Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utcsri.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsri!vassos
From: vassos@utcsri.UUCP (Vassos Hadzilacos)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: South African Blacks
Message-ID: <1534@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-Oct-85 17:56:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsri.1534
Posted: Thu Oct 24 17:56:38 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 24-Oct-85 19:41:27 EDT
Distribution: can
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 41

> As deplorable as the slavery-like conditions in South Africa are, it's
> shocking to learn that blacks are lining up to get *in* to South Africa.
> 
> Simply put, it's because slave or no, there are jobs in free-market SA
> and none in the neighbouring dictatorships.

SA a "free-market"?! Adam Smith will be turning in his grave.
How on earth could an economy based, to use your own words,
on slavery-like conditions be a "free" market. What's free
about the economy of a country that banishes the overwhelming majority
of its population in restricted wastelands (so-called batustans)?
What's free about an economy that can "offer" starvation wages
at gunpoint?

As for the economic state of what you call "neighbouring dictatorships",
that is primarily due to the legacy of centuries of colonialism
and, to no small part, to SA's policies itself. One of these countries,
Namibia (from where many of the workers "lining up" to get in SA are
coming), is illegaly occupied by SA troups. To suggest that the
economy of SA is in good shape because it is a "free market" while the
economy of the neighbouring countries are in bad shape because they are
"dicatorships" is just wishful thinking to fit preconceived notions.
It has nothing to do with reality.

> It's not up to us to debate this issue from afar.  They clearly choose
> to work at $40 per week instead of $0.

This is obvious enough. But the dillema should-black-workers-get-
$40-per-week-or-should-they-get-$0 is bogus. Why are these the only two
alternatives? Why aren't these people entitled to decent wages as well
as to freedom and dignity?

> With luck, the white supremacy will
> end soon, and we can make further examination of the situation.

White supremacy will not end "with luck". It will end with the struggle
of the people fighting against it. One can choose to help their struggle
or one can choose to turn one's back to them. One way of doing the latter
is to appeal to "luck" as a way of putting an end to their predicament. 

--Vassos Hadzilacos.