Dynamic Africa

Earlier this week, the BBC posted an article that outlined a supposedly bleak future for the minority white population living in post-Apartheid South Africa, in particular, “working-class white people, most of them Afrikaans-speakers”.

The post, written by BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson said that despite white people in South Africa having the best jobs, running the economy, and having a disproportionate amount of influence in politics and the media, not all was rosy for all white people in the country. Because of course, if all white people aren’t ‘riding high’, there is a problem - especially because Apartheid offered almost all white people in the country (Afrikaans-speaking white people specifically) a certain quality of life that may have been unparalleled elsewhere. All this whilst systematically restricting the rest of the non-white population of their most basic human rights.

Of this ‘past’, Simpson claims that both white and black people alike have chosen to indulge in historical amnesia as South Africans would ‘like to forget’ the ‘bad old past’.

But I beg to differ. South Africans don’t commemorate and celebrate holidays such as Youth Day (June 16th), Heritage Day (September 24th), Human Rights Day (March 21st), and Freedom Day (April 27th), because they’d like to ‘forget’ the past, quite the opposite, Mr. Simpson. And then again, whenever any of the ruling governments departments - whether it be the police, the ANCYL, or the Department of Home Affairs - gets caught up in a scandal of some sort, you can bet your last Rand that white people in the country somewhere will bring up, in some way, how disorganized, inefficient or corrupt this government is in comparison to those prior to 1994. I’ve even witnessed people at grocery stores rant on about how ‘black people got lazy after Apartheid was over’.

But I digress.

Simpson is part of a BBC investigative news team that features stories that ‘reveal deeper truths about their areas of expertise’, and although I’m no expert on poverty and race relations in South Africa, the perspective of the article didn’t sit well with me and after tumblr user mixopop posted this article (link above),  I went on a little search of my own to see if Simpson’s claims had any weight to them.

Here are some excerpts from other articles:

The BBC article mainly featured poor white South Africans in a country with millions of poor black people. The article failed to mention that white unemployment in South Africa is only 7%, which is lower than the majority of European nations, while black unemployment is well above 30%. If Simpson wants to talk about who has no place in South Africa, and if the basis of his argument is an economic one, then it is the black person who has no place in South Africa. 

Seeing a poor white person in South Africa is still a relatively new phenomenon. When most black people see a poor white person, they ask themselves: ”What were you doing during apartheid? What were your parents doing during apartheid?” You see, apartheid taught us that to be white meant you were well off, while being black meant you were poor. 

Although poverty is no longer legislated, it is not true that South Africans now have an equal opportunity to achieve wealth – black South Africans are still at greater risk of falling into or remaining in poverty. One wonders if Simpson posed the question about poor whites because it was unfathomable for him to see whites living in poverty, that blacks can be poor but whites should not be. The premise of his argument, although left unsaid, implies that.

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And:

“South Africa has never been in a situation where whites have been singled out and persecuted,” said ANC spokesperson Keith Khoza.

“Instances of crime and poverty affect all South Africans regardless of the colour of their skin.” 

Khoza also said the BBC was suffering from an “apartheid hangover”.

“The BBC is living in their own world with their racist tendencies where they wish to undermine the government of South Africa because it is largely a black government.” 

“This isn’t just an attack on the government of South Africa and the ANC, it’s an attack on South Africa as a whole.” 

The Democratic Alliance too were displeased with the article.

“This is a very pessimistic post-apartheid view of South Africa. Poverty is endemic in this country and we have poor people – not poor whites and poor blacks. 

“The article and video create the impression that black people don’t suffer in the new South Africa, where they most certainly do.”

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Further reading:

• Do reports like this have a future in SA?
• Mixed reaction to BBC report

The reported racial exclusion policies of Kleinfontien farm settlement, near Pretoria, will be the target of a Democratic Alliance Youth protest on Thursday.

The settlement, which reportedly only accepts “white, Afrikaans Protestants who abide by the Blood River Covenant” as residents or workers, had no place in a democratic South Africa, DA Youth leader Mbali Ntuli said on Wednesday.

“We cannot allow racial nationalists on the extreme fringes of South African politics to try and bring apartheid back.”

The protest aimed to liberate Kleinfontein residents from their “apartheid mindsets”.

“While others divide, we will unite,” Ntuli said.

“Tomorrow we will show South Africa what a reconciled and prosperous nation looks like.”

Details of the planned protest would be released later.

Earlier, government expressed dismay that there were still citizens who did not want to integrate into a democratic South Africa.

“This disintegration is extremely disappointing, as it perpetuates the ills of the apartheid era,” acting government spokeswoman Phumla Williams said.

“Such acts were the main causes of a divided South Africa,” she said.

She was reacting to a report in The Times that residents of Kleinfontein settlement had vowed that only Afrikaners would be allowed to live there.

According to the newspaper, all the settlement’s residents, from the security guards at the gate to the gardeners, were Afrikaans.

Williams said all South Africans were governed by the Constitution, which catered for people of all races and religions. She said Kleinfontein residents benefited from government services.

“We strongly discourage them from lobbying for the town to be declared independent from the Tshwane municipality, as this will be contrary to the Constitution of this country.”

The Times reported that Kleinfontein’s controlling body chairman Jan Groenewald said it would lobby the Tshwane municipality for the settlement to be declared independent.

“Eventually, the African National Congress government will have to approve what we are doing here,” he was quoted as saying.

Groenewald told the newspaper a resident had to be “an Afrikaner with Voortrekker heritage, a Protestant Christian, and abide by the Blood River covenant”.

“We do not think in terms of race, we think in terms of culture… [but] you cannot ignore the fact that we have different races. That is the reality,” he reportedly said.

Residents included the leaders of several rightwing groups, but the community’s directors kept them in line, he said.

“We do not fly the South African flag because [South Africa] is a unitary state — the reason we find ourselves in this situation.”