The white perspective

I haven't done the family thing for a number of years, ten or thereabouts. So when I arrive at my cousin Tania's for a braai, I'm a little nervous.

Not dissimilar to the kiwi barbeque, the menu is filled with meat: chicken, ostrich, steak, lamb, and of course, the spicy borewors sausage which has become a staple of South Africa. In New Zealand this is a bland and unappetising mix of meat and gristle, but in its homeland, my goodness! I'm not a major meat aficionado. I eat mostly chicken, and whatever else is thrown my way. But this, this sausage would test the resolve of most vegetarians. On your fist bite you understand that this is not your typical forty percent flour, sixty percent hooves and bones. This is like eating a full meal, thick with chunky meat, imbibed with spices, wrapped for convenience into long rolls. It looks revolting, I mean, turds immediately spring to mind, but I can't give it enough credit. It's truly amazing.

Boerewors consumed, the day progresses and I'm introduced to many family members I haven't seen in years. I make conversation and they ask about New Zealand. We talk cricket and rugby, and they share their sheep jokes with me, which after two weeks in the country, I admit, is starting to become a tad predictable.

Afternoon turns to evening, and we settle with coffee, then liqueurs. I've been meaning to ask Afrikaaners how they feel about the new republic after twelve years of ANC rule. I try out my question. It was like throwing a toddler into a pride of lions.

They complain about the usual: crime and corruption. I'm expecting the type of doomsaying that I've been used to in New Zealand, so I'm surprised at the depth the conversation reaches.

They loved Nelson Mandela, and they like (in part) Thabo Mbeki. They understand the prejudice of Apartheid, and readily agree that it created many social evils, much of which through their upbringing they were (apparently) blissfully unaware of. But they rue the notion that they are planted with the 'racist' label. They tell me that beyond the international media's lynching, many Afrikaaners ensured that the coloured and black families they knew were being looked after. Jounalist Max Du Preez agrees in his account of the Afrikaaners, Pale Native. He writes of the contradictions which the Afrikaner lives within: to care deeply for black families around them, yet unswervingly support the notions of Apartheid.

In speaking with my Afrikaans friends, they explain that they don't hate the change of government, but they are angry because they believe that corruption and bad decisions within the new government is crippling the country. It's economics, not ideology that upsets the modern Afrikaner.

Afrikaners feel as though they are given the brunt of the work needed to keep the country afloat. They complain that twenty percent of the country (the statistic they quoted me, I'm guessing it's the amount of white South Africans around. It reveals much of the attitude that they deny) are footing the bill for running the entire country. Khayelitsha cannot afford to pay their electricity bill, nor Soweto, nor Mitchell's Plain, so those that can afford, are given the burden of paying other people's bills.

Also, with a reported quarter of South Africans unemployed, and no social welfare to feed them, crime is a paramount concern. Gang culture is rife, and theft is reduced to nothing more than a tax-free income stream. I get the impression that the modern treatment of the white South African is akin to the rich fat guy you knew in high school. Everybody gets their turn to dump on him, his lunch is stolen, and his teachers yell at him when he complains. Attacked from every side, yet tolerated for the content of his wallet, it's understandable that bitterness has arisen.

These Afrikaans people understand the juxtaposition they are in. They understand that South Africa needed a transition of power, they just don't believe it's being managed correctly.

The ANC government legislated affirmative action policies to redress the power balances. Essentially it means that colour, then skill, are the criteria for employment in most businesses, the goal being to give people access to jobs otherwise inaccessible to them. It sounds great, but it in practice results in employees with inadequate skills to perform the jobs required of them. We're talking about office-workers who don't know how to cut and paste data in an Excel spreadsheet. Of course, it's a double-edged sword. The Apartheid government created the Bantu education which subjugated black and coloured people. With no humour, I can say that they are now reaping the reward they sowed.

But as a result of unskilled labour receiving skilled jobs, the country is suffering. The Human Development Report, a UN-backed performance indicator combining literacy levels, life expectancy, GDP, infant mortality amongst other statistics, shows South Africa in sharp decline since 1995. AIDS is still a critical condition in the country, but it doesn't make news anymore because it won't pull the audiences it once used to.

As an aside, the term 'affirmative action', is probably the most disgusting use of politicised terminology I've seen since The War on Terror. George Orwell would be turning in his grave at this abuse of language. The gargantuan use of positive-sounding words to hide what is essentially a painful process ought to make anyone's ears prick. In my case, it's my gag reflex.

South Africa is a nation undergoing change. The problem is not the ideology of freedom, equality and the like, but the way ideologies of redressing power has crept into things of different substance. GDP does not see colour. Neither does international trade. The Afrikaners, due to their education and wealth, can see clearly see this calamity, but like the boy who cried wolf, have been silenced due to past transgression. They can only look on, and pray that people with the right calibre can take the country by the reins and steer it to greener pastures.