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: can.politics
Subject: Re: Homelands wastelands?
Message-ID: <7643@watrose.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-Oct-85 18:04:16 EST
Article-I.D.: watrose.7643
Posted: Tue Oct 29 18:04:16 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 30-Oct-85 04:52:41 EST
References: <1551@utcsri.UUCP>
Distribution: can
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 72

[ I am not sure that this discussion should continue in can.politics
  as it is not Canadian politics, so I will shutup if someone tells
  me to. ]

In reply to <1551@utcsri.UUCP> from Vassos Hadzilacos:

Minor point: Call the homelands bantustans if you want to, but please
don't call them bantus.  Bantu means "people" and is used to refer to
(usually black) people, not to where they live.

>A paradise they surely must be, these bantustans, since they can sustain
>such mind-boggling economic activity.
>
I did not intend to imply (and I do not think I did imply) that the
homelands are rich and have vigorous economies.  My point is just this:
Statements like your original one ("...banishes [..] its population in
restricted wastelands..."), leaves the (false) impression that all
homelands in SA are arid, barren, at the best semi-desert wastelands
not fit for humans to live in.  It is against this image of the homelands 
that I am protesting.

When looking at the GNP figures you quote, one has to keep in mind that
a comparison is made between an (almost) first-world economy and a third
world economy. For example, you quote the figure
>Fact: Only 3% of SA's GNP is produced in the bantus (1975 figure)
In 1975 SA's GNP (excluding that of the 4 homelands of Transkei,
Bophuthatswana, Ciskei and Venda) was $31590 million (the highest in
Africa).  3% of that ($947.7 million) was more than the GNP of 30 out of
53 African "states".  (I say "states" only because the homelands mentioned
above are included in the 53.)  The GNP of the four homelands placed as
follows in the list of 53 African "states": Transkei ($810 million) 26th,
Bophuthatswana ($540 million) 34th, Ciskei ($170 million) 48th, and
Venda ($120 million) 50th.  Taking the GNP per capita figures, they rank
Bophuthatswana ($490) 11th, Transkei ($330) 21st, Venda ($320) 22nd, and
Ciskei ($310) 23rd.  [source: Africa Insight, Vol.11, No 3, 1981]

Yes, the homelands are poor in comparison with the rest of South Africa,
yes, they cannot provide a decent life to all the people that the SA
government says belong there, BUT with the right economic development,
better and more education, and a stable population (without the upheaval
of forced resettlements), the majority of the homelands indeed have 
the potential to become small paradises.

>The bantus were not created out of SA government's concern for black
>peoples' "ancestral lands". They were created to control the movement
>of black people ...
I did not say anything about the motives behind the creation of the
homelands.  Sure, they were created to control the movement of black
people, but my point was that they were created in the areas where a
large proportion of the people have been living already.

> ... and to ensure that they could not sustain independent
>economic development and would therefore have to supply their labout
>dirty cheap to white employers.
>
Care to substantiate that ?

>> At least a large proportion of the people living
>> there have asked for it to be their homeland
>
>I challenge you to substantiate this.

Sorry, I should have put the statement as follows: "The leaders (most
of them tribal) representing (in the African sense of "represent", i.e. 
leaders not necessarily elected by vote) a large proportion
of the people living there, have asked for it to be a homeland."
Unfortunately I do not have access to a library with back issues (10-15
years) of SA newspapers (and it does not have to be pro-government ones),
otherwise I could have given you names, dates and places of statements
made by these leaders.  Judged by the festivities attended by a not 
insignificant number of blacks during the "independence" celebrations
of the homelands, at least at least a large group had no objection.