Responding to comments made by E'telekeli:

>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.

Joe Slovo was head of the South African Communist party. He like Leon Trotsky
had Jewish parents. No doubt, Slovo used his Jewishness for political
advantage but as a true Communist was an atheist. As far as I could tell
the South Africans were and are very tolerant towards Jews. Jewish synagogues
are about as common in Johannesburg as they are in the San Francisco bay area.
Many Jews migrated to South Africa from Europe to escape Nazi persecution and
economic uncertainty after the destruction caused by WW-II. I have no doubt
that if the South African Communist party had prevailed over the
African National Congress there would have been "re-education camps"
(concentration camps) setup and probably about 15%-25% of the European
population would have been executed or died in those camps. Slovo would
have refered to the victims as "fascists", "rectionaries" or "counter
revolutionaries" being "liquidated". It is my understanding that Slovo held
a minor role within Nelson Mandela's unity government. Mandela knew what he
was dealing with in terms of people like Slovo and kept them on a short leash. I should mention that I was in Capetown (a beautiful city) shortly after
Mandela became president. I actually saw Mandela in person at a Jewish
Synagogue across the street from the hotel that I was staying at (pure luck).

>I sing along with "Nkose Sikelele Afrika" at the end of Cry Freedom...

It's a beautiful tune and now South Africa's national anthem.

>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.

You don't give Mandela's intelligence enough credit. He was very careful
in selecting his high visibility cohorts for the national unity government
to be high ranking members of the ANC often of Bantu descent. However
the technocrats who were making the tough economic and social decisions
tended to be university educated people of European descent. Mandela knew
he had to have educated intelligent people actually manipulating the levers
of political power.

>[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?]

Incorrect, Bantu has no perjorative meaning. I believe it's a native
African word and equivalent to words like "Jew" or "Gypsy". The word "kafir"
is interesting. It comes from the triliteral Arabic verb "kafara" (kfr)
which literally means "to cover or hide". Another less pleasant meaning of
the word is "to be irreligious, to blapheme, to be an infidel". The word
"kafir" came to South Africa through the Swahili language which is a dialect
of Arabic. The word was initially used by pious Moslems as a perjorative
towards native Africans who did not share their religious beliefs. The
white Afrikaners (who have been living in Africa for over 300 years) picked
up this insult from Swahili speakers. Never use the word "kafir" within
ear-shot of a black South African. It's considered a mortal insult and
never used by polite South Africans of any color.

Another interesting South African racial word is "colored" or "coloured"
(to use the correct South African spelling). When we Americans use the
word "colored people" we sometimes refer to non-white people but more
typically refer to people of African descent. A "coloured person" in
South Africa is almost always someone desended from both native Africans
and white Afrikaners. Their first language is typically Afrikaans. Many
of the coloured people could have "passed" as Europeans if it hadn't been
for the stupid Aparthied race laws. The way the white Afrikaners treated
their own family who were coloured was utterly disgraceful IMHO. Good
riddance to that stupid racist system! Unfortunately it stayed in power
too long and the damage is done. IMHO there can be no salvation for
South Afria.

Gary