Moving to France from South Africa

[Wendy]

I know where you are coming from. Two of my closest friends are a married couple, much older than I am, who lived in Uganda in the late 50's - John was a surveyor for the British Govt there. They just loved that country and it's people then. They left in the 60's when the British began their withdrawal and 'handover' to the Africans. They now live in Australia and would love to return to visit Uganda but do not dare to. John says 'human life has become too cheap in Africa now'.

They told me how the African people all had employment 'back then', albeit at the hands of the British, French and Belgians, but all the same those people had jobs and were able to support their families. They had dignity. Once those colonies were handed over, and thus taken over by dictators and military regimes, the rot set in. In short, they are starving and killing their own people and this is all sanctioned by the so-called 'civilised' west.

The self important Sir Bob Geldof, Bono, and their ilk might raise millions in Aid for Africa; but to quote a woman from Ethiopia three years back...' our children are still dying from hunger yet the militia are all parading around with new guns '.

Makes you wonder where the money REALLY goes, dosen't it?

I think we all know.

"In the long run we must look to our own future & security" - you have sure said a mouthfull there my friend.

[woolybananasbrother]

So Jura, to cut a long tirade short, the Empire Loyalists were right then?

[Wendy]

Cut it short maybe, but come in with a better remark than that please. In short, Africa has not thrived under African rule.

[woolybananasbrother]

Jura, read between the lines.

[tegwini]

Hi W-B's brother

Neither Jura, (nor myself)  have put out a tirade - it's more a lament & regret for what has happened in Africa & especially in my case in southern Africa- my  husband's family roots go back there for hundreds of years & it's hard to accept what is happening there,

Empire loyalists probably have not really helped, not only did they not understand Africa, but their loyalties & interests lay elsewhere & not in Africa.   And now many in the UK  think the Commonwealth ( the empire now liberated) ,  is wonderful,   functions well,  is democratic, full of economically sound countries with well-principled & honest leaders.  Some of this is misguided guilt.  And we know that the commonwealth is really full of  leaders who are despots, incompetants,  & often see their country's wealth as their own.

That's what this lament is about & that we are helpless to change anything.

regards

tegwini

ps it's also sad that so many think Mandela is a saint, his first (abandonned) wife,  Evelyn (mother of his 4 children, none of whom he helped) disagrees.

 

[woolybananasbrother]

Thank you for your coherence tegwini. I do largely agree with you by the way.

I am not quite sure whether Bush's quick trip round Africa handing out 'mooti' will mean change or not. Somehow I doubt it. It just seems that many African countries and their people are going to go through more hell as they are asset stripped by the Chinese now.

[woolybananasbrother]

Mandela got Western support because he delivered a violence free handover to black majority rule and cooled some of the "hotheads " in the ANC. Whether there could have been alternatives is open to question. Whatever they might have been, they would have been subjected to the rule of the big corporations who did not want their money making operations interrupted. I wonder whether the presence of the Chinese would have made a difference?

[Quillan]

[quote user="Jura"]Cut it short maybe, but come in with a better remark than that please. In short, Africa has not thrived under African rule.[/quote]

By your standards. The expats from these countries really don't have a clue.

In the main it was the Brits, Dutch and a few others that divided the African sub continent up and oppressed the 'black' and of course taking them for slaves (and yes we do know that some were given by their chiefs to the slavers).

Before African was colonized there were no 'countries' as we know them only tribal areas. It was the whites that created the different countries that we know now, it was the whites that destroyed the 'black' way of tribal life. Some of the great tribes had a far higher level of civilisation than anything the whites bought to the country. Still, even today, the expats talk down to the blacks and your comment is so typical of the attitude that is only to often seen by the rest of us. In fact you could very easily read rasism in to it if you wanted to read between the lines. The current situation in Africa is because the whites won't accept the responsibility of their past cock-ups, they would rather sit there when it goes bums-up and say 'I told you so'. The whites were only in Africa for one reason and one reason only which was to make money at the blacks expense. When the blacks stopped working they whites shipped in 'slaves' from india and China. The blacks only behave the way they do because they have learnt their ways from the white man.

I am reminded of this attitude by some older Australians who thought just the same way about the Aborigines there calling them lazy drunkards. The question is who made them that way, they were not like that till the white man arrived. Clearly these people had no understanding.

