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| Recent Publications by New English Review Authors |
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Not With a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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Defending The West:
by Ibn Warraq |
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Nations, Language and Citizenship:
by Norman Berdichevsky |
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Romancing Opiates
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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Which Koran?
by Ibn Warraq |
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Our Culture, What's Left of It
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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What The Koran Really Says
by Ibn Warraq |
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Life at the Bottom
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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The Origins of the Koran
by Ibn Warraq |
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Why I Am Not Muslim
by Ibn Warraq |
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Spanish Vignettes: An Offbeat Look Into Spain's Culture, Society & History
by Norman Berdichevsky |
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Leaving Islam
Edited by Ibn Warraq |
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Monday, 6 October 2008
Cape Of Good Hope, Or Packing For Perth?
“On our street alone, just that one small street, three of the husbands in families were killed in carjackings or robberies,” said Antony McKechnie, an electrical engineer who a month ago moved to New Zealand. “If we had stayed and something had happened to any of our three children, we would never be able to forgive ourselves.”
………
The onslaught of unsettling news has proved too much for some with the means to flee. No reliable numbers are kept on emigration, but “packing for Perth” — a phrase used to describe white flight, not necessarily to the Australian city — is believed to be on the increase.
Since 1996, the black population has risen to a projected 38.5 million from 31.8 million, according to government statistics. The white population has dropped to a projected 4.5 million from 4.8 million.
John Loos, an economist at First National Bank of South Africa, who tracks the reasons given by people who sell homes in white suburban markets, said 9 percent cited emigration in the last quarter of 2007. In the first quarter of 2008, the number rose to 12 percent; in the second quarter it reached 18 percent.
……………
Since May, one of the nation’s best-selling books has been a pep talk titled “Don’t Panic!” by a businessman, Alan Knott-Craig. Aimed primarily at downhearted white people, the book laments the “tsunami of negativity” and discourages those packing for Perth.
Mr. Knott-Craig, 31, said in an interview that 67 of his 72 classmates in an accounting course had emigrated. “People are being bombarded by bad news, and at every water cooler it gets reinforced,” he said. “People thank me for helping them snap out of their negativity.”
And yet perhaps even Mr. Knott-Craig is susceptible to gloom.
In the preface to “Don’t Panic!” he seems to praise South Africa with faint damnation. “Will we still have a viable country in 2020?” he asks himself rhetorically, cautiously concluding, “I think we’ve got a better than 50-50 chance.” [from a New York Times article here]
Those whites in South Africa who can easily take their profession elsewhere -- such as doctors -- have in fact been steadily leaving over the past two decades. But whites still need not fear wholesale expropriation or expulsion, even if daily life is so worrisome, because there is simply so much more wealth to spread around than in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, and the new black ruling class does not want any of those golden-egg-laying geese to be driven out or killed, not at least until they can get the hang of how to lay those eggs themselves. They are keenly well aware of the need to keep around those who keep things -- especially the economy -- more or less running. The example of Zimbabwe reinforces this understanding. Whatever phony social peace has been maintained since the transfer of political power to black majority rule has been a result of an unstated contract: the black ruling elite gets to help itself to a lot of money, and the whites get to stay. The replacement of Mbeki by Zuma will merely change the list of black beneficiaries, with his courtiers getting pride of place. Anything more drastic will lead to an increase in white emigration, and though at first that would seem attractive – the way those white farms taken over by Mugabe’s “veterans” seemed initially a swell idea – there are too many who understand what would happen to the South African economy, and there is surely fear, among many in the new black elite, that they too could be swept away by the "winds of change." And even the black elite in the government cannot prevent black gangs and invididual criminals from attacking whites, and causing them to leave. And their leaving has obvious consequences for health care, education, and the economy. None of this, of course, will be written about by those writers who were always billed as fearless “truth-tellers” but who are very careful to avoid certain obvious truths about South Africa, the country that was so much easier to write about, and become indignant or sorrowful about, under the old regime.
Posted on 12:24 PM by Hugh Fitzgerald
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Announcing the First Annual
New English Review Symposium
Roots of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
& Strategies for the Future
May 29th & 30th
Loews Vanderbilt Plaza Hotel
Nashville, TN.
Speakers Include:
Richard L. Rubenstein
Ibn Warraq
Hugh Fitzgerald
Nidra Poller
Andrew Bostom
Rebecca Bynum
Norman Berdichevsky
Jerry Gordon
Bill Warner
& Brian of London
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