South African diaspora

Have you ever wondered how many South Africans have left South Africa in the last 30+ years?

Please don't bother googling it because the numbers they give you, is far less than what the real number is, that have left. 

We never officially emigrated from South Africa and still have bank accounts, tax numbers etc.  therefore, we are not classed in the number they give.   To see the ridiculous number they do give you need to check out Wikipedia.  One website put the number up to 2020 as 915,000 - cannot be, unless they are not counting those who have dual citizenship with another country?

Firstly, the ones who were able to leave first were those who had the insight to see that the country would eventually fall into disrepair and could find work in another country quite easily, along with some who had a foreign passport.

However, I have found that majority of my friends who still live in South Africa have foreign passports, so why aren't they leaving?  Well as my really good friend once told me, South Africa is a beautiful country, and you can live there really cheaply and also employ people to do things for you without costing you a huge amount of money. (But if you are white, you need to own your own company or have some kind of income) -  And ... then came the and, if something bad happens in this country, then the government of the United Kingdom will expatriate us immediately, because we have a British passport.

So hence the need to Emigrate and find another passport!  

White South Africans were all immigrants into the country, those fleeing persecution would have left in their home countries in the 1600's up until the 1800's, the newer immigrants probably came to South Africa in the late 19th Century - 20th Century at the time of the Gold rush, and they were clever to hold onto their heritage and passport from their birth country.   A bit like what we did when we came to Ireland and applied for dual citizenship before applying for Irish Citizenship, so that we could have both passports - should we ever need them. 

The immigrants who came to South Africa after the 1960's would have been all the Rhodesians due to the war, who either came to SA or went to the UK, Australia, or other destinations.  Then in the 70's when Mozambique was fighting for their independence, a lot of the White Portuguese settlers, either went back to Portugal or came down to South Africa.

In La Rochelle which was nicknamed "Little Portugal" a lot of the refugee families settled there with other relatives and integrated into the area. 

If I take a look at the list of my friends on the "Book of Face" who still live in SA, majority of them would be privileged to have these Foreign Passports, British, Portuguese, Spanish, Greek to name a few and the rest, well a lot have done what we have and made a life for themselves somewhere else, others have ensured that their kids have been given a good education so that they can get jobs in another country.  

Why, I am sure that most of "you" who regularly read my blog are part of the "South African diaspora", I don't think there are many who still live in SA who do read it.    I write my blog to hold onto those memories that we had in SA and to share my experiences and thoughts since leaving.  

Since 2020 not only White South Africans have left but a huge number of Black South African's have left too. This year alone I have met and spoken to so many New South African Immigrants in Ireland, working in Deli's, pet shops, coffee shops, concert venues etc. etc. and majority have been here less than a year.   They are stating that the infrastructure is falling apart, just look at the load shedding - if you google the stats since 2015,  2022 is the highest by far on record, however 2023 has already overtaken 2022, people cannot live like that. 

Where are you from?  

The Citizen Band Radio Era in Johannesburg ... 1977 ... 80 onwards

I think it was 1980 or it could have been 1979 when I first got my CB Radio, Citizen Band Radio for those novices who don't know what it is.

With the Movie "Smokey and the Bandit" on circuit in 1977 there were those people in South Africa who had Ham Radio's which back in the 70's was an expensive hobby, the CB radio would have been a cheaper version on Ham Radio and would not have had the capacity to reach destinations as far a field as the Ham Radio.


CB Radio was a phase that all the kids in the South went through, we all had our own radio's that we could put in our car or friends car and then go driving round the streets and "eyeball" other CB radio people.  It had it's own Language, and it was so cool to be able to spell out using the NATO phonetic Alphabet so for instance, we needed a licence for your CB Radio and mine was ZRAM3498 and if anyone asked me what my licence number was I would call it out as "Zulu, Romeo, Alpha, Mike - 3 - 4 - 9 - 8".

My friend C was probably the first person I knew with a CB Radio and when she got it we all sat around deciding what our "handles" would be - She was "Twinkle Toes", Carol was "Golden Earning" after the band, so we decided I would be "Kiss" after another Rock Bank of the 70's.

I met some really nice people over the CB Radio and for the life of me I can't remember their handles, there was "Michael Van Wyk" who lived in La Rochelle - he went to Help Mekaar hoerskool and drove a Brown Datsun, with his CB licence number in big letters on the back of his window.   Although he was dating me, I think I was being cheated on with "Silver Leaf".

Then there was Ivan or "Stretch" I think his handle was, who introduced me to "Dubba & Audrey", lovely poeple.  And I met Clifford who was very much into his electronics and put up my arial at home for me, mostly so that I could talk to him because there was a lot of static interference between his house and mine.

I don't remember when the whole CB radio died out, but it did!  probably when we all started "jolling" and going to night clubs and not worrying about talking to someone 24 hours a day, I guess in those days it was our kind of cell phone.

The Good Old Days.