Lulletje Rozewater
07-10-2010, 08:55 AM
.... and want it to fail??
So say many who have stayed behind in SA to "live the rainbow".
Some recent comments on the subject have angered me, not least because I personally know many of these expats and have garnered a variety of opinions from them over the last few years.
There are no doubt some naysayers for whom some twisted satisfaction is derived from South Africa's man-made crises. The motivation behind the wishing of harm on one's nation of birth purely for the Schadenfreude of saying 'I told you so' is best left to the individual's conscience (and therapist), but I'd like to weigh in on the subject and invite comments to see what other people think.
In my experience there are few nationalities that regret having left their home countries more than South Africans.
I'll return to that statement later. In South Africa I knew many ex-pats from other countries; the UK, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland and Sweden to name just a few. The reasons were many but the regrets were few. These Europeans largely felt they had a kind of freedom in South Africa that had been lost in their home countries. Many had just married South Africans. Some had retired, and they lived the kind of lifestyle in SA that those living in their own countries can only dream about.
But foreigners have it far easier than natives; all have more money, and this buys them privileges that locals do not have. Those who leave SA do so as much out of necessity as in search of greener pastures or career opportunities. It is, most significantly, not a choice that is made lightly.
My expat circle in Canada consists of professional people who talk about little else than home. Their sadness of having left their native land is almost tangible, and I cannot tolerate those who call them cowards or traitors for having left - that's the stuff of the ANC's "legislated patriotism" which, loosely translated, means that all Saffers have to roll up their sleeves and dig in because their country needs them.
One doctor said to me that he had tried that approach. He told me that he could cope with the risks of crime, the high taxes, the small material benefits from long working hours if it meant that he could live in the Western Cape - but not while the government is wasting his taxes on their own lavish consumption. He believes it a fraud that those in power lecture professionals on their state-sponsored 'responsibilities' while lazy bureaucrats take home far larger salaries.
If the government was sponsoring medics to train, then the state has some claim on them -such is the case in Malaysia for example. But they do not sponsor them. All these doctors paid their own way. All are still paying back the huge loans they took out to cover their fees. And all were sent to rat-infested rural hospitals where pen-pushers ensure their own enrichment at the expense of both patients and hardworking doctors. Where is the "patriotism" of the nurses who leave the Operating Theatre midway through procedures because their shift has ended? Where is the love of clan and country of the nurses who allow patients to die because they've been sleeping instead of on duty? Or of those who fill out the patients' charts in advance so they can sleep through the night instead of doing their jobs?
If you doubt those stories are true, please call up your GP and ask her/him.
But I digress; the issue at hand is love of country and whether living overseas is proof of a lack thereof. The contrast - in Canada, SA, and other places I've lived or visited - between expats who are glad to see the back of their home countries and those who, like those I've described above, deeply love and miss the land of their birth, is stark. Many would love to go back, but are under no illusions about what that would entail.
Many have no doubt found that their material circumstances have increased significantly and would be unwilling to give that up, but just as many would do so to walk familiar streets and beaches again (if it were safe ...).
I confess it bothers me that some expats want their country to fail, and continue, for example, to support the rugby team but not the football one. But I also accept that they have their reasons. They are also a minority. The majority of people I personally know would love to return if they could live their lives unmolested, but most know that this is a pipe dream. Crime, on the one hand, and ideology-driven ANC government policies on the other, means that "redistribution" - which is really forced labour - by legal or illegal means is a defining characteristic of the new South Africa.
And who can love that?
The main consideration that the previous government demanded from the impending ANC regime during constitutional negotiations in the early nineties was - or should have been - that its people would be left alone. This was not a policy failure but a practical one: how could it have ever been enforced? When you do a deal with the Devil how do you hold him to his side of the bargain? During the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_Revolt), it was quickly discovered that you cannot hold a king to his promises.
What was upheld was a new constitution that protected the individual from the encroachment of the State - a thoroughly Liberal document, in the true and good sense of the word. The State has kept encroaching, however, and those who stayed in SA after 1994, it can fairly be said, gave the country a fair chance. After 16 years of trying, most have grown tired and frustrated. They voted 'yes' in 1993 but are being treated as though they voted 'no' by an unforgiving regime, who singles them out for collective punishment.
And they're traitors for leaving? I take vociferous exception to that accusation. These are, in the main, law-abiding taxpayers who, while not necessarily believing the 'rainbow nation' claptrap, at least put their money where their mouths are and gave it a chance. They handed over their earnings to a State that spent them on nice cars and champagne parties, all the while being told that their money was going to help the blacks' lives improve. These are people whose private charitable ventures have done more to help and empower the poor than grandiose government schemes.
And they may indeed hate that government - but they certainly love South Africa.
http://iluvsa.blogspot.com/2010/07/do-ex-pats-hate-south-africa.html
So say many who have stayed behind in SA to "live the rainbow".
