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Thirty or forty years ago, to emigrate to another country meant applying at your nearest embassy of the country to which you wished to travel and stay permanently. This entailed completing many application forms and supplying additional information such as personal, academic and business references, bank account details and job prospects in the new country. You then waited to be advised whether your application had been successful. If it were, it meant that the receiving country needed you, that you could assimilate easily with the country’s people and culture, and that you stood a good chance of contributing to the new country’s well-being.

Today it means simply walking into another country, for whatever reason, and expecting to be allowed to stay. For many the reason given is that they want “a better life”. Don’t we all!

Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump, it does not take a Ph.D. to realise that he and his followers are worrying about something called “The Replacement Theory”, a notion that the race and ethnic makeup of their country is being changed, little by little, by the illegal invasion of their country by people alien to America’s mores and values. American cultural traits were established by the original settlers from England, whose rules of conduct were built upon by their progeny. These are the empirical realities surrounding the establishment of the United States of America.

This is why America grew into what it is today (or was, until some years ago) and it is indisputable that the traits of the founding fathers, their approach to life and the rule of law, their very DNA, is the source of what made America a successful country, in anyone’s language. And this is why people from all over the world try to get there, to partake in the American dream which, to some extent, has been tarnished over the years. Their turn-of- the- previous century influx of people arriving from Europe, and the flood of people mostly from Europe after the Second World War, fed into their DNA heritage. They assimilated quickly and their children became Americans. There were of course millions of black Americans, citizens already for centuries, descendants of slaves, a trade in which white Americans participated openly and legally. They were a small sector of the population but their rights as citizens were finally confirmed by the abolition of discriminatory legislation. But they were, and still are, a minority.

But things have changed. Now the United States Congress has not only a Black Caucus, but it also has a Hispanic Caucus and an Asian Caucus. It is indeed a multilingual country and the melting pot theory didn’t work because assimilation did not work. The social mores and values did not gel. If they had, there would not have been an American civil war and legal discrimination against black citizens. But the numbers didn’t threaten the overwhelmingly white society whose cultural benchmarks were safe because they were in the majority, and this was reflected in the law-making structures of the country and the behavior of its citizens.
White Americans are now grumbling – some to the point of aggression - as they see the country forged by their forefathers slipping through their fingers. Some say race doesn’t matter but it is indeed the elephant in the room in American politics.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI

British Tory parliamentarian Benjamin Disraeli (1804 – 1881) said “those who do not understand race do not understand politics”, and indeed he was right. Nobody knows this more than South Africans. Here is a living experiment that struggles. The mindsets of the ruling clique, the African National Congress (ANC), are far removed from the Western mores and values battling to survive in a third-world sea. The results of this cultural chasm are reflected in the state of South Africa today. There are many examples. TLU SA’s recent press release on the brutal treatment of farm animals by third-worlders shows vividly what it means to the psyche of the country’s first-world component to live under a third-world government. There are thousands of other examples, from the political and social order, to the principle of private ownership, cleanliness and order, the maintenance of infrastructure, and what constitutes corruption, integrity and the work ethic.
Nations like Japan, China, Mongolia, eastern Europe and many Arab and non-Western lands’ homogenous populations are not fighting to retain their culture and identity in the face of dissolution from within.  They do not suffer from the malady of what is popularly known as “multiculturalism”, supposedly an ideal to which many aspire. Diversity is the answer, say idealists, and immigration, from whatever place, is desired. After all, in the new world, “we all descended from immigrants”. Indeed, the most famous new world nation America was founded by immigrants, but these people stamped their European culture on their new land and it is that culture that attracts millions throughout the world as desirable enough to sometimes die trying to partake in its success.

AMERICA

The America of 2024 is not the America of 1980, 1990, 2010 or even of 2020. According to a June 2024 report from the US Census Bureau, between 2022 and 2023, the Hispanic population accounted for just under 71% of the overall growth in the United States population. (New Estimates Highlight Differences in Growth Between the US Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Populations June27, 2024. Press Release Number CB24-109)

According to the US Census of 2020, the total population of the US was 330,914,895. Of that number, 58% are counted as “white alone, not Hispanic or Latino”. However, the US Census Bureau collects race data according to US Office of Management and Budget guidelines, which defines “white” as follows: “White Origins in Europe, the Middle East or North Africa”. These are based on “self-assessment” and are not subject to any official checks or biological guidelines. The actual number of whites in America is closer to 50% of the population. (There are three sources for this figure www.census.gov/quickfacts , www.census.gov/newsroom/pressreleases  , www.census.gov/programs-surveys)
As soon as the demographics change, the culture changes.

