Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Dutch Central Bank Sale Announcement Imminent? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: philv who wrote (19268)	10/10/2003 5:14:43 PM
From: sea_urchin	Respond to of 81972

Phil > you once mentioned you worked in government Yes, my working career was as a senior medic in a State-run hospital in Joburg. I wasn't in the government per se but was nevertheless employed as a State official, in fact, my salary was equivalent to that of a top civil servant. > Did you immigrate to S.A. or were you born there? I was born in Cape Town and grew up there. My mother was born in Johannesburg and my father was born in Australia but came to SA as a baby in the 1890s. My wife was born in Johannesburg, her father was born in Pretoria and her mother was born in a small town near Cape Town. So, in fact, this is the sixth generation of both our families which have been South African --- and yet we are not Africans. On the other hand, so-called colored Americans, who may in fact have come from Jamaica, like Colin Powell, are called African-Americans. How do I know this? --- I phoned the American Embassy to find out. Work that one out. > your unhappy posts about what is going on in S.A. Indeed so. Democracy is fine so long as it is not the tyranny of the masses which, unfortunately, seems to be what is happening here at the moment. Like most white SAns today, I am quite happy with a non-racial/multi-racial society but what I can't stand is affirmative action being applied at every turn and how whites are continually being blamed for every mess which this government is making, and there are plenty. Today, the whites are less than 10% of the population but they still run the economy, and this the ANC simply cannot stand. > As an outside observer, it seems like for whites, it is a slow death, but death nonetheless. And, it may accelerate as more and more people move out of the country, aka Rhodesia. Indeed so, and that is the fear of all of us. However, many have tried it in other countries and find that there's no bed-of-roses anywhere and have returned. My kids don't even think of leaving. Some young people, strange as it may seem, even see a future. SA is indeed a country of many paradoxes and contradictions. > I for one am glad I do not live there, even if the climate and potential is great. Many people retire to SA from Europe, especially to coastal towns, and think it's Heaven. I am critical of the SA government, perhaps selfishly, because I see the problems from my own perspective. Maybe if I was in the shoes of the ones who have the responsibility of getting the place right, I would feel differently. Unfortunately, most people I speak to see it the way I do, and the way you do. And that is not only whites but also many blacks. > Must be particularly difficult for old Afrikaner families. Yes, it is. In fact, I am always interested in talking to them about the way they see things because they have lost both their power and their God-given Fatherland, things which the English-speakers never had. In many ways, the lot of the Afrikaner is like that of the Kurds in Iraq/Turkey or the Basques in Spain who had their country taken from them by force and now live as virtual exiles in their own land.