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.