South Africa

[hogger129]

So I have a girl living next to me who moved here from South Africa awhile ago and I asked her why she left. She said that it was because life is really bad for white people there. It got me to thinking, was it really better during the apartheid times in South Africa than it is now? The way she made it sound, things at least worked there and crime wasn't as big of a problem. Whereas now, crime is out of control and whites are discriminated against. Anybody live there who can shed some light on this?

 

[Mark T]

Life was probably better for white people during the apartheid. I'm not going to pretend to know anything about the problems it's facing now although I know that there has been a backlash.

I've seen a few documentaries on the issue of white-owned farms being taken over illegally. In some of the circumstances the owners haven't made it out alive and many of them have had to pack up and leave at short notice. The documentary talked about how the farms were being taken back and the farms were left to ruin while the house was lived in.

The sad part about the documentary I watched was that the farmer employed a number of black workers who were dependant on that income to feed their families. I think the workers were also threatened by mobs who told them not to go back to the farm.

My brothers wife is from just outside jo'Burg, quite a remote location and when they flew over two years ago her Dad escorted them (armed) from the airport to the small ranch they have.

 

[DustDriver]

I had no problems whatsoever when I visited 4 years ago. I lived near Pretoria for the most part of 3 months.
From what I heard then, the racism was between South-African black people and black people immigrating from other countries.

A lot can change in 4 years though, and it probably depends on the region.

And then you have the positive discrimination causing less jobs for white people with a low education.
I've seen lots more poor black people than poor white people when I was there though.

 

[sumbrownkid]

I'd rather be in South Africa than in Zimbabwe.

 

[Jaywalker]

As Mark T said, Life was probably better for white people during the apartheid. (I'm white & was an adult in apartheid times.) These days, living conditions are still pretty much the same, but with interracial communities is the 'burbs. There is a large pretty well-off class of blacks (Often closely linked to the ANC/govt.) living in previously white suburbs.

With the current black economic empowerment & other policies, it's harder for white kids to get jobs. Many leave for the UK & Aussie. The biggest problems we are facing are corruption in the ANC govt. (Billions being wasted & embezzled. We've even invented our own word for govt. tenders awarded to cronies: 'Tenderpreneurs'.), crime & unemployment. The govt., despite many empty promises, does little to solve these issues, being too busy feathering their own nests.

And now, with Nelson Mandela on his death bed, things are seeming pretty damn glum & gloomy. Life goes on, I guess...