Some recent comments on the subject have angered me, not least because I personally know many of these expats and have garnered a variety of opinions from them over the last few years.
There are no doubt some naysayers for whom some twisted satisfaction is derived from South Africa's man-made crises. The motivation behind the wishing of harm on one's nation of birth purely for the Schadenfreude of saying 'I told you so' is best left to the individual's conscience (and therapist), but I'd like to weigh in on the subject and invite comments to see what other people think.
In my experience there are few nationalities that regret having left their home countries more than South Africans.
I'll return to that statement later. In South Africa I knew many ex-pats from other countries; the UK, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland and Sweden to name just a few. The reasons were many but the regrets were few. These Europeans largely felt they had a kind of freedom in South Africa that had been lost in their home countries. Many had just married South Africans. Some had retired, and they lived the kind of lifestyle in SA that those living in their own countries can only dream about.
But foreigners have it far easier than natives; all have more money, and this buys them privileges that locals do not have. Those who leave SA do so as much out of necessity as in search of greener pastures or career opportunities. It is, most significantly, not a choice that is made lightly.
My expat circle in Canada consists of professional people who talk about little else than home. Their sadness of having left their native land is almost tangible, and I cannot tolerate those who call them cowards or traitors for having left - that's the stuff of the ANC's "legislated patriotism" which, loosely translated, means that all Saffers have to roll up their sleeves and dig in because their country needs them.
One doctor said to me that he had tried that approach. He told me that he could cope with the risks of crime, the high taxes, the small material benefits from long working hours if it meant that he could live in the Western Cape - but not while the government is wasting his taxes on their own lavish consumption. He believes it a fraud that those in power lecture professionals on their state-sponsored 'responsibilities' while lazy bureaucrats take home far larger salaries.
If the government was sponsoring medics to train, then the state has some claim on them -such is the case in Malaysia for example. But they do not sponsor them. All these doctors paid their own way. All are still paying back the huge loans they took out to cover their fees. And all were sent to rat-infested rural hospitals where pen-pushers ensure their own enrichment at the expense of both patients and hardworking doctors. Where is the "patriotism" of the nurses who leave the Operating Theatre midway through procedures because their shift has ended? Where is the love of clan and country of the nurses who allow patients to die because they've been sleeping instead of on duty? Or of those who fill out the patients' charts in advance so they can sleep through the night instead of doing their jobs?
If you doubt those stories are true, please call up your GP and ask her/him.
But I digress; the issue at hand is love of country and whether living overseas is proof of a lack thereof. The contrast - in Canada, SA, and other places I've lived or visited - between expats who are glad to see the back of their home countries and those who, like those I've described above, deeply love and miss the land of their birth, is stark. Many would love to go back, but are under no illusions about what that would entail.
Many have no doubt found that their material circumstances have increased significantly and would be unwilling to give that up, but just as many would do so to walk familiar streets and beaches again (if it were safe ...).
I confess it bothers me that some expats want their country to fail, and continue, for example, to support the rugby team but not the football one. But I also accept that they have their reasons. They are also a minority. The majority of people I personally know would love to return if they could live their lives unmolested, but most know that this is a pipe dream. Crime, on the one hand, and ideology-driven ANC government policies on the other, means that "redistribution" - which is really forced labour - by legal or illegal means is a defining characteristic of the new South Africa.
And who can love that?
The main consideration that the previous government demanded from the impending ANC regime during constitutional negotiations in the early nineties was - or should have been - that its people would be left alone. This was not a policy failure but a practical one: how could it have ever been enforced? When you do a deal with the Devil how do you hold him to his side of the bargain? During the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_Revolt), it was quickly discovered that you cannot hold a king to his promises.
What was upheld was a new constitution that protected the individual from the encroachment of the State - a thoroughly Liberal document, in the true and good sense of the word. The State has kept encroaching, however, and those who stayed in SA after 1994, it can fairly be said, gave the country a fair chance. After 16 years of trying, most have grown tired and frustrated. They voted 'yes' in 1993 but are being treated as though they voted 'no' by an unforgiving regime, who singles them out for collective punishment.
And they're traitors for leaving? I take vociferous exception to that accusation. These are, in the main, law-abiding taxpayers who, while not necessarily believing the 'rainbow nation' claptrap, at least put their money where their mouths are and gave it a chance. They handed over their earnings to a State that spent them on nice cars and champagne parties, all the while being told that their money was going to help the blacks' lives improve. These are people whose private charitable ventures have done more to help and empower the poor than grandiose government schemes.
And they may indeed hate that government - but they certainly love South Africa.
http://iluvsa.blogspot.com/2010/07/do-ex-pats-hate-south-africa.html