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Krugersdorp Afrikaner squatter camp: the daily battle for survival has become a grinding way of life
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May 11 2012 - Suffering from a decade of chronic malnutrition and disease, the -- by now infamous Afrikaner squatter camp residents in Krugersdorp – who won their widely-publicised battle with the ANC-municipality against forced removal -- now has divided into two factions with two strong leaders in an uneasy truce.
In a news update by local carers who visit the camp they also noted that local Afrikaner business people are failing and moving their families into the camp as well.
- After their battle stop the local ANC-regime from forcibly removing them, the camp residents now have split into two factions: One faction is run by ‘Willem’ who uses the Christian Communal Survival approach, whereby all the residents share the daily cash they earn from odd jobs and selling homemade items, buy their food together, cook in a communal kitchen and pray together each morning for courage to survive another day…
--- Alet (GoudveldGriffon@gmail.com ) writes: “I was at the squatter camp near Krugersdorp and send some new photos. Not many of the people themselves, just their dwellings. I think all the Afrikaners living in the camp are sick and tired of being photographed all the time. I went with Gideon Van Deventer gideon8steps@telkomsa.net of Riebeeckstad who has started several projects to help people become self-sufficient by making fire-lighters, t-shirts and ragdolls: the Heavenly Christian Tees project: http://www.heavenlychristiantees.co.za/cp/10023/fig-leaf-raggedies
FLASHBACK: The Afrikaner squatters’ battles with the Krugersdorp ANC-council were recorded by many international journalists, amongst them the Australian photo-journalist Dean Saffron
Today, the municipality no longer ‘hassles’ the Afrikaners, also because a group of black squatters has taken up occupancy in one corner of the former municipal campsite, writes Alet of Goudveld Griffon. She visited the camp two days ago with Gideon van Deventer of Riebeeckstad and sent us this latest update.
Gideon van Deventer says he looks for people with 'fire' who can be taught to become self-supporting. He launched several projects: residents are making firelighters, t-shirts and ragdolls to sell.
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Business people moving in their families from wealthier part of town:
Alet reports that the demographics of the camp have also changed dramatically: previously, most camp residents were low-wage, low-education working class Afrikaners, many ex-mineworkers and fired railway employees who lost their jobs because of the ANC’s black-economic-empowerment laws which bar whites from the job market.
- Now, new arrivals show the steady decline of the Afrikaner business community: with the ANC-regime barring any business without black CEOs from doing business, newly destitute ex-businessmen from a wealthy Krugersdorp suburb now also are moved in with their young families: two men are terminally ill with cancer and go to the local public hospital for chemo-treatment each month. One little girl’s mom has already died: now she faces losing her dad too.
- Two factions –two very different approaches to survival:
Alet notes that the two factions amongst the Afrikaners use two very different approaches to survive each day: One group demands that all the donations of food and cash go to their leader Irene Abbott (sister of the boxer) and her partner; the other group headed by ‘Willem’ is approaching their grinding povery in the communal-Christian way: teaming up and sharing their cash earned each day and sharing their food – women sew items to sell such as t-shirts and ragdolls; the men go out to earn cash with odd jobs each day and to sell homemade items – and with the cash buy food to share out amongs them all. This group – denied access to the only electricity-point by the Abbott clan - cook their food in an open communal kitchen and hold prayer meetings each morning to give them courage for the day ahead. They made a home-made boiler called a ‘donkie’ (below) to boil their water on. And they’ve scrounged some old-electricity generators which one skilled mechanic keeps running each day.
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The donkie: Krugersdorp Afrikaner squatter camp has split into two factions: one faction refuses the other faction access to the only electricity-access point so the Christian faction made its own hot water boiler, runs a communal open-air kitchen and repaired some scrounged electricy-generators.
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Afrikaner poverty has soared by 400% since 1994 because of ANC regime’s black-economic-empowerment laws barring the whites from the labour market: Prof Lawrence Schlemmer’s report on white poverty: http://www.scribd.com/doc/25366368/Blanke-Armoede-in-Suid-Afrika#download
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‘ Sewage runs though a section of the camp: and the Afrikaner residents are sick and tired of photographers… ‘
There’s the constant health-hazard to the children of sewage running through the camp: but also new hope in Gideon’s cash-creating manufacture of rag-dolls, t-shirts and firelighters…
Alet: “The camp has over the years become quite infamous because the ANC-regime wanted to forcibly remove them to 'clean up the landscape' just before the Fifa World Cup football tournaments - and they put up quite a fight, one which the municipality lost. It originally was just a caravan-park but people started moving their when they lost their jobs and it's become an 'informal settlement'. During the battles of 2010 some people sold their little caravans and moved to escape the violence. When they heard that the municipality had given up trying to forcibly remove them, they returned and put up little shanties amongst the caravans. The majority of the adults are low-wage workers with little formal education who lost their jobs years ago - but amongst the latest arrivals also are business people.
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Business people who lost everything now are moving in:
Two new camp residents are men who are suffering from terminal cancer and sold their belongings to help pay for the medical care when their health-insurance stopped paying. One man was a well-known Krugersdorp businessman who lived in the 'wealthier' part of town. With his illness he also fell into poverty. He's too ill to work and tries to survive on handouts.
