Source: Zero Hedge
A South African wields a shotgun in an attempt to protect his community from looters.
Strength In Diversity
Eleven years ago, author and urban futures scholar Joel Kotkin wrote optimistically about America’s demographic trajectory:
An ongoing source of strength for the United States over the next 40 years will be its openness to immigration. Indeed, more than most of its chief global rivals, the U.S. will be reshaped and re-energized by an increasing racial and ethnic diversity.
Working to advance that trajectory, the Biden Administration announced in May that it would prioritize Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia for refugee resettlement. With that in mind, it’s worth paying attention to another country which prizes its diversity, the Rainbow Nation of South Africa.
In addition to its 80% African population comprised of several different ethnolinguistic groups, and its shrinking white population, South Africa also has a significant South Asian minority. Although cheerleaders of demographic change in the United States generally don’t predict we will end up with a majority African population, if we commit to continued mass immigration, and the UN projections graphed by Steve Sailer below prove accurate, it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility.
So it’s worth paying attention to what’s happening in South Africa now.
Mass Looting, Arson, And Unrest
The arrest of South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma last week has sparked a wave of unrest in that country that makes America’s rioting last year look like an amuse-bouche by comparison. Here are some scenes from the chaos, for illustration.
Looters commandeering forklifts.
A shopping center in flames.
The shotgun-wielding South African pictured above and his comrades holding off looters.
Molotov cocktails thrown at the vehicles of suspected looters.
Suspected looters captured by armed citizens.
Vigilante justice administered with baseball bats in broad daylight. This is one of a number of tweets claiming there is targeted violence between African and Indian communities in South Africa now.
“KZN” in the tweet below is a reference to the KwaZulu-Natal province in southeastern South Africa.
Another widely-shared tweet includes audio claiming that police have called on armed citizens to help fight looting, with little restriction in their use of force. The Spar Group mentioned there is a South African grocery chain.
Those Who Don’t Pay Attention To The Present
George Santayana famously wrote that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”. To that we ought to add an admonition to pay attention to the present. America seemed to pay much more attention to South Africa during the struggle against apartheid. Once South Africa had its multiracial elections in 1994, we saw that as a democratic happy ending. South Africans seem to see it differently.
We ought to listen and try to learn from them.
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