DEATH OF A NATION – AT 11:38 P.M. ET:   Fighting apartheid in South Africa was one of the trendy causes of the 1970s and 80s.  You really were in, especially on Western college campuses, if you were in the "movement" to end white rule in the predominantly black country.

When apartheid ended, though, the TV news departments pulled the plug, turned off the lights, and went home.  The print reporters did likewise.  The people of South Africa were no longer interesting.  Who cared what happened to them?  There were no marches in the West for good government.

One thing the country did right was to ask the whites to stay.  They had the expertise to keep the economy going.  But in the intervening years, South Africa, under the rule of an essentially Communist government, started slipping, and slipping more, and becoming a dangerous, unruly place, with a terrible record of crimes against black women.  No one in the West was interested. 

Now the South African government is turning against the whites, and the result can easily be another Venezuela.  From Daily Mail: 

White South African farmers will be removed from their land after a landslide vote in parliament.
The country's constitution is now likely to be amended to allow for the confiscation of white-owned land without compensation, following a motion brought by radical Marxist opposition leader Julius Malema.

It passed by 241 votes for to 83 against after a vote on Tuesday, and the policy was a key factor in new president Cyril Ramaphosa's platform after he took over from Jacob Zuma in February.

Mr Malema said the time for 'reconciliation is over'. 'Now is the time for justice,' News24 reported.

'We must ensure that we restore the dignity of our people without compensating the criminals who stole our land.'

Mr Malema has a long-standing commitment to land confiscation without compensation. In 2016 he told his supporters he was 'not calling for the slaughter of white people - at least for now'.

A 2017 South African government audit found white people owned 72 per cent of farmland.

Rural affairs minister for the ruling African National Congress party said 'The ANC unequivocally supports the principle of land expropriation without compensation'.

'There is no doubt about it, land shall be expropriated without compensation.' 

Freedom Front Plus party leader Pieter Groenewald said the decision to strip white farmers of their land would cause 'unforeseen consequences that is not in the interest of South Africa'.

The deputy chief executive of civil rights group Afriforum said the motion was a violation of agreements made at the end of apartheid.  

COMMENT:  No doubt there's been some unfairness, but this is hardly the way to deal with it.  South African blacks have made little progress in part because their leaders are stuck in the last century's embrace of Marxism. 

We now can expect an exodus of whites, and with them their technical skills and commercial expertise.  Really brilliant.

March 3, 2018