Posted on 02/19/2005 4:34:21 PM PST by CurlyDave
OHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) - If South Africa's campaign to lure millions of people like 20-year-old Zander Smit back home is going to work, it must convince them whites still have a future in the country.
Tens of thousands of white South Africans have left their country since the end of apartheid in 1994, citing poor job prospects, endemic violent crime and fears the country could go the way of neighboring Zimbabwe.
But dire predictions of racial trouble and economic collapse are unfounded -- the stock market is hitting record highs and the currency has strengthened for three years in a row.
South African banks and businesses now want the estimated 4 million to 5 million citizens overseas -- 1.4 million in Britain alone -- to return home.
But Smit, and many others like him, are not so sure.
"The country is in a make it or break it situation," he says in the South Africa-themed Bok Bar in London's Covent Garden where he works. "I want to wait and see what happens in the next few years."
Back home, Smit worked on a temporary contract for a mobile phone operator but says he was never offered a full-time job because the firm had to meet its ethnic quota -- part of efforts to give the black majority more control of the economy.
He aims to join the British Army and hopes to get a British passport "just in case."
Like many other South Africans overseas, he says that while the country looks stable, he fears it could go the way of Zimbabwe, where the white minority have lost farms and businesses and the economy is in ruins.
"The signs are there," Smit says.
ELECTRIC FENCES
Others say they left South Africa because of the high levels of violent crime. Many whites live in compounds behind razor wire and electric fences.
But official statistics show the murder rate falling 9.9 percent in the year to March 2004, and few analysts predict problems in Zimbabwe will spill over into a country that has enjoyed more than 10 years of multi-racial democracy.
Although official figures are not collected, moving companies say the number of people returning to South Africa has increased.
"In the 1990s a lot of people were leaving for political reasons but now it's leveled off. It's probably about the same amount leaving as coming back," says James Paterson, marketing manager for Stuttaford Van Lines.
"Homecoming Revolution" -- a campaign funded mainly by First National Bank and supported by the government -- says the country needs its overseas citizens back, particularly if they have skills and want to start their own firms.
"That way, we'll reduce crime by creating employment," says campaign spokeswoman Martine Schaeffer, who came back to South Africa herself after the job situation in London became tighter with the end of the Internet boom.
Research shows each skilled worker who returns can create up to 10 jobs, she says -- no small feat in a country where at least a third of the population is unemployed.
BETTER LIFESTYLE
"People come back for a number of reasons. Some feel they never really belonged overseas, for others it just didn't work out. Some were scared of what South Africa might become," says Schaeffer.
Now some say the climate and bright economic outlook are more than enough to tempt people back.
"People want to live somewhere where their children can play in the garden every day because of the weather," says Shaeffer. "Even if there are bars around the garden."
And in a country where half the population live on less than $2 a day, an income that cannot buy much in Europe goes farther.
"For a very mediocre income you can have a large house and a very good standard of living," says financial consultant Cornel Stander, who left for Canada in 1998 and now runs her own business in Johannesburg.
I still believe that democracy was the best replacement for Apartheid. No good can come to a country that doesn't respect its own citizens. A return to Apartheid would not be a step up, just a step. It would be like breaking your neighbor's foot because his wrist was broken.
"Property rights gone, justice gone, prosperity gone, peace gone, but hey, at least there is not Apartheid, just brewing Genocide."
This is the pessimistic view of SA, but not the current situation. Property rights are not "gone" (and we can argue whether or not the Apartheid state really respected property), nor is justice (unless a domestic bioterror program can exist in a just state), nor is peace (and after 20+ years of wars both 'hot' and 'proxy', was Apartheid SA at 'peace'?). If there is a 'brewing Genocide' then let's identify it and stop it (as was the case with the Apartheid government's bioterror policies mentioned above) instead of waiting for it to happen and then grimly and smugly harrumpf that everything would have been better if they stuck with Apartheid.
FReepers are smart people, but the SA discussions get stuck in doomsday predictions about Southern African and fuzzy memories about Apartheid 'law' and order.
"Rape, murder, and racial killings are a hundred times worse, you take your life in your hands just walking some places."
well, they're also reported about a lot more frequently now that they're no longer part of certain Apartheid 'police' officers' toolkit.
No such thing as property rights in apartheid SA... no gun rights.. you couldn't marry who you wanted. What is it with you white people who say SA was so great? It wasn't for black people so please.
South Africa might not have been good for blacks before but it's not very good for anybody now. If it were, they wouldn't be begging people to move there.
I agree that it's not good for anyone but I really wish the romanticisation of apartheid SA would stop.
Aye, I've known and worked with a number of former South Africans. Competent and well-educated people, and with quite an entrepreneurial streak in my experience. They always seem to do well here.
Why would any sane white person want to move back to a country where whites are targeted for genocide:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37010
Remember God helps those who help themselves!/sarcasm
Tell me, are there property rights in a state that takes land based on your skin color? Are there gun rights in South Africa now? What is with you people that say South Africa is so great now?! South Africa is hell now, and getting worse every day.
For all people. What is with you bigots that think no matter how bad is gets for blacks, it must be better if whites are denigrated? It is not a position of love you stand on, it is a position of hatred of a racial group. "Is find if we send an entire Nation into poverty and chaos, as long as whitey gets it".
Cyborg,you are right on with that post.I don't think many people like SA the way it is today but no WAY should anyone who truly beoieves in freedom should EVER justify apartheid,a brutal and degrading system.
Certain people's posts on this subject are similiar to those who imply that ante-bellum slavery really wasn't THAT bad and maybe those days should be looked upon with fond nostalgia.
Absolutely outrageous!
"Why is it when leftists corrupt a State so bad its economy virtually collapses, gun ownership is squashed so crime takes over the street to protect the new leftist leaders in power, it is always considered better than simple political reform that leave law and order in the streets, people working safely at their jobs and property rights in place?"
Couldn't have said it better myself. In so many African states, a white dictatorship was replaced by a black one. But the dictatorship is still there, isn't it? Only the color of it changes. In S.A. it is a communist/socialist dictatorship. Any whitey who goes back is nutz. They may not get out a second time, so I wouldn't take the risk if I were them.
"Why is it when leftists corrupt a State so bad its economy virtually collapses, gun ownership is squashed so crime takes over the street to protect the new leftist leaders in power, it is always considered better than simple political reform that leave law and order in the streets, people working safely at their jobs and property rights in place?"
Couldn't have said it better myself. In so many African states, a white dictatorship was replaced by a black one. But the dictatorship is still there, isn't it? Only the color of it changes. In S.A. it is a communist/socialist dictatorship. Any whitey who goes back is nutz. They may not get out a second time, so I wouldn't take the risk if I were them.
Offer them free necklaces.
bttt
They won't go back and many more are trying to get out.
You're 100% correct about their work ethic and in spades!
Apartheid is gone,now replaced by a Tribal/Communist state;which is far worse,for everyone but those in the higher spheres of the ANC.
Sorry,cyborg,that isn't true.
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