Apartheid was officially abolished in South Africa in the 1990s. The system of racial segregation, when the rights of the majority black inhabitants were curtailed and white supremacy rule was maintained, ended to exist in 1994 with the victory of the African National Congress under Nelson Mandela in the general elections. Today, almost 20 years afterwards, the position of white people in South Africa is not easily determined, says John Simpson, a BBC journalist. Some of them have a disproportionate amount of influence; others say they feel vulnerable and the feeling is growing.
Many would agree white people are still doing well in the country. They are playing a larger part in the country’s economy, they have a disproportionate amount of influence in politics and the media, they have most of the best jobs, the journalist notes.
But a second look at the white community would reveal there is quite a group of working-class people – as many as 400,000, according to the AfriForum organization, - living in most miserable conditions and saying they are not hoping for the best here.
Most of these people are Afrikaans-speakers. They typically live in squatter camps, where there could be no water or electricity, and where local volunteers would come every day to provide the inhabitants with hand-out meals. There is no system of social security for these people.
"I don't want to live in a place like this," said Frans de Jaeger, a former bricklayer from one of such squatter camps outside Pretoria and called Sonskyn Hoekie - Sunshine Corner. "But I can't get out."
Simpson has learnt that television and newspapers show practically no interest to these people’s troubles. The main reason seems to be that their plight is regarded as something arising out of South Africa's bad old past - a past which everyone, black and white, would like to forget, Simpson writes.
These people living in squatter camps seem to be the most vulnerable members of the white community. Yet, there is another group of white Afrikaners, whose everyday life is associated with a real danger.
Every week a white farmer is killed in South Africa, according to local mass media reports – the number twice as higher as the number of killed police officers. Over the past 20 years the number of white farmers in South Africa, which used to be as many as 60,000, has halved.
Years ago the apartheid system looked after whites and did very little for anyone else. Nowadays white people here are on their own, concludes John Simpson.
Ọmọ Oódua news from Nigeria, VOR, BBC, wikipedia.org
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