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This Will Not End Well
Julius Malema, leader of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters party.
Do you pay much attention to events in Africa? Me neither. It appears, however, that South Africa is determined to head down the same bloody path as Zimbabwe – that of radical Land Reform and racial retribution.
On February 27, the South African parliament voted 243-81 to begin the process of amending the country’s constitution to allow for confiscation of white-owned land without compensation. The motion was put forward by the Marxist party — the Economic Freedom Fighters — and supported by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party and the new president Cyril Ramaphosa (who just took office on February 18). This is bad news, not just for the white landowners but also for ordinary South African citizens and especially the poor (of which there will be more if this policy is implemented). It is also bad news for the entire African continent as South Africa is one of the few African nations with anything resembling a modern economy.
Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) gained its independence in 1980 and, to date, that first day of independence was probably the high-water mark for the nation. It quickly became a one-party nation run by the far-left Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and its demagogic leader Robert Mugabe. Early on, he implemented a toxic blend of statist economic policies, racial resentment and retribution, and government corruption, culminating in the confiscation of white-owned property.
In 1973, the per capita GDP of Rhodesia was $1,432 which has fallen to $1,081 as of 2017. I’ve included a couple of graphs which illustrate this economic decline but economic statistics tell only part of the story. In recent years, Zimbabwe has experienced epidemics of diseases such as cholera (not to mention malaria and plague) which have long since been brought under control in the developed world.
This 2005 article by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof describes how ordinary black Zimbabweans wish they could get back the white, racist government that had oppressed them prior to 1980 in order that they and their families might have enough food to live and survive. Life expectancy in Zimbabwe, which peaked shortly after the 1980 independence at 60.97 years (men & women combined) fell precipitously to a low of 44.06 years in 2002, although thankfully it has begun to rise in the last few years.
The first graph shows the GDP per capita for South Africa, Zimbabwe, and several other African nations from 1960 to 2012 as a percentage of the world average GDP per capita. The second graph compares the GDP per capita of Zimbabwe to other sub-Saharan countries from 1980-2014 with certain recent eras of Zimbabwe color-coded (pink = Land Reform, grey = Hyperinflation, light blue = government of national unity).
It seems that South Africa, under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, has been able to avoid the sort of racial acrimony experienced in Zimbabwe upon the end of the archaic and evil apartheid system and the start of majority rule. Unfortunately, it looks as if that will not remain the case. There are few worse policies any nation can pursue than to murder and/or run off its most productive citizens but that appears to be the path that South Africa is set to embark upon. This article provides a much more knowledgeable take on the situation than I could.
I came across this story on the Instapundit website a couple of days ago and since then I’ve been searching without much success for articles about this in the US press. That is disturbing to me because this seems like a very big deal.
Published in General
Yeah. And look at how many didn’t leave. People just won’t believe it’s happening until too late…
They aren’t likely to vote Democratic, so they are a no go…
Sad, but probably inevitable. The Achilles Heel of democracy is the fact that the majority can vote itself the property of the minority. That can work ok for a while under the right conditions, but it’s got an inherent instability built into it and it tends to be a one way ratchet such that, even if it starts out modest enough to not be totally dysfunctional, it will tend to become very destructive over time.
I posted this to my personal FB feed and had several friends say it was ok, cause of Colonialism.
I replied I am sure that will be great comfort to them, when they are starving to death and freezing in the dark.
I read an article that concluded that the South African government is doing this to distract people from how badly the government has been managing the country. That’s probably exactly the case.
And it’s not just taking property away from people; it’s putting the farms into the hands of people who don’t have a business or farming mindset, so the farms stop producing well or at all.
This is the end of the only remaining modern civilization in Africa south of the Sahara.
Yes, I think there’s a lot of truth to that assertion, at least on the part of the ANC. The Economic Freedom Fighter party is a different story – they’re all hardcore marxists. I’ve read that the ANC is extremely unpopular with the typical black South African for at least two reasons – 1) the economy sucks, and 2) it’s also a one-party state (the ANC) and every ANC president since Mandela has been a perpetual scandal machine – mostly involving various forms of personal enrichment and public corruption.
