Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watrose.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watrose!gdvsmit From: gdvsmit@watrose.UUCP (Riel Smit) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: South Africa Again Message-ID: <7519@watrose.UUCP> Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 17:48:27 EDT Article-I.D.: watrose.7519 Posted: Mon Aug 12 17:48:27 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 15-Aug-85 02:45:11 EDT References: <1053@ihlpg.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 36 Summary: not all homelands are arid and unproductive In article <1053@ihlpg.UUCP> berman@ihlpg.UUCP (Andy Berman) writes: > a regime that >forces Black women and children onto arid and unproductive >"homelands" to face starvation and disease. > Ever been to one of these "arid" homelands? Or do you blindly believe the ANC propaganda about them? I have been to most of them and have seen ANC films about them and either the ANC is mostly lying through their teeth, or world maps are all wrong. Some of these homelands contain some of the most beautiful areas and some of the best agricultural land in Southern Africa (e.g. Transkei, KwaZulu, Gazankulu, Venda and parts of Lebowa) - to such an extent that many white farmers will give an arm and a leg to be able to have their farms there. Please do not misunderstand me - I am not defending the South African government's homeland policy (for the most part it is indefensible), I am just correcting a widely held misconception about "arid" homelands. Yes, there are homelands that are arid (Bophuthatswana for example), but these homelands were not arbitrarily declared homelands and then all the blacks shipped off there. The nations/tribes/people living there have done so for the past 100-300 years (some even longer). It is their "anchestral lands". At least a large proportion of the people living there have asked for it to be their homeland - just as some Indian and Inuit peolpe are asking for a homeland in what some people would describe as arid areas. Furthermore, the biggest part of South Africa is "arid", at least by by North American (especially Canadian) standards. The Karoo (the largest part of the largest province) is a semi-desert, and who farms there? - the whites (and some whites want it to be a white homeland!). The whole idea of homelands is in itself not bad - all over the world various groups are asking (and some even fighting) for a homeland of their own. Forcing people to be associated with a homeland, and forcefully moving them there, well that is another story.