Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Are whites and other minorities under attack?

I see some other international news agencies have picked up on the story of the white South African being granted refugee status in Canada.

The Canadians ruled that he qualified because:
1.) There is clear proof that racial attacks by blacks against whites are happening.
2.) The South African government's inability and / or unwillingness to protect him.

Please take note that these are the findings of the Canadian immigration board. This doesn’t necessarily reflect my views on the issue.

What are my views? Whether black people are attacking white people in SA and whether the government care or not, I don’t know.

My biggest concern is that there are very large portions of the white community that perceive this as true. It doesn’t matter if the perception is right or wrong. It exists and that is dangerous in so many ways. What if these folks start taking things into their own hand? Things can quickly escalate into unpleasantness.

Unless the government addresses this issue head on, this perception will keep growing. Many white people feel oppressed and they feel as second class citizens in their own country. Again, whether they are oppressed or not doesn’t matter. They perceive they are.

Any group of people can only take so much crap until they flip out. Especially if they feel their government doesn't care. In fact, politicians like Malema etc. are just aggravating the issue.

While the above post are focusing on the white minority group to which I belong to in SA, I would suspect other minority groups in SA probably might feel just as disenfranchised.

8 comments:

Steve Hayes said...

I found the comments of the Canadian refugee board chairman almost unbelievably racist -- that wherever he went in South Africa he would stick out like a sore thumb because of his colour. Really?

SA Expats said...

I don't think he was racist. Ignorant maybe, but not racist.

Heiko said...

It would be true - depending on where he went. Don't you think he would stand out in Soweto? Or, on any Board of Directors of any large corporation?

Or at ESCOM?
The SABC maybe?

Or at a soccer stadium...

SA Expats said...

Lol! Good point. :)

Sean said...

See this comment:

http://africasacountry.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/it-has-come-to-this/

Muhammad said...

First I'm hearing about this... whoa. It is a serious issue but I think the issue of attacks of blacks against whites is far too simplistic to be put into that phrase itself.

Tehre is still a lot of discrepancies between rich and poor in South Africa, not to mention lack of education and poverty exacerbating most social contexts. This is especially concentrated on the black community which inevitably would lead to crime.

Hence I think that this unbalanced context leads people to believe that blacks hate whites and are putting them under attack. It could be a different picture altogether.

But if the Canadian government has findings like what you mentioned in the post... then it is a very serious issue for South Africa.

SA Expats said...

Muhammad - Well said.

Anonymous said...

Ironic how similar the SA government's reaction is to that of the apartheid-governments' reactions in years gone by. Those times the international community were also viewed as ignorant about SA's internal affairs.

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