I hate to say this, lest I be accused of defending an unjust system, but fear of exactly this sort of thing is why Apartheid lasted as long as it did. The end of Apartheid came about not because of an awakening on the part of whites, but on the part of blacks. It was Nelson Mandela’s renunciation of his (and, by proxy, his party’s) revolutionary past, and his credible assurance that a majority black government would not pose a threat to the safety of whites that allowed integration to gain support among the white population. That this is happening approximately five years after his death is probably not a coincidence.
I had some South African friends in the mid-1980’s. They had come to the US, leaving everything they owned behind. Those were the rules back then. The government would not let people take their belongings and flee. If you left, you did it as a pretend-tourist, and you did it with the clothes on your back. I don’t know how things were ten years ago, but it is hard to believe they had gotten any better.
That doesn’t make your suggestion any less sensible, Al. When my grandfather fled Germany for Paris in 1930, I think similar sacrifice was involved. And, perhaps, again when he fled France for Palestine a few years later. And then again to make his way to Chicago. All in all, those sacrifices seem pretty much preferable to staying around for the holocaust. Most of my family didn’t make the same sacrifices, and they mostly died. But I recognize that it takes real courage to leave everything you know and everything you have earned and built, and run for your life. I have great admiration for anyone with that kind of courage. And, thanks Gramps!
Democracy can be a bitch. Even in the US, both sides of the spectrum are taking anti-market/unethical action.
It’s interesting how when you’re looking at a much lower income country far away like South Africa, suddenly the elites can look like they have a point.
And they are Africans!
When the left says that they are not real Africans, it will (again) show the left as the racists they are. (Color of their skin, content of their character, etc etc)
I hear Namibia is still doing well.
It’s war the war is so brutal in Syria. The Alawites rightly fear being slaughtered in masse if they give up their domination. In tribal societies it is usually dominate or be dominated.
There are 400,000 white in camps right now because of other new laws that prevent them from working. (White are 8% of the population, therefore no company can employ more then 8% white.) In addition to killing off the people who grow the food, they’ve also fired the people who know how to keep things running, which is why Capetown is about to run out of fresh water.
I would let them all in as refugees. Not only for your reasons, but because it would drive the left insane and that’s always fun.
But here’s what this really makes me think about:
Bill Clinton, ~1993: “By 2050 white people will no longer be a majority in this country. Isn’t that great.”
Listen to the black students at Evergreen, or their professors advocating for white genocide and tell me why to expect anything different here.
A couple of points. Even as whites become a plurality, it’s very doubtful that whites will consist of 8 percent of the country. Also, it’s doubtful that blacks will dominate, as there are lots of hispanics in the country as well.
But, and I’m looking at a future of maybe 75 to 100 years from now, if there is as much racial animous towards whites that you’re predicting, and who knows how much mixed racial marriages will play into all this, then the country, which is much larger than South Africa will break up.
Here’s part of an excellent article on the SA situation by SA expat (former combat soldier, former anti-apartheid militant) and now U.S. citizen Peter Grant. He blogs at Bayou Renaissance Man, and in general is well worth reading.
Mandela kept the crazies down, but he’s gone. The white farmers often didn’t want to sell up and move, and the government didn’t really allot funds to buy them out. When they leave, food production will probably drop precipitously; no doubt the Chinese will be happy to provide expertise. For a price. IIUC they already dominate agriculture in Ethiopia.
I have a feeling that the Chinese in Africa will make the Belgians look like Mother Teresa.
At that point white people will still be the largest group. But all the others have and are being indoctrinated into believing that all their problems are due to white oppression. If you really believe that, isn’t creating laws to reverse that oppression the just response? Like, for example, a privilege tax? When that doesn’t ‘fix’ things, what comes after? There is no reason to expect the same thing can’t happen here.
The new minority majority doesn’t have to be all one race. Have you noticed how references to black and Hispanic are being replaced by the new term ‘people of color’? What does that term mean, if not everyone but white people?
I’m not suggesting there will be immediate genocide or even at all. But I do expect things to get very ugly along racial lines.
