LETTER: To stem emigration make whites feel welcome
12 April 2022 - 17:52
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President Cyril Ramaphosa lifted the state of disaster on Monday. Picture: GCIS
In April 2019 President Cyril Ramaphosa pleaded with young, white South Africans not to emigrate. He said, “if I could, I will tie them down to a tree and say don’t leave, I want you here in this country. So, I want all the skills.”
Two years later, the stream of emigration has turned into a flood. It is hard to find anybody between the ages of 20 and 50, with or without children, who has not seen emigration ravage their circle of friends and group of colleagues at work. A health-care worker told me how her few remaining friends in SA have covered their fridges in Post-its with foreign words in an effort to learn a foreign language.
Notably, the driving force is no longer legislation blocking any career prospects for white citizens. After all, people who have not yet left had resigned themselves to that years ago. It was that people feel more unwelcome than ever before. Identitarian race narratives and suppression of free opportunity are accelerating.
The government is doubling down on National Health Insurance, Employment Equity Act amendments, expropriation without compensation, and aligning with warmongering Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Maybe Ramaphosa should simply make people feel welcome, instead of continuing to burn down the SA forest and trying to tie people to smouldering embers. If he did so, perhaps people would replant the forests his party has burnt down.
That’s one better than his continued promises of green shoots that never materialise.
Rolf Endres Via email
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
LETTER: To stem emigration make whites feel welcome
In April 2019 President Cyril Ramaphosa pleaded with young, white South Africans not to emigrate. He said, “if I could, I will tie them down to a tree and say don’t leave, I want you here in this country. So, I want all the skills.”
Two years later, the stream of emigration has turned into a flood. It is hard to find anybody between the ages of 20 and 50, with or without children, who has not seen emigration ravage their circle of friends and group of colleagues at work. A health-care worker told me how her few remaining friends in SA have covered their fridges in Post-its with foreign words in an effort to learn a foreign language.
Notably, the driving force is no longer legislation blocking any career prospects for white citizens. After all, people who have not yet left had resigned themselves to that years ago. It was that people feel more unwelcome than ever before. Identitarian race narratives and suppression of free opportunity are accelerating.
The government is doubling down on National Health Insurance, Employment Equity Act amendments, expropriation without compensation, and aligning with warmongering Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Maybe Ramaphosa should simply make people feel welcome, instead of continuing to burn down the SA forest and trying to tie people to smouldering embers. If he did so, perhaps people would replant the forests his party has burnt down.
That’s one better than his continued promises of green shoots that never materialise.
Rolf Endres
Via email
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
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