ex-pat – Cosmopolitan Observations

I have written a blog on this before. And I deleted it, because I thought the evidence I raised was not going to occur in South Africa, until at least 2017-2020 – however I can safely say that the evidence is not speaking for itself, but literally screaming out to be put to two idiots I am about to address.

The first one is what I originally “discovered” (it was sent to me, or I found it via reposting on social networks): Susan Hayden’s “On Angry South African Ex-Pats”, and I need to cite the first paragraph in order to make my point:

“What I’ve come to realise, over the past few weeks, is that there can be no angrier, more unreasonable person on the planet than the South Africa expat who is told that the country has not gone up in flames (yet) and that we actually spend a lot of time camping, hiking, hanging out on the beach and drinking very nice, inexpensive wine on our expansive lawns in the sunshine while somebody else does the ironing. I think it is fair to say that a goaded bull with a punctured testicle being shown 42 red flags simultaneously could not be more enraged than the (ex) South African who sold up, spent all their money on relocating their family to Wellington before the Swart Gevaar put a torch to the entire country only to find that it’s not quite the utopia they imagined and that their life is actually kakker than before.”

One: great use of language (“kakker”), way to show “how South African” one is. Two the use of the word “utopia”, I thought “utopias” were philosophical chimeras, like looking in to the parallel universe of a mirror, its there but not real. “Utopia”? I never thought New Zealand or Australia would be a utopia: just that the police would be in attendance 3-7 minutes after I make a phone call.

And the adjectives pertaining to anger, rage and the like , are you trying to use the neuro-linguistical language techniques to leverage the case for your argument via Thesaurus use? (Isn’t the saying – “people see the world as a reflection of themselves”?)

The second item which is far more recent is “You’ve Left The Country Now Shut Up” written by a second rate radio DJ (Terence Pillay) in Durban South Africa. It was the emergence of this article recently, coupled with a couple of good ol’ fashioned FaceBook arguments that got me thinking – “No, I am going to deal with this” [again]. A quote from that article:

“But be that as it may there are thousands of South Africans who voluntarily move to seemingly greener pastures and then spend every waking moment obsessively monitoring events in their former homeland and talking crap about their aforementioned former homeland.”

Oh Terence: you must really think I have a lot of time to waste if I spend “every waking moment obsessively monitoring events” in South Africa. No Terence there is an App, now owned by LinkedIn which does all the “monitoring” for me – I just cherry pick headlines that sound interesting. “Obsessively monitoring” the metal music scene – that I couldn’t argue with, but your precious country does not mean that much to me. Additionally Terence: you heard of that thing you work for, yes – the media – it exists over here too, and due to the number of South African “angry expats” who live here: they tend to cover South Africa a bit. So really – its not that hard to follow what is going on back there.

“Seemingly greener pastures”? Where shall we start Terence? GDP comparison? The correct operation of the Legislature and Judiciary (with all the required separation between the two – NOT happening in South Africa – a la Zuma’s court cases), the state of the City Councils, Town Councils? Unemployment rate? Minimum wage? Access to justice? Crime rates? Crime statistics? The death toll on the roads over summer? The state of the public hospitals? Parliament that works (i.e. don’t forcibly remove elected MPs)? General indicators of happiness (compared to Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Wellington, Adelaide … and so on)? Or my favourite – a power system that doesn’t load-shed? They are not “seemingly greener” Terence, they are greener, that is a fact – if you disagree – lets get started on the aforementioned points.

My background was that I migrated at the age of 18 in 2000 to New Zealand, and I had been planning to since before I finished my last year of school. Home is home but I never deliberately blinded myself to the reality of the situation – or the cycles of history (in the more complex sense of the word). I was very happy in New Zealand (I live in Australia now). And I have been back to South Africa a few times for family visits, and the place seemed to be stuck in a time warp: the roads were patchy and the paint was peeling away from the tar, the cracks were all so “papered over” it just looked bad. Poverty creeping in the “better suburbs” much like I would imagine in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Police that couldn’t run 20 meters after a child let alone some criminal on methamphetamine attempting to escape a robbery. Islands of first-world quality besieged by wide-spread poverty.