As for the comments about the commonwealth, walk down any UK street and ask a person who the members are, very few will know what it is let alone who is a member or the head of state. For most of us it has long gone now and slipped in to oblivion so it is pointless mentioning it, its just an excuse for a nice jolly for the politicians.

[CJR]

I do not want give a history lesson but I think you should you need one especially one in economic history.

 The poor inhabitants in England,  France,  Germany, Russia and other European countries were also exploited in the 17th and 18th centuries. What distinguishes western society from the current situation in Africa is that our socities have become better managed through eduction and discipline, and we have a legal and social framework in which to manage our economies for the people.

We do not have leaders like most African leaders who think that when they rise to power with the sole responsibility of managing and controling their economies they often act so irresponsibly that their people suffer from starvation, lack of education, training,  housing,   a suitable infrastructure and internal  investment in their local economies. Take South Africa,  as well as a lot of other countries in Africa which have vast natural resouces: oil in Nigeria and Angola,  massive mineral wealth  which is a  huge capability for  generating vast energy needs.   These have been largely badly managed through corruption and greed by the political leaders in Africa.

 How can you blame the colonials for the poor and corrupt leadership of the majority of the countries in Africa ?

The colonials left a fairly healthy infrastuctrure on which the indegionous populations could build, yet they have wasted this instead they have let these infrastructures decay and degrade into what they are now. Take the examples Kariba , Cabora Bassa no longer generating electricity at the moment also the current power situation in South Africa with the blackouts etc which is affecting industry and jobs. There has been no planning or management of these strategic assets by the indigenious leaders. There are so many examples of these situations in throught Africa. This is not about race or the Colonies in Africa but about the culture of African leadership and politics.

Why is it that we have such huge illegal immigration into Europe and America from Africa ?   It is because what these societies offer compared to those run by the morally bankrupt African leaders. It is these corrupt and incompetent African leaders who are responsible for the appaling state of Africa.

CJR

 

[tegwini]

Hi Quillan

Not sure what you mean by 'ex-pats' ...

Last night we watched 'Zulu Dawn' on TV  - ancient, and a repeat,  but it does show a lot.  

The ex-pats in this film were the arrogant upper-class British officers & British colonial officials who made disasterous decisions that brought about the deaths at Isandlwana of nearly a thousand British men & about 450 Zulus.    British men signed up to join the army often out of poverty, from the slums of British cities where many were exploited by employers & were often jobless & hungry.  Rourke's Drift was on the following day - another disaster.  Three months later they brought Gatling guns to Africa & destroyed the Zulu tribes & imprisoned Cetswayo on Robben island near Cape Town.

This was NOT South Africans fighting the Zulus, but foreigners, the only South African (a Boer)  in the film gave sensible advice (use the wagons in a laager) but Lord Chelmsford et al insisted on the Brit way of fighting & lost.  Lots of examples of incompetance: eg bullets in sealed boxes leading to shortages etc - these ex-pats didn't have a clue!

Not long after, in 1899, the British decided to go to war against the Transvaal & OFS- on very spurious grounds,  & again brought out an ex-pat army - as many as  750,000  trained soldiers from Britain & the empire  against a max .of 30,000 farmers (Boers) not soldiers.

It took Milner's scorched earth policy & concentration camps for women & children, of whom nearly 30,000 died,  to bring about surrender by the  Afrikaners. The new government was almost entirely ex-pat - Oxbridge types for Milner's new government in Cape Town  and also more decisions made- even some of the groundwork laid for apartheid by these ex-pats from Britain.  At this time the Union of South Africa became (unwillingly for many)  part of the glorious empire/commonwealth.

Europe & the UK also started with a tribal structure, millenia ago, stronger, fiercer tribes conquered others & ultimately we ended up with a royal family- some of whom might be described as ex-pats too.

Sorry this is a bit long, but this is a complicated topic, but remember above all, that many white South Africans have had family in South Africa since 1652,  and they are not ex-pats. 

tegwini

 

[Quillan]

Talking of facts?

Firstly it gives the wrong impression when you say that there have been white south Africans since 1652.  What you are really talking about is the Dutch who invaded and set up a trading camp (Dutch East India Company) to supply stores to ships passing the cape. They had hardly taken over the whole continent at that time.