Once a month he gets chemo-treatment at a public hospital.
- There's also an Indian woman who was kicked out of her community because she became a Christian. And in one corner of the camp a group of black squatters was taken in 'for political reasons': after they moved in, the Krugersdorp municipality stopped harassing the Afrikaners.
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The unhealthy conditions are growing: sewage runs through one part of the camp. And it's divided into two factions: one headed by Irene (the sister of boxer Jimmy Abbott). This couple also have control of the only municipal electricity-point in the camp and won't let others use it. Irene rules her clan with an iron hand and demands that all the clan’s donations must be handed to her and her partner Hugo.
The other section of the camp is comprised of Willem and his people - Christian folk. They have set up a communal kitchen and his people go out each day to do odd jobs and earn cash.Those who earn some money, buys food for the rest. They have also teamed up to buy little power-generators and do their laundry in washing machines.They boil water in a home-made 'donkie' (boiler) and cook over open fires. There's a team of kindergarden-children: one three-year-old girl's dad also suffers from terminal cancer and her mom died last year.
The father is making arrangements with the local welfare people to have his child adopted in case of his death.
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Gideon van Deventer is engaged in creating cash-generating projects for them: for instance they make firelighters for barbequeing. And he's also started the Heavenly Christian Tees project: t-shirts and pre-printed ragdolls which the women and girls can sew. http://www.heavenlychristiantees.co.za/cp/10023/fig-leaf-raggedies
Gideon says he looks for people with 'fire' who can be taught to become self-supporting.Not everyone in the camp has the energy and courage left to do so. Many have been living in this hopeless condition for so long that they now just live from day to day.
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Meagre pensions, no food-aid, low child-benefits:
The majority of the people in this camp are too young to get any kind of old-age pensions. Some of them do get disability pensions. The women can put in claims for child-benefits, which are very low cash amounts. During the day most of the men leave the camp to seek odd jobs such as cleaning and gardening and some go on the streets to sell handmade items.
Relevant background information on white poverty in South Africa:
-1) Law from 2003 barred 93% of the white male breadwinners from the South African labour market: No 53 of 2003: Broad-based black economic Empowerment Act 2003 No 25899
http://www.info.gov.za/view/DownloadFileAction?id=68031
- 2) ‘Law from Dec 2011 barred white women, white ‘labour brokers’ and white disabled people from the SA labour market: Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Amendment 2011 GG34845 9 December 2011:
-- http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2010/08/afrikaners-are-starving-pictures.html
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SA demographer Prof Flip Smit: June 24 2010: ‘600,000 Afrikaners in poverty’: “Chantelle”, commenting on this article: - Junie 25, 2010 “ My husband was a worker at Aurora (Padmodzi gold mines, owned by the Zuma/Mandela families) until three weeks ago. There have not been any salaries paid from them for the past few months. We now are homeless and jobless and some nights we don’t even have money to buy bread and milk for the baby, Dean. We have nicknamed Dean the Pamodzi baby. “ http://afrikaans.news24.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Duisende-Afrikaners-verval-in-armoede-20100625pot.com/2012/04/afrikaner-poverty-soars-by-400.html
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research by Prof Lawrence Schlemmer: 18 Jan 2010: Today 430,0000 white people out of a total ‘white’ population of 4,5m, are too poor to live in ‘traditional white areas’.http://www.scribd.com/doc/25366368/Blanke-Armoede-in-Suid-Afrika
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Afrikaans anti-apartheid activist author Breyten Breytenbach: Sept 26 2011: documentary http://kyknet.dstv.com/2011/09/26/wit-armoede-in-suid-afrika/
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Dutch journalist Elles van Gelder gloats: “Now the whites are also begging in South Africa”: she visited the Eagles Nest Squatter camp and interviewed a clearly very traumatised Afrikaner veteran of the Angolan war: http://www.ellesvangelder.nl/work/121/ also: http://www.ellesvangelder.nl/work/108/
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Solidarity trade union: ‘The reality of white poverty”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T11KM0YI28
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ANC creates new white underclass in South Africa (Dutch) http://www.reuters.com/nl.mk.gd/news/
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ANC uses arguments also used by the nazis to bar the Jews from the labour market with their Nuremberg ‘racial purity’ laws:These documents represent the Nazi arguments why Jews should be barred from all public life in Germany, including the entire labour market: :http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/imbild1.htm
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Documentary research into Afrikaner poverty:
http://youtu.be/pFj0HdW2iDs
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White Squatter Camps in South Africa:
http://youtu.be/fz01_Hsy4jY
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Law from 2003 barred 93% of the white male breadwinners from the South African labour market: No 53 of 2003: Broad-based black economic Empowerment Act 2003 No 25899
http://www.info.gov.za/view/DownloadFileAction?id=68031
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‘Law from Dec 2011 barred white women, white ‘labour brokers’ and white disabled people from the SA labour market:
- The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Amendment 2011 GG34845, 9 Dec 2011:
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