TouristTrap

Spoken like the naive European that you are. Come back six months after you've been living there and tell us how wrong we were for leaving our homeland.

I got an email this morning. My brother in law was involved in an attempted hijacking today, but thankfully they only managed to break his back window.

A few months ago, three men with guns hijacked him in the middle of a busy street in Durban, in the middle of peak hour traffic as he was on his way home, and drove him around for 4 hrs, all the time discussing what they were going to do to him and how he was going to be killed. He managed to escape when they stopped to go and get some booze.

See. THIS is the true reality about life in South Africa, and one that people live with every day. And I'm talking ALL of South Africa's people.

And by the way. Why do you assume we're white? Thousands of non-white South Africans have left and are leaving the country every day for this very reason.

Mizz Teapot

DOOS!!!!!

TouristTrap

Couldn't have put it better.

Louise M

Tut Tut, you may not agree with him, me neither, but its not ladylike to use language like that on here!

1066

The majority of English people have never seen Soweto or Alexandria

Don't mistake fear for common sense ... the difference will become clear to you soon enough.

To the best of my knowledge, a quiet weekend in London would not include 30 murders and 40 rapes. These are average figures for Jo'berg/Soewto, during a 'quiet' weekend. When things really kick off, it gets much worse.


If you patronise some areas of Jo'berg, the only economy that you will enhance will be the illegal one .. you may even live to tell about it.

It is amazing how many blacks say the same thing ...

There are literally millions of Brits that think the UK sucks ... they wouldn't last 2 seconds in South Africa.

Your choice. Good luck.

littleflower15

This article will give you an idea of how people live day to day.
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?s...4740545C160510

1066

You're telling the wrong person ... I am a South African.

Deer Hunter

LOL!!! Obviously never been there!

newkiwi

Like I said in an earlier post, i wish you all the best and im sure if you go there with the right attitude and streetsmarts you will probably be fine. But dont judge people for choosing to leave SA and make a go of it in another country. It is not "running away", some people go because they get a good job opportunity, some leave because they were directly involved in a bad crime incident etc.

Words like slums do desribe arease of South Africa, poverty in SA is not the same as poverty in the UK. East London (or whereever) at its worst is not and never will be Alexandria. If you get a chance to see "tsotsi" that gives a pretty reasonable protrayel of life in the townships.

It is not too say everybody who lives in SA will be hijacked shot etc. so i think there needs to be a balance. You dont have to be a slave to fear but you need to be sensible.

Best is to go and see for yourself, make up your own mind, etc. I think everyone here wishes you the best, its just that nobody likes to be judged for leaving SA for whatever reason. It not as simple as "the country is going to pot since the blacks took over".. Not by a long shot, its not about black and white anymore, not for the majority of people.

I am sure you will have an exciting time, just remember SA is not the UK..you cant have a "african" version of your UK life there.

Cheers and keep posting, i for one will be interested in your experiences..

Haruspex

Ja, I know that I might have seemed slightly reactionary- but I was feeling pretty worn down by a few people's incessant pessimism over my decision, both on this board and in 'real life'. It's not a decision I've taken lightly, and I'm aware of the fragmented and fraught aspects of the society to which I am about to move.

I know on the face of it, UK poverty is nowhere near as 'bad' as SA poverty- we have running water, NHS (although getting an appointment with my GP- in the heart of Hackney- is so difficult, I have twice missed doses of important medication cos I just can't get to a medical centre.. sound familiar?), houses that are made of more than just tin (though a visit to www.shelter.org.uk might refute that) etc, but the tensions that our own poverty causes are not disimilar to those rife in modern SA. Everything is relative.

Right now, I am finding the UK tired and complacent with a government that seems intent on stripping down the values and rights we were once proud to have attained after years of effort. I for one am feeling exceedingly relieved that I will not be in the country when they try to make me pay to submit all my personal details to the government in the name of avoiding terrorism.

Anyway, this is all a rant. Ultimately, I am going in with my eyes open, and hope my experiences won't erode my faith and positivity in my futurew, and that of South Africa.

Haruspex

And I have been there, thanks.

Haruspex

And I have seen Alexandra.

TouristTrap

We're sick and tired of idiots telling us that we're bitter and twisted expats who left the country because it is now under black rule. What utter bullshit.

We all decided one day that we're going to leave our homes, prosperous businesses, cars, friends, families, jobs, etc..with two or three kids in tow, and start a new life in an alien country, and start from scratch, just because we don't want to live under a black government, one that the vast majority of us voted to bring to power in the first place, through a referendum, which most people don't know about/forget about in the first place.

The reason that so many South Africans, black, white, colored, Indian, Chinese..etc..etc..are leaving, is because it is not safe there. Day to day life there is like living in a war zone, with no law and order or justice system in place, and when someone that lives within the country tries to bring focus to the problem, they are told to leave if they're not happy and that they're whiners.

In the meantime, you have people like my brother in law who was hijacked a few months ago in broad daylight from a busy street in peak hour traffic, driven around for 4 hours by 3 armed gunmen who were discussing how to get rid of him. He escaped that time. A few days ago, he was again in an attempted hijacking but managed to get away with nothing but a broken back window. He is one of the lucky ones. So far.

THAT is the reality of South Africa. THAt is the reason that so many are leaving the country. I read on another S.A. forum a week or two ago, how five or six black folk were recruited out of Eskom to go and work in Australia, and they're happily leaving.

So don't come and pontificate about something that you truly know nothing about. Walk a mile in my shoes, where you have had friends murdered in their secure driveways with AK47 laden thugs, or hijacked by 5 men bearing AK47's or burgled countless times and not had the police even bother to come and take a statement when a shotgun has been stolen and they're killing cops off with sawn off shotguns at the time like flies, or friends held up in their store with their 3 little kids by AK47 toting thugs, and after a five hour ordeal, made to walk home to their farm 5 miles away because the cops didn't have petrol to stick in their cars.

Sounds like a work of fiction doesn't it. Unfortunately, it is every minute reality for South Africans and especially in Johannesburg.

1066

Don't forget the fear factor .... we all left because we were scared ...

The only thing I was ever scared about was running out of ammo whenever the
smallholding got unwanted 'visitors'. Buying 9mm ball and SSG by the caseload normally cured that fear

TouristTrap

You betcha I was scared. As any sane human being living under pseudo-war conditions has the right to be.