All you foreigners, you try living like that for 20 years, see what you attitude is then

I agree with one of the posts further up the page; I am a South African expat living abroad. I left after taking two 9mm rounds, one in my leg, the other in my side, AFTER giving up my phone and laptop. He laughed and told me to “gaan haal jou boere boeties, ek skiet hulle ook”. It means something to the effect of “go call your white Afrikaans farmer brothers, I’ll shoot them too”, which for me BEING ENGLISH and not a “boer” was the most offensive part of it all. Would you believe the most ironic part? I was working as an adult literacy teacher in an impoverished part of the SA just outside the city in which I lived, where the students were taught for free, out of my own time and effort, for which I was not paid. The man who shot me was related to one of my students. I wonder how he knew that I had such things to steal? He got bail on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon. He has yet to be dealt with almost a year later; my stolen items were never returned. I have been mugged many times at the point of various weapons, one of those a screw driver (laugh), my house has been broken into, my car has been stolen and retrieved through a PRIVATE security company... the list goes on.

Getting back to my original point; it is not the people who create these problems, it is the government alone who is responsible. There would be no crime or racism if the police were paid enough and trained properly to enforce the law, if corruption in public services or government was dealt with seriously. If there was a decent education system that taught people the skills to make honest money, adequate housing, a mass sterilisation program to deal with the population boom, and supervised government spending, and if government stopped making a show of dealing with drugs by pursuing impoverished marijuana growers as opposed to dealing with hardcore drugs such as crystal meth and heroin.

The current African National Communist party was the worst thing to ever happen to SA, Apartheid included. I am of the opinion that a revolutionary party should never lead a country; there is just too much hate. And I know what you all are thinking. No, no, no, it's African National Congress. Well here is a short history lesson for you boet; they swapped it in the early 90's for "African National Congress" as they were voted in democratically. Pathetic; this so called government of hatred mongering illiterates can't even stick to their own ideals; how could it be expected to have dedication to yours? Aside from the obvious ones in the public spotlight, many of the people governing our country have not even passed high school; some haven’t even BEEN to high school. How on earth can a government be trusted to take on complex tasks when most of its working force is barely literate?

The people I feel the worst for are those that voted in the ANC in ‘94 and are still waiting for change. The rich black guys in SA were always quite well off, at least better off than me. But they are a tiny minority. There are millions of poverty stricken black people who just got screwed over into a worse position than they began with; the ANC has had ten years to do a job and all they seem to have been able to do is fool the world into thinking that South Africa is some sort of model for reform. HA! The idea is laughable; even the tourism adverts for SA give it away. “South Africa, Alive with Possibility” Sure boet, a lump of coal has “possibility” too; if you squash it long and hard enough it’ll turn into a diamond... not very likely though.

The ANC fuels racial tensions with impressionable weaklings as pawns, like the ANC Youth League for instance who fear reprisal so little that they claim on national TV that they will KILL for the ANC. This ANCYL, whose counsel comprises of nothing more than a bunch of spoilt, drunkard rich kids who know nothing about struggle or hardship, and even less about apartheid. Most of these idiots have never even seen the dreaded yellow squad car of the 70's and 80's let alone been a victim of any kind of racism. I'd be surprised if any of them had even bothered to have a decent conversation with a white person.

These are the people that the South African population should be angry with. If you take nothing but this simple question from this post, think about this: We pay up to 45% personal tax back home; what do you get in return? Where is that money going? BILLIONS of rands of your money that just goes "poof" with some left over to make it seem like they are spending it on something honest. I’ll tell you where it goes; off shore accounts, big parties, “travel expenses”, expensive cars and gargantuan houses, these are to name but a few.

I got sick and tired of it all, I had to leave. I was 9 years old when Apartheid ended. Up until my teens I had very little understanding of racism; it made no sense to me. Now I think I have at least a rudimental understanding. It is comprised of mostly greed, a bit of anger and a dash of ignorance. I still don't quite understand the ‘why’ behind it all, but I do know is that it has hurt me when I had no part in it to begin with. I gave, and gave, and gave, and all I have to show for it is a dodgy leg and an inability to sleep in my own house, even abroad in my sleepy little town, without waking up every ten minutes when a twig snaps, or a bush rustles outside my bedroom window. I hope that one day all of those rich, pompous, illiterate, power-hungry communists who took my beloved country away from me are hung by the neck until dead. Then maybe I could return and teach their children how to act like human beings.

disillusioned expat 19 Dec 2008, 04:15 - Report