The others, the French, Dutch, Scandinavians etc were mainly escaping justice or religious reform and came to run farms that were set up to supply the DEIC with food to sell. When, in around 1688, the farms had run out of local help they started enslaving the local population and importing slaves from Madagascar and Indonesia who after being interbred with the whites became known as the Cape Coloureds.

So we are not talking about South African we are talking about a Dutch run business. It wasn’t till around the late 1700’s, early 1800’s that the Dutch started trekking inland and only then when they finally managed to get their hands on guns etc. This was really because the British took the Cape in 1795 so basically the Dutch legged it.

Now these people who went on the ‘treks’ were basically farmers who wanted to grow stuff for themselves so they went off looking for pastures new. The word for a farmer in Dutch is Boar, a Boar is not a South African, just an invading, land grabbing (Dutch) farmer. The Brits had to put them down because they kept grabbing land from Xhosa and starting all sorts of problems (for the Brits).

So that’s how it all started, by an invasion for financial gain by a company. Don’t forget we did much the same in Rhodesia but for diamonds. All this before they discovered the vast mineral wealth and more recently the oil.

Now then, western managed society, are you having a laugh or what, just look at us. Not happy to tax our own to death and let rapists, paedophiles and murders go free after a short prison sentence we encourage people to borrow beyond their means, we start wars in countries that have nothing to do with us, we have practiced genocide on the grandest of scales, need I go on because I can if you want. Now I wonder where the modern black African leaders got their ideas from? The point is we ‘educated’ these people in to our ways, they are trying to return to the past or as it was before the white man came, back to their tribal system that worked for over 2,500 years and was not financially orientated. Unfortunately all their history has basically disappeared, they are lost and we should help them and give them as much money and help as they need. After all we have taken so much for so long.

When people talk about, in respect of Africa, education, infrastructure, health, economic management etc what is it in relation to, western standards, and that’s what we measure things by. Has anyone stopped to think that there may another way and that perhaps these people were better off before we enforced all this upon them. We have made them what they are, we should have left them as they were. We had absolutely no right to do what we did to Africa or any other area of the globe that we colonized.

As I said before these people were civilised, look at Cetswayo just one of the great and just Zulu Kings, not by our standards or ideals but his people loved him because he was fair and just by their standards. As he is reported to have said before the battle at Isandlwana “How would it be if I went to England and stood in front of Queen Victoria and told her how to run her country?”. Of course we put these cheeky blacks down in the end by using machine guns against spears, I mean how dare they. Not the first time the Brits have practiced genocide and it won’t be the last, think of India New Zealand, West Indies. I rather think we need to sort our own problems out before we attempt to ridicule and judge others.

All smacks of white supremacy to me but their you go.

[woolybananasbrother]

We certainly did not teach Shaka how to butcher whole tribes and leave whole regions devastated.

[Quillan]

Yes but then amongst the Zulus he was the chap who brought all the fragmented Zulu tribes together. Also, if I remember correctly, he didn't just do this on a whim, I think there is a large part of Zulu history involved. That said you are quite right but then this happened back in the early 1800's and perhaps he had in fact witnessed what the whites had done not just to other blacks but to themselves (Boars V Brits) and thought whats good for them is good for me? He was also a very good military strategist. You can't put all the blame at the white immigrants door but in the case of Africa you can put a very big portion there. We know pay for the 'sins' of our great, great grandfathers as we do with other continents.

[woolybananasbrother]

Zulu expansionism met the other tribes going west, squeezing them out, stealing their cattle and often forcing them to flee to the mountains or either be enslaved or slaughtered. The whites were also encountered sporadically at this time, mainly Boers looking for land. They clashed with the Xhosas but a stalemate subsisted. Whole swathes of country were left empty and unused by the Zulu attacks. Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland became refugee countries too.

The Zulu nation also raided up into Nyasaland and Rhodesia, causing a knockon effect right up into Kenya.

Shake created the perfect fighting machine for his purposes, but his bloodletting was terrifying.

The white man infiltrated the gaps left by the Zulu raiding and eventually of course came up against the Zulu nation itself.

By the way Quillan, most expatriates from SA are black South Africans these days. And they do know what is going on.

[tegwini]

Quillan,

I can see you have researched this a bit, but some errors...

