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Afrikaner poor in Italian photo-exhibit…

 

White Poverty and Little Sympathy in South Africa

June 25 2010 - Journalist Kerri MacDonald of the New York Times describes a photo-exhibit in Italy by Reuters photographer Finbarr O’Reilly called “After A’ – which features socalled ‘poor whites’ of Coronation Park in Krugersdorp.

  • The photographer mainly presents these poor Afrikaners as a “freak show of poor whites,”  while also totally ignoring the historic economic gap which has always existed between the English-speaking mercantile-upperclass and the working-class Afrikaners of South Africa. For these ‘poor whites’ are inevitably mostly Afrikaners;  descendants of Boer Voortrekkers who became South Africa’s skilled artisans and municipal engineers who kept the mines, factories and sewerage plants running smoothly, the health-care workers and teachers; and the farmers who have been raising crops for the past 350 years… and of whom more than 3,600 have already been murdered since 1994. All this needs to be said – but isn’t.

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The economic gap between South African English-speakers and Afrikaners has never been greater…

WomanPushesCartMonthlyFoodAid_CoronationParkFINBARR OREILLY REUTERS VANCOUVER SUN JUNE 25 2010 – KRUGERSDORP.  - One of Finbarr O’Reilly’s pictures, published in the Vancouver Sun, captioned: “A woman pushes a cart with a monthly supply of food aid donated to residents of a squatter camp for poor white South Africans at Coronation Park in Krugersdorp. MacDonald ‘s article blames ‘a shift in racial hiring practices” (he avoids noting that this ‘hiring practice’ involves barring the majority of these working-class Afrikaners from the entire labour market). However he totally fails to note the language spoken by these ‘poor whites’ – which inevitably is Afrikaans. It’s the Afrikaner working-class which now is struggling to survive – traditionally, they have always been economically the most vulnerable, with the English-speaking South Africans being the wealthier upper-class, who often due to their British heritage, can also escape from the country in economic downturns: and often do. These working-class Afrikaners however are trapped: they have no familial links with the northern European countries of their forebears at all. Helping Hand charity of Solidarity trade union found more than 600,000 out of the 3-million Afrikaners living below the poverty line during a country survey of their squatter camps in 2008 and now estimate that one-third of the Afrikaner nation lives in dire poverty, floating between squatter camps: internally-displaced citizens with no safe havens. Finbarr O’Reilly visited Coronation Park, a former caravan camp currently home to more than 400 of this sonamed “white “ squatters. Photo: Finbarr O'Reilly, REUTERS [Vancouver Sun]

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The article: “If there was one thing Finbarr O’Reilly sought to emphasize when he began reporting on white poverty in South Africa, it was that “color” (*race)  shouldn’t have a voice in the conversation.

“It doesn’t really matter what color it is,” said Mr. O’Reilly, a 39-year-old Canadian photographer for Reuters whose 2005 photo of a Niger mother and child was named World Press Photo of the Year. “It’s an issue that really is quite urgent right now in South Africa.”

The story has rarely been told. But it has been on his radar since a 1994 backpacking trip through Africa, when he noticed a number of poor white South Africans begging for change at traffic lights. “I started asking around and saying, ‘What’s going on here?’” Mr. O’Reilly said over the phone from Dakar, Senegal, where he’s based. “It’s not a new phenomenon, but the numbers seem to be more apparent than they were in the past.”

Many people react with surprise when they hear the numbers associated with the ‘poor white’ population. Mr. O’Reilly said there are nearly half a million white South Africans living below the poverty line, and at least 80 squatter settlements near the capital city, Pretoria.

“The common perception is that white South Africans enjoy lives of privilege and relative wealth,” Mr. O’Reilly said. He spent a week in March photographing the mostly-Afrikaner population in Coronation Park, a squatter community of about 400 in Krugersdorp, northwest of Johannesburg.

On the surface, Coronation Park is quaint, with the aura of a verdant holiday resort. On weekends, wealthy Afrikaners picnic there. But a closer look, like the one evoked through Mr. O’Reilly’s reportage, reveals scattered garbage, stray animals and children in bare feet. Small generators and open fires stand in for electricity. Alcoholism and violence abound.

Mr. O’Reilly’s goal is to refute the kinds of stereotypes typically associated with African imagery; to show not only another side of poverty, but the resilience of those who live it. The residents of Coronation Park were at first skeptical when Mr. O’Reilly approached them. In the past, he said, the local press had depicted them very negatively.

Poor white South Africans blame reverse discrimination

“I was less interested in what they were saying than why they were saying it,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “All of it was aimed at not coming into a place like that with any preconceived judgment, and to try and portray the people for how they are in a dignified way.”

He spent a week in the community and ultimately gained the residents’ trust. Inside their homes — many of which are one-room shanties — Mr. O’Reilly found poignant vestiges of formerly-middle-class lives: religious icons, wall hangings, wooden spoons and Afrikaner lace doilies.

My comment submitted to the New York Times for publication:

AfrikanerPoorFinbarrOReillyExhibitCommentToNYTimesJuly32010