Now 21 years after the first democratic elections SA has returned to being a primarily one-party state, and while all citizens have the vote the minority group in SA is no longer the Africans, or even the Indo-Asians, nor those of mixed race people, but rather the Caucasian group that find themselves in a state of poverty that they haven’t felt since the Boer War.īut its an unfortunate truth that there were many of these same families in poverty under the National Party as there are now under the governance of the ANC. The NP had lauded it over South Africa for 18 years before the border wars started and only 12 years before the ANC and the PAC joined forces after the Sharpeville massacre, and it was 41 years later that the white regime fell in SA almost at the same time as communism failed in the USSR. The NP represented everything I disagreed with (other than FW De Klerk emancipating Mandela), but while I agreed with the ANC regarding the need for total democracy I did not agree with the methodology that the ANC supporters had used on its opponents. So the true idea of democracy was thrown out of the window as there could be no truly representational government when one group is almost enforced to vote against what they really believed in to achieve a political harmony and smooth transition. The first time I voted in South Africa, was like every black South African……in the 1994 elections…….and I couldn’t vote for policies or even on popularity I had to choose to vote for a party I dislike immensely among about 20+ different parties that had all come out to have their policies voted on in the first really democratic election.īut a vote for any of those other parties, other than the ANC or the National Party (NP) would have meant a non-coalition government and SA needed something more tempered at the beginning of the process, and only solid voting numbers for one or two parties – the ANC literally had it in the bag with more than 50% of the voters voting not only for democracy but showering support and loyalty to a man that had spent 27 years in jail trying to achieve that aim.
In South Africa in the 1980s, regardless of age or gender if you had been in the country longer than 5 years you were automatically naturalised – this was to ensure more young men could be drafted into the military services to keep the northern SA borders safe from both the “Swart gevaar” and the “Commies”. In most countries immigrants can choose the right to become a citizen and in some cases hold dual citizenship for their new and home countries. I left the UK in the 1960s when the cry of the British was “look out the Paki’s are coming”….and….”there goes the neighbourhood” and arrived in South Africa to cries of “bewaar die Swart gevaar” (loosely translated meaning – warning, here comes the Black danger) echoes of news reports with comments like “beware of the Reds” or the “Commies are coming”. But this enjoyment is set in stark contrast to how many of the indigenous people of the country you have just immigrated to are treated. However you can usually own property, get a job and enjoy all the other freedoms that said country will provide as a ‘human’ right. While your parents may be of voting age most countries require that you become a citizen of the country before you or your children get the voting right.
Being an immigrant in a new country as a child and non-voter there is very little one has to say about the governance of the country that you have just immigrated to.
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