- Black tribes were at war with each other well before thet met any whites- eg in Chaka's time

- Natal, where the Zulus lived was not colonised by the British until after the 1820s & then with only a smal no. of traders - Afrikaners from the Cape had trekked into Natal but in very small numbers

- Parts of South Africa were very sparsely populated -  Natal because of the numerous wars, & large Zulu tribes migrated northwards & settled in Matabeleland (now Zimbabwe),  in 1652 the Cape had only Hottentot & the San people, the Black tribes did not move westwards from the Fish River until later (late 18th century) and only then did the 2 races clash - initially over cattle rustling by the Xhosa tribes.  W-B'brother is quite correct here.

- Even today in Zimbabwe the Shona & the Matebele kill each other- Mugabe is Shona, and most of the hunger is amongst the Matebele- and this animosity pre-dates the white man's arrival by at least 100 years.

-tribal migrations are nothing new- not just in Africa either- our ancestors moved around Europe killing etc - Rome was in reality destroyed by migrating tribes - Huns, Alans, Visigoths ...and of course invasions into England & Ireland by the Vikings & Anglo-Saxons.  Brits in France nowadays- what should we call this?  Perhaps some French resent this ? Why feel any guilt here ???  We should not have to feel guilt for colonisation either- Africa is better because Whites migrated there- if they had not perhaps constant blood baths, disease & starvation even worse - who knows? Certainly the population has increased massively - the Aborigines have declined in number, but were often hunted for sport by British ex-pats.  This never happened in SA.  The San/Bushman had a raw deal, but the African tribes even with slavery & warfare have increased their numbers at least 15 fold since about 1850- a rare increase!

- White SAficans have a right to be there-  even the ANC accepts that, & most people accept that the Cape was near empty when the Dutch East India Company established a base there in 1652.  The British did similar elsewhere & took over the Cape in 1805 & not for altruistic reasons either.  SA is the powerhouse of Africa- why? why is it different? It is the only country with a sizeable population with skills, education & a work ethic.

tegwini

ps boar = hairy wild pig with tusks living in forests // boer= Afrikaner- person of Dutch/French/German  origins, Dutch word for farmer.

http://www.globalpolitician.com/22880-south-africa  (a bit more information here).

[artsole]

You lot should get together and write a book on the subject................you've nearly written one already[Www]

[Quillan]

The fact that the tribes fought is nothing to do with the white man not only in as much as they didn't start it but I guess in modernist terms it's internal politics and nothing to do with us. What the white man did was to play on these wars by helping some tribes and not others. This was not done with any sense of morality but because it served a purpose which was mainly to get their hands on the mineral and land wealth that was in abundance where these people lived.

With regards to Shaka, how you wish to view him depends on what, or more to the point who, you read. Most of the myth surrounding him about his 'barbarian' acts was written by a chap called Nathanian Isaacs and then further enhanced by Henry Francis Fynn and edited by James Stuart in 1950. Both Isaacs and Fynn, we now know, were charlatans, gun runners, slavers and all round nasty people. Several people have written about him in more recent times perhaps the more famous is E. A. Ritter in his novel Skaka Zulu which many take as a biography yet the writer always claimed it was not and merely a work of fiction and only very loosely based on fact. There are loads more people who have written about him and the list can go on for ever. In modern times the best book is without doubt The washing of Spears by Donald Morris which is based on 10 years of research. This book, whilst accepting the war like stature of Shaka, also explains both his military and social innovations and is considered to be THE definitive reference on the man.

As for the information on the East India Company and the dates given, I stand by it/them although it is somewhat condensed because to be honest if you went through it all we would be able to write a book at the end and indeed many books have been written. It just depends on your own personal perspective on whats written and whilst some differs to mine it is mine I choose to believe to be true.

[woolybananasbrother]

Quillan, I would love to be able to debate the details as I have all the books but they have just been packed for the move and wont be to hand for a couple of months. I would love to return to this later though if you like, having spent my early years in Natal, it is part of my life.

From memory, the Washing of the Spears is not very good history though but I need to look at it again.

Check out what is online though, quite interesting

[CJR]

Quinllin ignores the current situation in Africa which is where this discussion started.

He does not acknowledge that strategic assets like Kariba , Cabora Bassa , rail networks , roads & houses are not being built or repaired in Africa.  Affirmative action in the labour market has resulted in skilled professionals leaving African countries in vast numbers. There are over 2 million South Africans including doctors, dentists, vets , accountants, engineers and other professionals which  have left because they felt there was no security for thir families and no future.  