Susan Hayden’s blog (whether she realises it or not) speaks for itself: a confused lady, who could not make the “greener pastures” work for her (Sweden) and “apparently moved back to South Africa for herself, and yet felt the need to write a blog about it to gain support and validation for her decision”, at least that is what I read. Upon perusing the comments – one will notice a trend: she will validate any comments that back her opinions, and pour vitriol over ones that do not – or if they are too difficult in question or structure – ignore them altogether. This is called selective use of evidence, or “bending evidence to match the argument”, it pissed me off then but now I actually have the cultural phenomena to prove my point in reality so – now this blog in particular – is so far off the truth it is almost farcical. She reminds me of 1st year University students who have just misinterpreted “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Postmodernism” and walk around chiming: “That’s not my truth, that’s your truth” whilst ignoring the principles of evidence and debate.

“So, I say this to the expats who need to sound off and be haters in order to justify their choices: let us love our country if that is what makes sense to us. We don’t yell at you and accuse you of abandoning ship because you’re living in Maida Vale. We are happy that you have homes in London because now we have somewhere to stay when we go overseas with our tragic Rands. You made a choice to go, like we made a choice to stay.”

Well Susan: who called out the “ex-pats” for being haters? You did. So is it so surprising you gleaned a response from some? As for the point of not-accusing ex-pats of abandoning ship – have you never heard the term “chicken run”? I’ll assume she has – and conveniently ignores it because it highlights the exact issue raised in both pieces of writing: “the aggressive South African competitor – who can’t handle being wrong, and hence has to resort to the simple approach of making everything a “binary”: your in or out, its black or white. Now my wonderous first-world edu-ma-cation taught me that “binary thinking” when used as a cudgel such as this – is an indication of stupidity.

From the Pillay article (so close to Heydon’s Blog – I have to wonder if it is plagiarism, probably not – but that only goes to show how embedded the mentality is).

Two accusations of “shit-talking” in two articles within a year of each other: clearly this sentiment is held by a few people. A little lesson from law for you two “ex-pat haters”: it is not defamation if it is true.

So – on to the evidence. The argument that erupted on FaceBook on this issue started over two posts: one was a satirical cartoon poking fun at the failure of the government, followed immediately by Susan’s wonderful blog. I couldn’t help but ask the person if they noticed the irony behind the two posts being right on top of each other – they are not congruent in anyway, all I got was a “like”… and then the “friends” jumped in and it was all fun and games from then on. The responses were the usual avoidance of evidence: which very quickly turned personal (again avoiding the evidence), one person even accused me of “blasphemy” – which to a black metal touting atheist – is more of a compliment, but I respect the gesture for what it was – misdirection with an intent to pull the debate away from hard facts and evidence.

One must note what Susan said at the start of her blog: “What I’ve come to realise, over the past few weeks, is that there can be no angrier, more unreasonable person on the planet than the South Africa expat who is told that the country has not gone up in flames (yet) and that we actually spend a lot of time camping, hiking, hanging out on the beach and drinking very nice, inexpensive wine on our expansive lawns in the sunshine while somebody else does the ironing.” (nice to have a run-down economy where you can pay a domestic servant a pittance and treat them like a butler).

Well based on the evidence I think one can safely say “it has gone up in flames”. Each day the country looks more and more like a tinpot dictatorship:

Nkandla, Nkandla, Nkandla: Where is the justified use of the money for “security”?
Eskom’s load-shedding: What value that must add to the economy.
South Africa’s Crime Statistics: speak for themselves.
Raging social inequality: with a legacy of hatred attributed to it
The Usual Suspects: Corruption, “Struggle Credentials”
The Final Blow for Democracy: forcibly removing Opposing Member’s of Parliament from the Parliament when “difficult” issues are raised.
The fact that David Cameron refused to meet Jacob Zuma, and
Jacob Zuma threw a temper tantrum: what a Statesman.
Everything else I mentioned in the above paragraph.

