Prelude
I haven’t written in a long time, and now when I finally sit before the computer, I fumble and wonder if I had ever been a blogger in the last six years, or have I most conveniently, worn a newly-born charisma as a newsletterist. A newsletter won’t appease a writer, and nor someone who wants to pen minute details of time, on which she or he rides on. A writer wants to put the arm on the colours and nuances of experiences, expressions, feelings and human contradictions. Almost like an artist, not faltering to complete a painting with the final strokes of the brush, or a humorist speaking the truth, the writer flirts with words, carries you to another era of thoughts that juxtaposes two or three disparate existences. No, it is not a deception, but an art form, if you may, that becomes just another truth in this world of many truths.
Well what I am going to narrate is not an art form nor is it how things maybe among South Africans, but it is about what I have come to perceive as truth, not the ultimate but my version of it. My opinions may change in the future, but this is how it is today:
Dilemmas of the White South Africans
Ever since we moved here, it were only the whites that always quipped, “This country is dangerous and so be careful where you go and what you do. Don’t take the taxis, buses, walk in the streets and never, never in the nights.”
When they say that we can’t help not notice their deep underlying psychological undertone as we compare it to our day-to-day existence here in Joburg. Even the blacks are killed and robbed as often as the whites are. The issue is definitely then not a racial one. It is just that a larger number of rich people happen to be white, drive around in fancy cars and live in rich white townships. If I were a thief I would know where to go, logically speaking.
I think the post-apartheid period is more complex than it had been during apartheid. During apartheid, there was the oppressed and the oppressor. It was clear who oppressed whom, and the Whiteman rules were clear.
Post-apartheid, everyone watching the country from outside thought ‘and-they-lived-happily-ever-after’. The outcome of post-apartheid: the blacks are free and have a political voice, while the whites are on the run with a threatened existence and a feeling of disempowerment. According to Charles Cilliers, a local white author, the biggest fear of the whites were that they had to give up their power and government to the very people they had long oppressed and dominated, and whom they had thought ‘incapable’, ‘uncultured’ and ‘uneducated’. Undeniably it is a difficult change for the whites. It is no surprise now that when the whites quip all the time that South Africa is a dangerous country to live in, that they are merely talking about their innermost fear.
Some whites are reacting strongly to local problems and issues, not in a political or social undertone, but by fleeing the country and with it its many problems. Some have taken a wait-and-watch stance while others have exhaled a sigh, ‘it is not so bad after all.’
The reason?
Many of those who fled the country easily were people who had some kind of British heritage (even a remote one), with British passports and English relatives. Those who migrated to countries like Australia and the US left with tales of horror and feelings of abandonment. Definitely with one foot in another country, and with no distinct feelings of martyrdom, it is always easier to take one’s hands-off something which is hard to solve and complicated. Under the circumstance, I feel certain I would do the same.
We have 3 Brazilians friends, and of which 2 never ever mentioned crime back home. They always give a picture-perfect of their country. But some would say, ‘Hey look, there maybe crime in Brazil but in South Africa it’s different. Here, they would shoot and kill you for your cell phone or a 10 Rand.’
And so in other words, South Africans say, ‘We are leaving our country because robbers and thieves kill in this country!’
Did anyone ask before leaving their country, “Where did the guns come from? Who are these people? Why are they killing for a cell phone or a 10 Rand?”
But there are still a great many white South Africans who feel truly South African and have lived on in this country, come what may. This is their country as well and no one’s yet told them otherwise.
South Africans are leaving the country not only because of the high crime rate here but also for a multitude of other reasons, to which they don’t yet want to admit to. Admittance to a future that does not exist is unfounded but for the time being it only raises fear and unrest.
* The Trekboere, as they were originally known, are descendents mainly from Dutch Calvinist, Flemish and Frisian Calvinist as well as French Huguenot, and German Protestant origins dating from the 1650s and into the 1700s. Minor numbers of Scandinavians, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Scots, English, Irish and Welsh people were absorbed, as well as some descendants from early unions with slaves of mainly Indian and Malay descent and local Khoi people.
