VoCSe said:
Damn, and I was expecting an Afrikaner flight.
A lot of them didn't WANT to flee. They saw South Africa as their homeland and in certain territories (like the Cape), they'd been there
longer than the Black population (this is, of course, not true with regard to Natal). In fact this is one of the greviances they had against the S. African British whom they saw as potential "deserters" with the option of fleeing back to Britian.
Once again I'd like to advise everyone who's interested in S. African AH to read James Michener's
The Covenant. Not only is it a very good historical novel, it also functions as a well-researched popular history text and in it's last chapters gives some very interesting overviews from both Black and White points of view of the perception of the Apartheid policy in the late '70's and early '80's. Michener did, in fact, go to South Africa and talked to leaders both in the Black and White communities to gain current information on this*. It's very insightful and an eye-opener to those of us who have only seen apartheid as a part of history.
It's earlier chapters are each concerned with various aspects of South African history ranging from the VOC's first settlement at Kaapstad to Shaka and his wars to unite the black tribes of Natal to the Boer War. They are just as detailed as the ones concerning apartheid.
Here's a link to
The Covenant on Amazon where you can look at other Michener books each of which provide an excellent historical overview of the region they're concerned with
*The book was banned for a time in South Africa during the '80's because of it's presentation of Black Resistance points of view.