Dueling Headlines
Two headlines about South African emigration from Independent On-Line appeared within the same week. The first: “Whites Leaving SA in Droves.” The second: ”Whites Return to South Africa.” Is this schizophrenia at work? Shoddy journalism? Or, as I believe, an example of South Africans perceiving a problem and generally believing the worst even when there is contravailing evidence to the doomsaying?
Emigration is one of the big fears that many South Africans have. It fits a nice narrative for the nattering nabobs of negativism: South Africa is getting worse! Rather than stay ina country they love, people are willing to seek their opportunities elsewhere! A third of the country thinks about leaving! It’s the ANC’s fault! Look, even blacks are increasingly thinking of emigrating!
And yet for generations whites have left South Africa. A sliver left because of moral revulsion to apartheid. A far larger proportion left because the prospect of a black-led South Africa fueled their vision of swart gevaar. Still others left because people leave their home countries all the time for myriad reasons, some for good, some for short-term opportunities, and still others for indeterminate lengths of time. I am not convinced yet that emigration is an actual concern and I am convinced that some of the polling methodology being relied upon in these examples is, if not shoddy, at least misleading. In other words: Calm down. All of the “good South Africans” are not going to leave, and those that do leave are not going to resign South Africa to a bleak, talentless, equity-free future. Among some sectors of South Africa the sky is always going to be falling.