Whites feel unwelcome

In April 2019 President Cyril Ramaphosa pleaded with young, white South Africans not to emigrate. He said, “if I could, I [would] tie them down to a tree and say ‘don’t leave, I want you here in this country’. So, I want all the skills.”

Two years later, the stream of emigration has turned into a flood. It is hard to find anybody between the ages of 20 and 50, with or without children, who has not seen emigration ravage their circle of friends and group of colleagues at work.

A healthcare worker told me how her few remaining friends in SA have covered their fridges in Post-its with foreign words in an effort to learn a foreign language.

Notably, the driving force is no longer legislation blocking any career prospects for white citizens. After all, people who have not yet left resigned themselves to that years ago. It is that people feel more unwelcome than ever before. Identitarian race narratives and suppression of free opportunity are accelerating.

The government is doubling down on National Health Insurance, amendments to the Employment Equity Act, expropriation without compensation and aligning with warmongering Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Maybe Ramaphosa should simply make people feel welcome, instead of continuing to burn down the SA forest and trying to tie people to smouldering embers. If he did so, perhaps people would replant the forests his party has burnt down.

That’s one better than his continued promises of green shoots that never materialise.

Rolf Endres Via email