Wawiel Butchery

Why is South Africa no longer a desirable option? It seems to me that Afrikaans-speaking South Africans have become the unwanted blots on the landscape of the so-called “rainbow nation”. The feelings of disdain and dislike with which you are regarded as you step off the plane is almost tangible. Furthermore, you are a target everywhere. People live in prisons…not only do houses resemble Nazi concentration camps with all the barbed wire, aggressive dogs, armed protection, electric fencing, lazer beams and alarms, but their minds have also become closed off enclaves of fear and doubt and dislike and alienation. Driving through the suburbs one is reminded of the Great Trek and ox wagons tied together at night with the protection of thorn bushes to keep the attackers out. (And unfortunately, as one reads of all the attacks on people in their houses in these armed camps one can’t help feeling that sense of disquiet about the future…

If you look at Maslow’s pyramid, self-actualization only occurs when all the bottom levels are in place. And the most essential human need, apart from the need to procreate, is survival and safety. This is completely absent. No-one is safe anywhere. Not in your car, house, at work, shopping centres. You have to look over your shoulder continuously. Be careful…be careful…don’t trust a stranger…The latest addition to this madness is the power sharing phenomenon.

Don’t want to continue because it fills me with such sadness…I’m a rootless person. I don’t know where to go…I am part of the Afrikaner diaspora. I love my country, but I’m not wanted. To quote one of our government ministers: “South Africa will only prosper the day that the last white settler has left.” Oh how I long for the wild waves, the Drakensberg mountains, the open fields of the Kalahari, the Pilanesberg, the Blyderiver Canyon, the splendour of the Knysna forest, Cape Town, the jakaranda trees in Pretoria (now Tswane). I long for the exuberance of swaying hips and loud singing in beautiful harmony. The entrepreneurial spirit…

Everyone that I talked to during my past weekend visit to SA are looking for a way out. Australia…UAE…Canada…New Zealand…Italy..(And I can assure you that it’s not necessarily that much better here..there?).More professionals have left the country in the last 6 months than ever before. What is going to happen to my beloved country? Most people that I’ve talked to here where I live are talking about the 2010 World Cup, and they are saying that they’ve heard it is so dangerous to visit the country. That they are anxious to visit during the World Cup. How are we going to change these perceptions? My country, South Africa, where there is very little respect for life, property, dreams…