Yes, I know, it was Kevin Kline... it was also almost 25 years ago and the Boers (Nats) still ruled.

I suggested the old South African trick of hiding gold coins in the frame of a car and then driving out. However the problem with that plan is staying alive during the time between selling the real estate and driving out in the car.

15 years ago, I worked for/with a family of South African Jews, two generations of engineers, who emigrated to the US in the early 80s, and I was continually surprised that they did not fit the stereotype, built around Joe Slovo and others, who based their anti-apartheid activism on what had happened to their European cousins. I sing along with "Nkose Sikelele Afrika" at the end of Cry Freedom, after learning it from the intro of one of three versions of Peter Gabriel's sng "Biko". I watched the live coverage of Nelson Mandela's release from Robbin Island. I read Donald Wood's Biko and Mandela's autobiography. I had hope for the country and all of its people.

Then, last year, I heard a report on "The World" (radio program co-produced by BBC World Service and WGBH Boston) about an automotive after-market item for sale in ZA that consisted, essentially, of a flame-thrower mounted beneath the doorsills on both sides - an anti-carjacking device. At first I thought it was paranoia - then I began hearing other stories like the ones Gary relates. And there's that land confiscation going on in Zimbabwe, too...

When India, Pakistan and Israel wrested independence from Britain (just before I was born, more or less), the new leaders had the advantage of being an entrenched majority, not an oppressed one. The native majority in South Africans inherited poverty and disease as bad as India's, but not the infrastructure or experience to step in and deal with it. Small wonder there have been no miracles there.

Haven't been any miracles in Russia since the fall of communism, either - but plenty of corruption. Could it be that declaring capitalism and/or majority rule is not, on its own, sufficient magic to rescue a country? Is it possible that these things take time?

(Tired musings, long after a blissful but all-too-short evening)

E'

[btw, I thought "Bantu" was a perjorative Afrikaans usage for black native South Africans in general - the equivalent of "Negro" here as "kaffir" is the equivalent of "nigger". Am I right?]