I haven’t written in a long time, and now when I finally sit before the computer, I fumble and wonder if I had ever been a blogger in the last six years, or have I most conveniently, worn a newly-born charisma as a newsletterist. A newsletter won’t appease a writer, and nor someone who wants to pen minute details of time, on which she or he rides on. A writer wants to put the arm on the colours and nuances of experiences, expressions, feelings and human contradictions. Almost like an artist, not faltering to complete a painting with the final strokes of the brush, or a humorist speaking the truth, the writer flirts with words, carries you to another era of thoughts that juxtaposes two or three disparate existences. No, it is not a deception, but an art form, if you may, that becomes just another truth in this world of many truths.
Well what I am going to narrate is not an art form nor is it how things maybe among South Africans, but it is about what I have come to perceive as truth, not the ultimate but my version of it. My opinions may change in the future, but this is how it is today:
Dilemmas of the White South Africans
Ever since we moved here, it were only the whites that always quipped, “This country is dangerous and so be careful where you go and what you do. Don’t take the taxis, buses, walk in the streets and never, never in the nights.”
When they say that we can’t help not notice their deep underlying psychological undertone as we compare it to our day-to-day existence here in Joburg. Even the blacks are killed and robbed as often as the whites are. The issue is definitely then not a racial one. It is just that a larger number of rich people happen to be white, drive around in fancy cars and live in rich white townships. If I were a thief I would know where to go, logically speaking.
I think the post-apartheid period is more complex than it had been during apartheid. During apartheid, there was the oppressed and the oppressor. It was clear who oppressed whom, and the Whiteman rules were clear.
Post-apartheid, everyone watching the country from outside thought ‘and-they-lived-happily-ever-after’. The outcome of post-apartheid: the blacks are free and have a political voice, while the whites are on the run with a threatened existence and a feeling of disempowerment. According to Charles Cilliers, a local white author, the biggest fear of the whites were that they had to give up their power and government to the very people they had long oppressed and dominated, and whom they had thought ‘incapable’, ‘uncultured’ and ‘uneducated’. Undeniably it is a difficult change for the whites. It is no surprise now that when the whites quip all the time that South Africa is a dangerous country to live in, that they are merely talking about their innermost fear.
Some whites are reacting strongly to local problems and issues, not in a political or social undertone, but by fleeing the country and with it its many problems. Some have taken a wait-and-watch stance while others have exhaled a sigh, ‘it is not so bad after all.’
The reason?
Many of those who fled the country easily were people who had some kind of British heritage (even a remote one), with British passports and English relatives. Those who migrated to countries like Australia and the US left with tales of horror and feelings of abandonment. Definitely with one foot in another country, and with no distinct feelings of martyrdom, it is always easier to take one’s hands-off something which is hard to solve and complicated. Under the circumstance, I feel certain I would do the same.
We have 3 Brazilians friends, and of which 2 never ever mentioned crime back home. They always give a picture-perfect of their country. But some would say, ‘Hey look, there maybe crime in Brazil but in South Africa it’s different. Here, they would shoot and kill you for your cell phone or a 10 Rand.’
And so in other words, South Africans say, ‘We are leaving our country because robbers and thieves kill in this country!’
Did anyone ask before leaving their country, “Where did the guns come from? Who are these people? Why are they killing for a cell phone or a 10 Rand?”
But there are still a great many white South Africans who feel truly South African and have lived on in this country, come what may. This is their country as well and no one’s yet told them otherwise.
South Africans are leaving the country not only because of the high crime rate here but also for a multitude of other reasons, to which they don’t yet want to admit to. Admittance to a future that does not exist is unfounded but for the time being it only raises fear and unrest.
* The Trekboere, as they were originally known, are descendents mainly from Dutch Calvinist, Flemish and Frisian Calvinist as well as French Huguenot, and German Protestant origins dating from the 1650s and into the 1700s. Minor numbers of Scandinavians, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Scots, English, Irish and Welsh people were absorbed, as well as some descendants from early unions with slaves of mainly Indian and Malay descent and local Khoi people.
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