Reply #182: As others have pointed out, the majority of white South Africans [View All]

[FarrenH]

voted for the Nationalists and their Apartheid for 40 years. There wasn't a massive change of heart in the last 15 years, even though white SA attitudes have generally softened. White South Africans that left this country immediately after, or shortly after Apartheid ended are statistically likely to be racist and paranoid. Of course they aren't all that way. But the simple fact of their historical political preferences as a group mean a majority of them are. Which makes anecdotal evidence from expat white SAn's suspect at the very least.

I am white. I am South African. I live here. I still hear wild, ridiculous claims about the ANC, the "farmer holocaust" and other such bullshit regularly. And I can tell you that 90% of it is pure, racist paranoia. Just picking apart one claim made by Huntley (and many white South Africans): Getting a job. Every single white person over the age of 20 I know is gainfully employed. Affirmative action makes getting a job with large companies like banks harder, as well as the government. But since they work on quotas AND exceptions are made for jobs where specific skills are required its far from impossible. If you happen to apply for a job with a govt department that has met its PDI (previously disadvantaged individual) quota and you're white, you'll get the job. AA requirements don't extend to companies with small staff quota's or turnover. They are enforced through public sector employment and AA requirements for companies that want to win govt tenders. The employment rate (and average income) for whites is waaaaay higher than for blacks. One of my oldest friends, who is very bright and skilled, repeatedly complained to me that he was "convinced couldn't a job because of AA". This is in a field where competition from black people with requisite skills is still vanishingly small (software development) and every other white guy I know in the field had no problem getting a job (in fact most employed software devs in SA are still white males). What I didn't want to tell him is his communication (interview) skills sucked. Badly. Now that he's picked up some experience he has no problem getting a job and in fact has job-hopped quite a lot to up his salary. But this kind of self-serving, pity-me attitude is quite common among young white SA males who would rather ascribe their misfortunes to massive conspiracy than their own failings.

Dissecting the "White Farmer" holocaust that Huntley apparently alluded to in his testimony and is a staple of racist right-wing dialog here, one discovers that in proportion to most other socioeconomic groups white farmers are the LEAST at risk of being victims of crime. This is why said racist right-wing dialog always touts number of violent crimes against farmers, never the proportion of total crime it represents in SA, or the per-capita incidence against farmers compared to other groups. My parents live 100km out of Johannesburg on a plot in a quiet valley and sleep with their back door open for the dogs. No-one in fortress Johannesburg would dream of doing that.

Take it from a white South African who grew up here, went through the same Apartheid education as most of the expats you might encounter and still lives here. Most (but not all) White South African expats haven't got a fucking clue and are willing to share their ignorance of their own country with anyone who's gullible enough. Just like there are code words in US politics, there are a few concepts that will straight away tell you someone has a view of SA that is hopelessly distorted by racial paranoia. Rabbiting on about the "farmer holocaust" is one. Anyone who sees the ANC as a purely "black" party, hellbent on taking everything from whites is another. As other posters have pointed out the ANCs defining document, The Freedom Charter, explicitly states their commitment to equality and fairness for all SAs citizens, black, white, Indian or whatever. The ANC is 70 years older than Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF and was an ally of Ghandi during his activism here in SA (they even for decades tried the route of peaceful resistance). So comparisons to Zimbabwe are ridiculous on their face. The ANC is NOTHING like ZANU-PF. The fact that we have had 2 presidents who willingly stepped down after their term expired should tell anyone with a brain that.

This was actually the point of contention which caused groups like the PAC, which wanted to be a "black liberation" movement, to seperate from the ANC. While a fraction of ANC members are racist and the ANC can be faulted for corruption, maladministration and other things, they are definitely not, as a party, founded on racial prejudice. Several white people are venerated among black ANC supporters for being "heroes of the struggle". One of SA's largest black informal settlements, for instance, was named after a white ANC member (Joe Slovo) by its impoverished black residents. To this day many of the ANC's leaders are white and in fact there have been white ANC cabinet members holding the highest offices in the land from 1994. An elderly black client once told me that the PAC and AZAPO, both Black Consciousness movements that at one point played a big role in the struggle against Apartheid, fared so poorly in post-Apartheid elections because they were seen as "racist" in the predominantly black townships. And, in fact, their post-Apartheid redefining of terms like "African" to embrace anyone who identifies with African values and traditions seems to reflect an acknowledgement of this electoral weakness in said parties themselves. So anyone who takes the position that the ANC (the party and the government) is fundamentally racist against white people is basically by default a paranoid, old-fashioned white SAn racist.

That extends to whites who think most black South Africans are fundamentally racist. Controversies like the recent furore about athlete Caster Semenye often expose racial divides in how white and black South Africans view things. But I can honestly say in the 15 years since Apartheid I have encountered subtly anti-white attitudes from govt officials, shop assistants and so on maybe 8 or 9 times. And this is in a country that is 80% black. On the other hand, I have seen a black shop assistant being rude and grumpy to black customers in front of us, then to a white colleague, only to have the same colleague later regale other co-workers with a tale of a racist shop assistant minutes later. This is unfortunately a lens through which many white SAns still parse every interaction with black people and it hopelessly distorts many of their perspectives.