I suspect this is going to happen at some point anyway – racial animus or not. If political tensions continue to ratchet up, I don’t see how it can be avoided. A breaking point will surely occur. I don’t see how it can be any other way.
@matede posted a thread in February on Lauren Southern’s reporting. With increasing references white supremacy, etc. in US, you’d think it a topic for our press but they remain silent. Doesn’t fit the agenda or myopic obsession with our current POTUS, I suppose.
The primary reason the MSM is trying not to report on a real-world case of genuine racism is because it would be too politically inconvenient for their preferred narrative of “Trump’s a racist”.
The secondary reason is that because of their multiculturalist world-view they will never get as excited by crimes committed by members of what they regard as an “oppressed class” against those they regard as members of an “oppressor class”. I am old enough to recall the MSM’s editorial behavior during the 1970’s when Africans of African descent conducted genocide against Africans of African descent–plus Asians–in Uganda while–at the same time–Africans of European descent were denying English common-law rights to Africans of African descent in South Africa.
You get one guess as to which one of these cases excited the MSM.
As much as practical the MSM will ignore South Africa until somebody white does something wrong to somebody who is black–because multiculturalism.
Its not just material assets; My Great-Aunt Charlotte had to retake Medical School and become a doctor all over again.
From wiki, ANC headed municipalities (green) after 2011 elections:
And then after the 2016 elections (blue is Democratic Alliance):
Noticeable change: Gauteng goes DA.
Hence the ANC adopting this political stance.
From this article:
I don’t think it’ll be Zimbabwe 2.0 – in that it won’t be land grabs. What it will be is an electoral issue over which a number of parties will compete about how ‘pro’ they are – all while avoiding doing anything that puts their money where their mouths are and crashes the economy. (Though eventually, the time to pay the piper arrives.)
From Moneyweb:
Thanks Zafar.
To my understanding, these issues were to be put to bed by the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in 1996. The purpose of the commission was to
I guess they forgot the reconciliation part.
This will not end well especially since the government just voted to seize private lands without compensation. (Sorry @zafar, but they did, in fact, vote to do what you said they wouldn’t)
Just remember, there is no end to the grievance industry.
The TRC was really the first ‘thing’ of its kind – and perhaps unsurprisingly it failed at many things. It wasn’t all Invictus and In My Country rah rah.
Bluntly (emphasis added) albeit narrowly put:
Or in a more measured way:
Essentially the TRC sidestepped access to resources and land ownership – which as it turn out are at the heart of people’s concerns.
Absolutely, but it’s only the gift that keeps on giving until you concretely and directly address the grievance.
The ANC doesn’t want to end up like Robert Mugabe (or to make SA like Zimbabwe – they are not stupid people, not to mention their healthy self interest) – but I think they do want to politically milk the issue for as long as they can without paying the piper. jmho. (Which may prove to be harder to say than to do.)
Bovine excrement. The US addressed the grievance in the most concrete way possible – the American Civil War, never mind the Civil Rights upheaval – and it still has not ended the grievance industry.
Heck we even redistributed $2.2B in the 2000s as part of the Pigford cases. It isn’t enough and it never will be – until individuals choose to ignore the grievance industry.
Exactly. The purpose of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions was to give whites an opportunity to give up their dominance without fear of persecution. It looks like once Mandela was out of the way, the rest of the ANC had no intention of keeping that promise.
But the point is the ‘whites’ didn’t give up their dominance where it mattered (the economy) – the TRC didn’t get into that – though reducing that to race and ignoring class really misses some relevant info. Let’s just say that the people who were (even relatively) rich under Apartheid are still mostly rich, while the people who just had their whiteness have lost that advantage. Also there are some rich black people now, but most blacks are still poor. It’s a solution with some inbuilt instability.
LOL.My daughter went to school in Wisconsin with a girl from South Africa. Nice little blond kid smart, dad an engineer mom a nurse. When college time rolled around she started getting unsolicited free rides at major universities, even a couple of Ivy’s. It became apparent that they were salivating to get this smart “African” student to fill a quota.