So how can I be angry – if I am right? And have been proven right?

Its up in flames. It has been for years. It takes a special kind of idiot to blind themselves to the truth. Actually – some people can accept the truth – what they can’t accept the truth on, is ex-pats, mainly they were right.

So if the country has gone up in flames – and the ex-pats are right – the “anger” must reside elsewhere for Susan, maybe in not being able to “hack it” post-migration, too lazy to learn Swedish – who knows, and honestly who cares. My position was: “stop deluding people, it is going up in flames as you speak, you’re too blind to see it – and worst of all you are encouraging others to believe the same trash”.

From Terence Pillay’s article:

“Don’t get me wrong, this is not envy. I don’t want to be where you are. I just don’t want to have to encounter your diatribe about something you’re no longer involved in every time I page through media. There are whingers around the world who have left South Africa, built themselves little enclaves of ex-South African whingers, eating their imported Black Cat Peanut Butter, drinking Ricoffy and who have the time in between mouthfuls to mouth off about our country.”

The simple answer is Mr DJ:

Stop using social media. The glory of social media is exactly the problem you have with it: it is a forum for opinion, open to anyone on the Internet.
In my glorious, first-world “bubble-of-rights”, being educated to a quite high degree in issues such a social science, philosophy, history, politics and current affairs (outside of my legal qualifications) – means I will have opinions ON WHATEVER I WANT – and if you can’t “refute” the opinion, like a rational student of argument/debate – why don’t you shut up? Instead of making base Internet pleas for sympathy.
When someone places a denial, straight out at the start of a paragraph: claiming exactly what they don’t want, why do they subjectively feel the need to clarify it? Maybe because IT IS the issue – and if it wasn’t surely the article structure and premises in the piece of writing would enable the reader to infer that “envy” (in this case) is not the reason for the piece of writing.
I have never found Ricoffy, Black Cat Peanut Butter or any of these so-called “enclaves” Terence speaks about. I may have got a whiff of one once – but I prefer assimilation and steered that conversation back to the University work at hand.

As a matter of fact: I have met more ex-South Africans who REFUSE to hang out with “when we’s” (“when we lived in South Africa” – well GO BACK THEN!). So there may be a few who operate like this, but the majority I have met are happy, well adjusted, have assimilated and just wish to get on with it.

Being born in South Africa and having grown up there: I am entitled to an opinion on the country. When I migrated and people asked me – “Oh, you sound South African?” – what you want me to do? Say something like “Well, no, actually – you completely misheard my accent”? Don’t be stupid: you’d answer the questions in the same way – to not do so is to disrespect the question asker, and to essentially lie to someone – who actually knows the answer to the question they are asking – they are just being polite and trying to build rapport.

No seriously Terence and Susan: if you put one iota of thought in to this problem you may have realised when people ask about South Africa in general conversation post-migration (when they meet you), and bearing in mind that in the first world with all its problems like social welfare – people tend to have a pretty solid grasp on what is going on in South Africa – you want us to lie and talk the country up? You know what comes up then? “Well, why did you migrate then?”. This is the so-called “bad-mouthing” etc that is being referred too. It is not defamation if its true.

And Terence based on your logic: you can’t pass judgment on any music because you are “not involved” with the making of it. Pretty dumb that logic isn’t it? I can’t have an opinion on English rock music – because I don’t live there and was not “involved” in its creation. Delusional is a word I would use here.

People like Terence and Susan do South Africa all sorts of favours: I will never move back, I will never subject myself to this South African “binary” again. I worked damn hard to get in to University here – and these degrees cannot be bought, and I could bring a lot to the table – but why would I want to? Help people like these who can’t accept reality – and so reinvent it.

