WHITE POVERTY IN SOUTH AFRICA July 24, 2008
Posted by frostygirl in News.Tags: poor, whites
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In July 2004 the following was reported “Today 430 000 whites, of a total white population of 4,5-million, are “too poor to live in traditional white areas” and 90 000 “are in a survival struggle”, says Lawrence Schlemmer, director of the Helen Suzman Foundation. Of these, 305 000 are Afrikaans-speaking and 215 000 speak English.”
Since then it has become worse! Jacob Zuma has recently started visiting white “squatter-like” areas in Pretoria and Bethlehem and said: “I am shocked and surprised by what I have seen here. The vast number of black poverty does not mean that we must ignore white poverty, which is increasingly becoming an embarrassment to talk about.”
He said he had seen the same problems facing white residents of the township as he had seen in black squatter camps.
“This is not about politics, it’s about people who are poor, who are in need and want to be helped by government,” he said, quoted by the AFP news agency.
Solidarity deputy secretary general Dirk Herman said the face of poverty in South Africa was changing. “All wealthy South Africans are no longer white and all poor South Africans are no longer black.
“(But) white poverty is silent poverty. It is not politically correct to talk about it, making it probably the only poverty in the world that is politically incorrect,” he claimed.
Many of these white people have skills that can be used in the country, especially the government departments where there are thousands of vacant posts, which cannot be filled by blacks as there is a skills shortage amongst blacks in this field.
I would suggest to Mr Zuma that he asks them to fill in a form listing their skills and previous employment details and I am sure that many of these white people will be employable!
The whites do not need handouts they need jobs, use this source of skills that is left out in the cold and forget the black/white issue, we are now 14 years into the “new” South African, is it not time now?
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There are “traditional white areas”?
I still have so much to learn. I think I am losing ground.
This is not a new thing. In South Africa there has always been poor whites. The apartheid government of Verwoerd/Malan or whoever already raised the question of the poor whites.
And when i studied in Pretoria, Danville in the west was already there! What about Triomf in Johannesburg?
I agree that it is not a new thing in SA, but it is on the increase and has to be highlighted.
Thanks for your comment