He also ignores that in the book "The Washing of the Spears "  Shaka acknowledged the superiority of  the way things were done in Western Europe. I lived in Zululand and represented Zululand at golf where I qualified as a chartered  accountant.  During my time in Zululand I learnt the Zulu language and attended a number of functions where I came into contact with  Chief Buthulezi,  so I am speaking from a position of strength about the current problems in Africa.  Chief Buthulezi is a moderate and has also acknowledged the causes of the problems in Africa. The African states which have became independent were left with  fairly reasonable infrastructures and it is only because of corrupt and incompetent leadership that Africa has the problems it has. It has been reliably estimated that costs of corruption in Africa amounts to £200 billion  and still growing. You can build a lot of schools, hospitals ,roads and economic infrastructure for  this amount of cash.

Thabu Mbeki has supported his relative Robert Mugabe with free electricity,  free maize  and free fuel  at the expense of the South African taxpayer. Any western leader would find himself in jail if he did the same.as Mbeki.You can not blame the 'Colonials' (or the whites) for this incompetence and corruption. African leaders' policies have resulted in increasingly huge gaps between the poor and the well off.  The leaders in South Africa for example, often do not realise that stability attracts skills which the country desperately needs.  That is why people want to leave these countries and come to Europe. The reason  why there is so much crime is the poverty gap , in South Africa both crime and poverty are now worse than during the days of apartheid. This  is almost unbelievable. 

Look at Zimbabwe,  Zambia,  Congo, Angola, Kenya , Namibia & many others -  all in a mess.

CJR

[woolybananasbrother]

CJR,  "Western Whites" have been so conditioned and brainwashed by the horrendous liberal apologist concensus that they no longer have the guts to tell it as you just did. Africa is rotten through its own efforts.

Thank you. You make me wanna tell the truth again.

[Quillan]

"Look at Zimbabwe,  Zambia,  Congo, Angola, Kenya , Namibia & many others -  all in a mess."

I rest my case, all ex colonies of the white man.

If you treat a group of people like mushrooms then b*gger off (after raping the place of it's natural resources etc) leaving the keys to the house behind of course there will be a load of trouble. These people just didn't know how to run an economy so what do you expect.

People who live in a country are not always the best informed because of state propaganda, just look at the BBC and the UK. Quit often those on the outside see things that those on the inside don't or can't so living in a country does not always mean you know more. Not, may I add, am I by far an expert on Africa, I just like reading things.

Unfortunately I can't continue with this as I am off for a well earned break. I would like to say that personally the taking of any life is bad and yes some of the things that are happening on the African continent are very bad. My problem is looking back who has initiated these things which I believe  goes back to the initial colonization and the method in which the population was treated and the the way the colonists gave independence

Good debate, I enjoyed it..

[tegwini]

Thank you W-B's brother & CJR

So much guilt in the western psyche- it surprizes me constantly - often people who have never travelled & have been brainwashed at school  & etc (that's certainly the case in school today - as a historian I have had to cope with that!)  

 We seem to be apologising for everything - slavery for example, and yet the ancestors of the slaves must thank their lucky stars they are not back in Africa , & be aware of the numbers of their former tribes & familes who would give anything to emigrate to the US - or anywhere!

Talking of propanganda Quillan- we get loads of it here - recently the BBC claimed (via a Mugabe crony) that Ian Smith won't be missed - ironic or what?   - most of Zim is counting the days until Comrade Mugabe dies - not all will live to see it however.

Lots of ignorence too, the SA press & judiciary was always independent & there was lots of opposition to the SA (apartheid) government so it's quite wrong to say people don't know or didn't know what was going on - this has not been possible for many decades and it beggars belief that outsiders can pontificate on something they have never experienced.

This is it for me also - the brick wall here is a bit hard!

tegwini

[artsole]

PHEWWWW![Www]

[raindog]

[quote user="tegwini"]

  

 We seem to be apologising for everything - slavery for example, and yet the ancestors of the slaves must thank their lucky stars they are not back in Africa , & be aware of the numbers of their former tribes & familes who would give anything to emigrate to the US - or anywhere!

[/quote]

I agree with this 100% but it doesn't, of course, justify slavery.

BTW, what a fascinating thread - i've read every word you lot have written [:)]

[artsole]

raindog,

if you found it fascinating, you can buy the book here...............

www.amateurhistorians.com