I travelled back for one holiday, to stay with family. They had friends round for a “braai” (BBQ) and I had known these people prior to leaving the country. The attitude was palpable from the tone and body language, anti-migration through and through. One person asked me: “So how is, you’re Australian University going?”, tone dripping in negativity and skepticism. Why the need to be like that? Again the binary thought pattern. I had a lot of fun that night because I realised I was “free”, living in a first world country with access to good facilities and Government, and here I am on holiday with an embittered South African trying to “burst my holiday bubble” with the same vitriolic attitude I saw embedded and strewn across these two articles. Its boring, get over yourselves. We are not the problem: your embittered minds are.

I reject the misnomer labels and base arguments these people engage in. Its tennis for simpletons. Any one who has the slightest bit of historical/philosophical knowledge would know the writing was on the wall back 1994, it was merely a question of an accumulation of mistakes and over what time period.

The main difference here is a handy little continuum I learnt during my sociology days: the continuum between a cosmopolitan identity, that can “exit and re-enter social/structural networks” as it needs to, for work – life, and work well in those environments, versus the local identity that can only work in familiar territory – and post that realisation – goes in to denial about “migration”. I find the level of competition here very intense, and when one’s “history” (social networks, privileged position as to economics, society etc) is erased – the real work begins. I would place Terence and Susan on the latter side of the continuum, and there is a correlation between Pierre Bourdieu’s “cultural capital” and “cosmopolitan” individuals.

And to have a couple of self-entitled whingers passing out labels – and ignoring hard evidence and the fact that everyone is entitled to their opinion, assuming they can justify it – only makes you both look so bigoted it is beyond funny. You can label me what you want: but deep, deep down, you know I’m right.

You people have it all twisted: I hate people who delude themselves. I love my life in Australia, I have had opportunities I would never get anywhere else. The way of life is fantastic. I am “free” – which Susan claims I am not. I don’t worry about racial issues, crime – or just being mugged: it does not even factor in to my day. I happily pay tax and contribute as a worker in this society. I am far from angry: just bored of binary-minded South African simpletons who lack a decent University degree – and what I mean by that – is one that actually taught you how to think: because thought, argument and logic are clearly missing from your pieces of writing, and the fact that both these trashy points of view gain any traction at all – speaks volumes as to how the “remainder” view migration, “hate all those who achieved what we could not, and no, we don’t want your goddamn’ first world skills or standards here – you’re not good enough for us! You took the Chicken Run!”.

If you wish to sacrifice your life “contributing” to a country going up in flames (no metal band pun intended): fine, but that is your post-Apartheid “need”, and good for you. I chose differently, and I don’t buy poorly constructed, self-justifying garbage that is essentially anecdotal, and will not enter in to debates on any points of fact that do not “align” with their version of reality.

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” – Schopenhauer

I’d say Terence, Susan and their followers have only reached stages one and two. History is made by people who see the facts for what they are, and act upon them. They don’t blindly swallow what they are fed – in some grand metanarrative of utopian vision, I am sure there were a lot of Jewish people in Germany in 1939 with similar sentiments towards the ones who had left between 1933-1938.

I will not accept a false label, and I will call these second-rate writers out on their farcical “arguments”/”opinions” – they are both the same to me. And don’t hide behind – “this is my subjective opinion and hence there is no need to validate my points with evidence”, that is the easy way out.

I take issue with the binary you create, the enmity you create between what should be fellow country-persons. I don’t care about your “blog hits” or the amount of comments you have received or who reblogged it: like a Brittany Spears song, or any pop song for that matter – the dumb herd will follow where the rest of the sheep go, and that is all you two are doing: pandering to the mass to inflate your own egos.

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A more recent article, phrased in a nicer way but re-iterating the same issues: http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/burningpaper/2008/07/21/the-pitter-patter-of-the-ex-pats/

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