by Ted Bauman
The Sovereign Investor
Years ago, not long after I’d moved to Cape Town, I spent a weekend afternoon with a fellow student’s family in their lovely garden on the banks of the Diep River, which winds through that city’s leafy southern suburbs. It was about as far as one could get from the bloody reality of the “township” uprising out on the Cape Flats, where the incessant southeaster winds blew sand so hard that being outside was like being attacked by a swarm of enraged no-see-ums.
My hosts were African refugees … from Rhodesia. Unlike darker-skinned migrants, they’d been welcomed with open arms by the South African government. Like most ex-colonials, my hosts were supremely confident in their knowledge and interpretation of the “African mind.” They were convinced that black Africans didn’t really wish to rule themselves. All the “troubles” were the work of agitators; “real” Africans recognized that white rule was the best of all possible worlds.