SOUTH AFRICA

Recent restaurant raids in South Africa have highlighted the vast presence of foreigners in this country’s workplace.  In Gauteng, more than 750 facilities were raided in four days and 72% were found to be flouting SA’s labour laws. 43% were found in the Western Cape and 40% in the Eastern Cape. Due to budget cuts, Stats SA has been hobbled. “The long-term impact of the non-availability of credible statistical information compromises resource allocation”. (Sunday Times 89.24) No one can give a definite or even approximate figure of the SA population, although Stats SA says that during the census of 2022, immigrants were only 4% of the total population of 62 million. That’s around 3 million, give or take. This figure is unacceptable to many people. 7 to 10 million would be nearer the truth. (Beeld 6.6.2024)

So-called immigration to South Africa has drastically changed the country. Businesses have employed foreigners in their millions because they are considered to be better workers than the locals. They will work for less: SA’s labour laws are so onerous and unrealistic that employers of, say, low-skilled labour obtain better value by employing foreigners than locals. There is a downside however: illegal mining by immigrants is rampant with huge damage to the environment. They are violent and work in gangs. In many instances, the SA Police are outnumbered in their efforts to curb the digging. They have caused damage to city foundations with their tunnels. During a Zimbabwean strike by health workers a few years ago, 60% of the beds in Gauteng hospitals were occupied by pregnant Zimbabwe women. They just crossed the border to seek medical help in South Africa.

Despite the creation of the SA Border Management Authority (BMA), invasions continue. An illegal bridge over the Limpopo river was recently destroyed by the SA police. It was less than a kilometre from the Zimbabwe/SA border post and was used 24/7 for nefarious activities such as smuggling drugs and people in and out of South Africa. Doubtless, another bridge will be built to take its place.    Corruption of border personnel is endemic. You can legislate to your heart’s content, but you cannot eliminate the DNA of many who steal for a living.

All of Africa has descended upon South Africa, from as far away as Ethiopia. Zimbabweans number thousands if not millions. Our porous border of 4470km with 71 entry/exit posts is an open invitation. Syndicates from Africa have taken root in South Africa and they control many aspects of this country’s economy. Many were directly involved in the collapse of Eskom. Many immigrants have murdered SA’s commercial farmers. The BMA recently hosted the passing out parade of 400 new border guards to be deployed at various points of entry throughout the country. This is after “years of struggle” to curb illegal immigrants into SA” says BMA. There would of course have been no struggle if the ANC had not thrown open the country s borders when coming to power in 1994. What were they thinking? Talk about closing the barnyard door after the horse has bolted!

Nationalism will never die. The throwing together in one political entity of disparate peoples with different values has proved to be a hazard, hence the move by Germany, Poland, the Baltic states, France, Portugal,  Austria and other states to firm up their border controls. They know what has happened in South Africa. It is not too late for them.

THE COMMERCIAL FARMING COMMUNITY

Despite this incredible uncertainty as to who is who in South Africa and how many people live in the country, SA’s commercial farmers still manage to put food on the table for everyone, although millions cannot afford this food. These farmers are indeed miracle workers. The conditions under which they farm are onerous. Said one farmer after the recent heavy snow falls in farmland in parts of the country:”First it was the sheep thieves who took a whole flock of sheep. Then it was the fires that stripped my grazing to bare earth. And last week there was snow so deep that the roofs caved in. It was so icy cold that I lost 18 of my blue wildebeest”.  Other farmers in the Harrismith area of the Free State suffered in the same vein. Snow, on top of everything else! It never seems to end! But the food still keeps on coming.

Strangely, at grassroots level, race relations in South Africa are generally good. Given that politicians use race regularly to brazenly store up their political stock, people of all races in this country mix in every sphere of life – in entertainment, in shops, in restaurant kitchens and front of house, in sport, in homes and gardens, offices, hotels, petrol stations, courier companies, in emergency services,  in hospitals, in universities, in construction, on farms and even in prisons. Thousands of inter-racial kindnesses and amiable conversations occur every day, unheralded and unreported. It is amazing phenomenon and possibly doesn’t exist in any other country in the world.

“Uneasy is the head that wears the crown” wrote William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) in his play Henry IV, Part 2. A truer word was never written. The ANC cannot last forever.  Nothing lasts forever. Given the millions of good people in what is arguably the most beautiful country in the world, South Africans will endure yet another dark period in their history – this time a kleptocratic and incompetent government that nearly destroyed the country. South Africans are resilient, clever and compassionate. They help each other. Shakespeare wrote those words more than 400 years ago and history has proved him right, time and time again. South Africa will be no exception.