starts to tell her how they stole her phone, who has it, where that guy is at this point etc etc and then casually walks away. They don’t deny their crimes, they proudly admit to it and the witnesses just sit there and listens to the whole story and couldn’t give a damn…

Funny thing, though, is if you scream loud enough and any other criminals are around to hear you scream, they will actually come to your aid and beat up the other criminals for you simply for invading their ‘turf’…

Where’s the freedom in all of this?

But, at least Charlene’s mom was in this country when the doctors yelled:
“Push!” so that makes all the difference in the world…

13

Wow, that sounds really bad. I would recommend you to try to move to a european country. Once you become a citizen of a EU country, you are a citizen of the EU, and are fairly free to move around and have ample opportunity to go live somewhere else in the EU.

I’m convinced that many of the european countries have much more liberal and humane treatment of immigrants and refugees, than the UK. I think UK is extreme in that it is active in several wars, and has a foreign policy that is based on fear of terrorism.

This is NOT the case for many other countries in the EU - examples would be Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, many of the new eastern european states. These countries don’t have a recent history of terrorism problems, and I’m sure they will not be as hard-line as the UK/US.

People in all the Scandinavian countries speak excellent english, and there is little crime I’d say, relatively. Try to get your foot in, and I’m sure you could live a happy life as a EU citizen.

14

aaronparr: You are a very colorful speaker, you :slight_smile:
Loving it…

Suicide bombings is a topic I think I should rather leave my opinion to myself, but I WILL say this: I love Ahgmed the dead terrorist :slight_smile:

(p.s. for those of you who don’t know, do a google for Jeff Dunham…)

I kill you!
:smile: :smile: :smile: :smile: :smile:

15

Here’s a an idea : many of us probably have a facebook profile. We could expose your problem to many, many people in a very short time, this way…

If you’re interested, we could use this thread to write together a text in English describing your situation, which we would all translate into our own languages, with some links to your work.

My profile (all in French, sorry) : Redirecting...

Wish you the best possible success.

16

Lets not get crazy here.

17

Have you looked into New Zealand? Last I checked you might be able to qualify as a skilled migrant with a 3D animation/computer graphics background. Oh hey, here we go: NZ Immigration. It’s on their ‘long term shortage’ list for skilled migrants, which means they always need them. And hey, that’s Peter Jackson/WETA workshop territory!

18

I would suggest putting the game industry in second place as well. Those are fun jobs you will be competing for. I know Canadian and American customs looks for the “we can’t find anyone locally to do this”. I assume that Immigration works similar to Customs. Look through your resume for the less desireable positions. I suggest you become a Batch Cobol Conversion expert or a JCL Systems Aligner for example. I don’t know how it works there but see what you have going on around your office and start volunteering … you may just have to hold your nose for a while.

Maybe there are niche jobs in games like this? People around here should know.

19

Thanks very much indeed. I am overwhelmed by the responses I am getting. I really do appreciate it. At this rate I am sure to find a way out…

Domo arigato gozaimasu!

Dawvee:
I just had a look at that NewZealand link you sent

Close…

20

Yeah, I noticed last night also, it seems everywhere requires that it be a position they can’t fill locally. This makes sense. If not then you would all be hearing daily complains in your own countries about foreigners taking all the jobs and causing unemployment etc etc etc. However, my skills in stuff like C++ is severely lacking whereas I consider(ed) myself quite good with Delphi, but I haven;t worked in Delphi for a number of years now…

I have a firm understanding of programming principles and good at finding solutions to whatever problems arise, but the only languages I am currently any good at would be JavaScript and COBOL. Sure, past experience has taught me that I could learn a new language in a matter of days so if someone were to take me on in the most junior position available I would be able to hold my own in no time, but that is not really gonna help me with customs…

Take my current position, for example. I did a COBOL course in 1997 and then never touched it again afterwards. Last year I was taken on as a junior programmer and given 6 months to get myself trained. 3 days later I had my COBOL training out the door and I was busy learning about the AS/400 which I had never even heard of before that day. I was given 6 months for training but I received my first live project only 2 months into my training, waaaay ahead of the people who started training before me. In fact, I started there in mid October and by mid December one of the other trainees was asking me for assistance. She had completed her training task and wanted to know what she was supposed to do next. Since the trainer was on xmas leave at that point it boiled down to me to hand down assignments, detail the requirements and provide assistance…

I don’t have the kind of experience that would make customs go goo-goo-ga-ga over my CV, but I am a real quick study. I figured my Games experience is the only real thing I could use to my advantage since I figured Games Programmers are much harder to find than anyone who had programming in college… I never actually thought that looking for a video games position would actually count AGAINST me… Who knew?!

I suppose my COBOl experience is the only real experience I can put forth to them and although COBOL is the most fun-deficient programming language under the sun, I think my current job is proof enough that I am willing to do what it takes… COBOL offered me my first IT experience on my CV and if COBOL is my salvation, in stead of UnityScript then so be it… :slight_smile:

As for holding my nose… In line with that saying:
“Everywhere you go, there you are”, another saying that is just as true would be:
“I’m not going anywhere until I can leave” :stuck_out_tongue: