South Africans escape the horror

Editor’s note: This is the last in a 3-part series. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

The woman on the plane next to me was the epitome of elegance. You would have pegged her as a country-club suburban American housewife with not a care in the world. You’d have no way of knowing that she came to this country with nothing more than the clothes on her back and memories of her life in South Africa.

She introduced herself as my seatmate on the flight to New York City from Johannesburg, and I could tell from her accent she wasn’t a native New Yorker. I hoped her friendliness would mean I might ask some of the questions that had nagged at me during my travels in her native country.

I was lucky; not only was she friendly, she was as receptive to my questions as I was to hers. I told her of my trip and what I’d seen and she was anxious to know what I thought of South Africa. In fact, this curiosity about what we think of them is pervasive in that troubled land.

Virtually everyone I conversed with asked the same question. It’s as though they’re hoping someone will provide a different answer to support their desire to have “things work out,” meaning that the abominable politics, devastating poverty, growth of communism as well as militant Islam, imminent terrorism and out-of-control crime will somehow end and things will be all right again.

For Americans steeped in anti-apartheid rhetoric, agitation and propaganda, for anyone to desire a return to what was in South Africa will smack of racism. But it’s not. That’s the problem. It’s always easy to judge through rose-colored, Western glasses. It’s easy for us to say that the best way is the way it is now – with blacks in charge, because, after all, they were there first. No. It’s not quite that simple. It never is.

My seatmate was born in Cape Town, living there till she married and moved to Johannesburg for her husband’s business. Before apartheid, she said things were fine. Whites, coloreds and blacks worked together and got along. She said her neighborhood had people of all colors living there with no problems.

With apartheid, they were separated with the blacks moved to the townships. But, she said, the worst happened next. The black-led ANC party was Communist-dominated and used coercion and force to get blacks to follow the party line against whites.

Essentially, it was black-on-black violence to force anti-white activities. Show up for rallies, go on strike – whatever – under threat of your house being burned or your family killed. Nelson Mandela was part of it. He was jailed as a terrorist, but his directives continued to be followed.

Perhaps the worst damage to the country is a story Western media totally ignore. You’ll only hear it from courageous South Africans: The white government built schools in the townships for black children – new buildings, new books. Mandela, from prison, ordered that the blacks NOT go to school. They didn’t. Instead, they destroyed the schools and burned the books

My seatmate told me generations of children got no education.

Now the country is filled with millions of uneducated, unemployable blacks who turn to drugs and violence and buy into the ongoing socialist, racist regime. Add to this the basic tribal rivalry that still exists and condones black against black violence, and you have a tinderbox waiting for the spark.

My seatmate and her husband saw the handwriting on the wall and finally emigrated to the U.S. They were not allowed to take any money out of the country. They came here with their children, clothes and memories, starting from scratch in freedom.

I’ve heard from South Africans from around the world about their experiences with the violence they endured from blacks in their homeland, simply because they were white. Their stories are filled with sadness and despair but with thanks for the freedom they’ve found elsewhere.

Idealism dies hard as reality hits home in that beautiful country. Idealism isn’t the only thing dying. People are too, along with hopes and dreams.

Many choose to get out before the worst happens; they believe it’s just a matter of time. Those who stay deride them as being part of the chicken run. But the insult doesn’t stop them.

In the words of one of the e-mails I received from a native South African woman who left to become an American and start over in safety: “It’s better to be a live chicken than a dead duck.”

Those words fill me with sadness.