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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watrose!gdvsmit
From: gdvsmit@watrose.UUCP (Riel Smit)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Homelands wastelands? (Re: South African Blacks)
Message-ID: <7634@watrose.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Oct-85 09:35:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: watrose.7634
Posted: Fri Oct 25 09:35:18 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Oct-85 04:15:37 EDT
References: <1534@utcsri.UUCP>
Distribution: can
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 39

I have said this before (in net.politics), but some people might have
to hear it again...

In article <1534@utcsri.UUCP> vassos@utcsri.UUCP (Vassos Hadzilacos) writes:
>                                               What's free
>about the economy of a country that banishes the overwhelming majority
>of its population in restricted wastelands (so-called batustans)?

Ever been to one of these "restricted wastelands", or do you blindly believe
the propaganda against them?  I have been to most of them and some of them
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 the homelands
being "wateland".

Yes, their are homelands that could be termed "wasteland" (e.g. Bophutha-
tswana), but they were not arbitrarily declared homelands and then
all the blacks shipped off there.  The nations/tribes/ethnic groups 
(whatever term you wish to use) living in those "wastelands", have been
doing 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 people are now asking for a homeland in what some people would 
describe as "wasteland".

Furthermore, the biggest part of South Africa is "wasteland", at least by
North American (especially Canadian) standards.  The Karoo (the largest
part of the largest province) is a semi-desert, and who farms there? - 
mostly 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 such a homeland, and forcefully 
moving them there, well that is another story.