A long way from his South African birthplace, amid the sweeping wheat fields of eastern Georgia, farmer Piet Kemp says that he has found a new home in this former Soviet republic.
And if the government gets its wish, hundreds more like Kemp will follow to help revive Georgia's ailing agricultural sector, bringing in both cash and expertise.
Shaken by violent attacks and reforms to transfer land to blacks in South Africa, many white farmers have been emigrating, and 10 have already relocated to Georgia to set up businesses under a programme launched by the government.
Kemp was the first of them to make the move, lured by local business opportunities -- and the promise of security.
"I do not want to live in constant fear," the 67-year-old said emotionally as he recalled the widespread killings of other white farmers in South Africa.
...Amid the violence, Kemp said that he felt he had no choice but to leave.
"In Georgia there is no violence, the crime rate is extremely low. So I will never go back," Kemp declared, comparing the situation here to the high violent crime rates back home, which include some 46 murders a day.
The Georgian Government values these farmers:
Earlier this year, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili called for large-scale modernisation to turn the country's "mediaeval agriculture sector into the agriculture of the 21st century" and make it a major source of income.
The plan to attract Boer farmers to relocate to this distant ex-Soviet state is part of Saakashvili's vision, but although their numbers may turn out to be small, they could make a difference, expert Shervashidze suggested.
"They are the world's best farmers. They bring in cash, create new jobs and set up efficient businesses," he said.
But it's hardly an ideal situation. Piet Kemp is being asked to give up his identity as a Boer in order to find security. Modern society has reduced him to a wandering economic asset.
The failure of the South Africans was not to create a white enclave to call their own.
ReplyDeleteThose same Afrikaners hired black maids, black nannies, and black gardeners to do the housework that the Afrikaner could have done for themselves. The saying about Afrikaners was that they would rather die in bed than make the bed themselves.
ReplyDeleteHiring Boers to farm for you seems a really good strategy considering what their peoples name translates to.
ReplyDeleteThey have been farming in uncompromising environments for 300 years, they are probably pretty good by now.
I met lots of Boers who were born in South Africa but migrated back to the Netherlands. Most of them are in their 20/30s, and moved back to the Netherlands with their parents when they were kids.
ReplyDeleteThing is South Africa as a modern country is losing its brain. Of course why would a smart Boer needs to go back to the field and plow when you could hire cheap Zulus to do whatever for a penny? In South Africa, only the richest whites and hard-core liberal denailists stayed. The rest are moving out of country just as fast as Namibians and Batswanas moved in the country.
Funny trivia, I remember sometime ago I actually read that the emigration rate of middle class smart blacks in South Africa is even faster than the whites...
middle class smart blacks in South Africa
ReplyDeleteThere are so many contradictions-in-terms in this phrase it's amazing!
This seems to be representative of a general phenomenon where a lower class of laborers is invited en masse and ends up socially displacing an upper class (whites) who built up infrastructure and wealth: Mexicans in the SW U.S., Turks and Moroccans in Europe, and indigenous peoples in RSA.
ReplyDeleteThe result of economic pressures or modern liberal ideology? It will be interesting to see how countries that managed to "resist", e.g., Japan, will fare in coming decades.
Anon (5:18),
ReplyDeleteI don't especially want to get into a discussion about this, but there do exist smart middle-class blacks. They don't, though, seem to have the preponderance required to shape society. If our own middle-class continues on self-destructing we might eventually be in the same boat.
SA has had a small black middle class since before aparthied.
ReplyDeleteIt grew with the large black population growth and got educated through far left whites.
Then the black empowerment initiatives were put in and the positions were monopolised by those blacks in the best position to use the new government to get them up the ladder, the middle classes.
Some young blacks rose well above their ability and training, and those would be the first to leave after making a nest egg.
So no, not surprising that the middle class blacks are running as fast as they are able. Have actually met a couple of them in Australia.
Also, not meaning to be cruel.
ReplyDeleteBut you can be 'middle class' and still not have any skills that can build a society.
Engineering being the most important.
And yes, this is a BIG fear for the white population.
there do exist smart middle-class blacks
ReplyDeleteThey are always an artificial product of affirmative action and government employment.
A major culprit of Africa's slide into the darkness is of course foreign aid from the west. It simply empowers the existing dictatorial elite, who then swoop on anything that looks like capital accumulation, ie success.
ReplyDeleteStop the foreign aid and they may be able to pull themselves out of it.
Actually, anonymous, the civil rights movement and affirmative action were disasters for blacks, which up until then had been making steady progress under a system that made no special allowances for them.
ReplyDeleteThomas Sowell's department secretary remarked how she never had to correct any of his spelling. That's because he grew up before Ebonics.
I don't think he would have to give up much of his identity. His ancestors brought their culture from Northern Europe to Southern Africa and it survived intact. If enough fellow travelers do the same to Georgia, His great-great-great grandchildren will still have commonality with him.
ReplyDeleteOf course if his children adopt Georgian culture, its better than a lot of other cultures. Certainly better than that of downtown Jo-Burg.
Or they could just return to the Netherlands, 100 times better than Georgia. Plenty of better places to go for those Boers in this world.
ReplyDeleteThis is the way of genocides: those that have marketable skills and the ability to flee often do, the others go into the merciless meat-grinder.
ReplyDelete"Actually, anonymous, the civil rights movement and affirmative action were disasters for blacks, which up until then had been making steady progress under a system that made no special allowances for them."
ReplyDeleteThe biggest rise in the standard of living for blacks in America was just before LBJ started trying to "help" them more.
Same general time period that saw the outlawing of lesser wages for Aboriginal stockmen and the institution of Aboriginal centred welfare programs.
Since working below the minimum wage was their best asset with employers many ended up on sit down money from the government instead, slowly losing their tradtitional skills which had made them so good on cattle stations.
When it comes to motivating a community to improve itself, government funds have a crappy track record.
Life is not just about "the living standard". Power and culture matter too.
ReplyDeleteBantus in Zimbabwe and South Africa have destroyed and are destroying the Whites, at whatever cost to their "living standard".
Boers wanted elsewhere likely want to keep not only a standard of living but their culture, but they probably don't have that choice, because the Georgians likely want to keep their culture.
And if they don't, they should. A divided culture will bring harm.
Anonymous (Thursday, 28 July 2011 10:09:00 PM AEST): "The failure of the South Africans was not to create a white enclave to call their own."
ReplyDeleteTrue.
But whatever they did, they were going to have it tough. The world "anti-racist" establishment wanted to push them into the helpless and irreversibly declining situation that they are in.
We are making the same mistake that they made, not holding on to our White enclave.
As the numbers turn against us, we will more and more attract the attention of the world "anti-racist" establishment the same way the Boers did.
To survive, you have to be like the Japanese. You have to say: "this is us, this is our culture, this is our land, and all foreigners can jump in the ocean and take their opinions with them. And whoever is against this is thinking like a foreigner."
"this is us, this is our culture, this is our land, and all foreigners can jump in the ocean and take their opinions with them. And whoever is against this is thinking like a foreigner."
ReplyDeleteWhy I like Japanese.
Hopefully the Boers will be happier. Cheers.
ReplyDelete"Or they could just return to the Netherlands, 100 times better than Georgia. Plenty of better places to go for those Boers in this world."
ReplyDeleteActually, the relationship between Boers and Hollanders is severely fractured. The South Africans were ruthlessly shunned by the Netherlands during the Apartheid era. (Afrikaner nationalists would say 'betrayed'). There would be no love lost between the hardy men of the veld, and the effeminate, pot smoking, pee-sitting-down fellows of the land of tulips and bicycles. Boers probably have more in common with the Slavs, and would appreciate the wide open spaces and frontier spirit in the Steppes.
As an aside, many Afrikaners are of French Hugeneot rather than Dutch descent. The language is closer to Belgian Flaams than 'high Dutch'.
The comment about Afrikaners being lazy is off the mark. It's not as though they imported household help from Mexico; the place is literally teeming with eager and cheap labour. A kind of feudal system existed in every colony and still applies in any third world country. Giving employment and a living to countless families is 'part of the white man's burden', so to speak. Talk to anyone who has lived in Indonesia or the Philipines as an upper middle class expat.
Gilbert Pinfold.
Previous anon,
ReplyDeleteI live in Holland and let me tell you, I have never heard of a man who peed sitting. You must have been thinking about Sweden (of course, I understand for Americans it's all the same).
Not everybody smokes pot, either. Actually Dutch people are pretty traditional in many ways, consider the fact that less than 10% of our women work full time and compare it to the Anglo world.
Ja, maar what's dan verkeerd met de Oekraïne of Georgia?
ReplyDeleteMost of us just simply move to NZ or Australia, but not everyone has the privilege to do so, as we can't jump on leaky boats and get a free ride - we have to prove our skills and pay our own way until we finally achieve Permanent Residence status, which is like reaching heaven for most of us.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad for these blokes who get another chance somewhere else, it's a hard thing to do, but the Boers have never been ones to back off from hardship or starting all over again.
There are the other Boers who would rather sit and hope that Zuma wouldn't "turn out too bad" (could he have been worse?) because they love being served hand and foot by their domestic help and garden boys so much they just can't get over that hurdle and move while there still is time to do so.
They have learnt nothing from the previous colonies, i.e Mozambique, Zambia, Angola, etc where the whites were wiped out. And one way or antoher, they will be wiped out.
And yes, we have no respect for the bloody Dutch, they're a bunch of left wing poofters - they couldn't even fight the Germans years ago, and the Boers and Aussies had to rescue them.