South Africa as dystopia: diaspora views from Canada

Jonathan Crusha,b∗

aCIGI Chair in Global Migration and Development, Balsillie School of InternationalAffairs, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 6C2; bUniversity of Cape Town, P/BRondebsoch, 7701 Cape Town, South Africa

The high-profile case of the ‘white refugee’ in Canada, Brandon Huntley,temporarily soured relations between Canada and South Africa and raisedserious questions about the Canadian refugee protection determinationsystem. In constructing a plausible narrative to convince the judge thatHuntley qualified for refugee protection, his lawyers painted a picture ofa country in which all whites were being persecuted because of theirrace. Although the decision was overturned on appeal, the case raisesthe question of how South Africans in the diaspora more generally viewthe country. This paper shows that despite a strong personal SouthAfrican identity, South Africans in Canada are a deeply disengageddiaspora. In order to rationalise their departure, disengagement anddecision never to return, this post-apartheid diaspora paints itself asvictims of post-apartheid South Africa and draws on the same narrativereservoir of images as Huntley’s lawyers. The Huntley case thereforerepresents something much more than an egregious but exceptionalmiscarriage of justice.

Keywords: diaspora; Canada; South Africa; refugee; immigration

Introduction

In mid-2004, South African Brandon Huntley entered Canada on a temporaryresidence permit in order to work as an amusement park attendant, havingworked in Cape Town as a bartender, cleaner, parking lot attendant and lawnsprinkler salesman.1 He returned to South Africa at the end of 2004 whenhis permit expired. In June 2005, he came to Canada for a second time andworked for another 18 months with the same company. After the expiry ofhis work permit at the end of 2007, he remained in Canada illegally. Hemarried (and later divorced) a Canadian and unsuccessfully tried to enlist inthe Canadian armed forces. Finally, in June 2008, over a year after his work

# 2013 Taylor & Francis

∗Email: jcrush@balsillieschool.ca

Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 2013Vol. 51, No. 2, 189–209, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2013.773692

permit expired, Huntley lodged an application for refugee status in Canada withthe Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). In August 2008, he appeared beforethe IRB’s Refugee Protection Division (RPD) member, retired lawyer WilliamDavis, along with his South African-born Toronto lawyer Russell Kaplan andKaplan’s sister, Lara, as a corroborating witness.

Huntley, a resident of Mowbray in Cape Town, claimed to have been phys-ically attacked at least six times since 1991. All of the attacks were supposedlyracially motivated, the main evidence for which was the accompanying racistepithets used by his attackers including ‘settler’, ‘Boer’ and ‘white fuck’. Byhis own admission, Huntley did not report any of the attacks to the police onthe grounds that the police were incompetent and racist and would do nothingwhen a white was attacked. The state’s supposed ‘failure to protect’ thereforemeant that he had a legitimate claim to refugee status in Canada. WilliamDavis agreed, concluding that ‘the evidence of the claimant and the witnessand the documentary evidence shows a picture of indifference and inability orunwillingness of the government and the security forces to protect WhiteSouth Africans from persecution by African South Africans’.2 Huntley was ‘avictim because of his race (white South African) rather than a victim of crimi-nality’ and his fear of persecution was real. In a statement that was widelyderided, Davis observed that Huntley ‘would stand out like a “sore thumb”due to his colour in any part of the country’.3 Davis’ extraordinary decisionto grant Huntley refugee status in Canada unleashed a firestorm of media atten-tion, political protest and commentary in the blogosphere (Figure 1).4

The Huntley decision was widely condemned in both Canada and SouthAfrica. In September 2009, for example, 142 South African academics, includ-ing several university vice-chancellors and deputy vice-chancellors, petitionedthe Canadian High Commissioner in South Africa.5 The petition criticised the‘outrageously distorted representation’ of contemporary South Africa andsuggested

the sad truth is that this case demonstrates not the perilous condition of whiteSouth Africans, but the kinds of things some people are still willing to believeabout Africa and Africans, based on assumptions that continue to circulate inthe white worlds they share.

The South African Government initially accused the Canadian Government ofracism until informed that the IRB is actually an independent adjudication bodyand that the Government is therefore not responsible for its decisions aboutrefugee protection. The South Africans then lodged an official complaintthrough diplomatic channels. Shortly thereafter, Canadian Immigration Minis-ter Jason Kenney applied to the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal for a reviewof the decision.

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Figure 1. South African newspaper cartoons.

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On 24 November 2010, Justice James Russell of the Federal Court issued a130-page judgment in which he referred the case back to the IRB for reconsi-deration on the grounds that ‘the Decision cites and relies upon documentationfor facts and information that have very little to do with the basis of (Huntley’s)claim and very little to do with the kind of white South African that (he) claimsto be’.6 In the opinion of Justice Russell, numerous errors in the Davis decisionindividually and collectively rendered it unreasonable.7 Huntley then applied tothe Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal the decision of the FederalCourt. In April 2012, the Supreme Court announced that it would not hearHuntley’s appeal. He will now appear before the RDP again where hislawyers will reportedly now argue that he will come to harm if returned toSA, ‘because of fear of being attacked by black South Africans, and becausehe is now a well-known white South African’ (Barbeau, 2012). Should hisapplication be rejected, he will be able to institute a second round of appealsin the courts (Gould, Sheppard, & Wheeldon, 2010). Four years after firstlodging what most legal commentators would see as a ‘manifestly unfounded’claim and nine years after he first came to Canada on a temporary work permit,Huntley remains in the country.

The Huntley case illuminates several important aspects of the post-apartheidCanada–South Africa relationship. First, there are the contrasts between the tworefugee determination systems both of which claim to be examples of best prac-tice protection. Canada’s refugee protection system is sometimes touted as amodel for other jurisdictions in its rights-based procedures and guarantees, itsadherence to international law and the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, its evi-dence-based evaluation of individual claims, the independence of the adjudica-tion procedures from state interference and its provisions for appeal in the courts(Dauvergne, 2012). How, then, can it have arrived at a decision to grant refugeestatus to a white South African on the grounds of racial persecution? For conser-vative critics of the IRB, the Huntley decision probably confirms what they see asthe ‘largely dysfunctional’ nature of a refugee determination system that is fartoo generous to bogus claimants (Collacott, 2010; Gallagher, 2003). Liberalcritics are more likely to see the outcome as a function of inconsistent and idio-syncratic decision-making within the RDP. In their view, the outcome of some-one’s claim or appeal is far too dependent on the luck of the draw givenconsiderable ‘grant rate disparities’ between adjudicators (Gould et al., 2010;Rehaag, 2007–8, 2012).8 Ironically, the post-apartheid South African refugeedetermination system has precisely the opposite problem. Its adjudicators donot have grant rate disparities; instead, they have uniformly low rates of accep-tance of refugee claims.9 As a result, despite the promise of the 1997 RefugeesAct, there is a widespread failure to protect the rights of asylum seekers who aredeported to other countries in their thousands every year with a minimum of dueprocess (Amit, 2010).

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The Huntley case also sheds light on the political relationship betweenCanada and South Africa. South African Foreign Affairs Minister Dlamini-Zuma claimed that the Canadian Government’s decision to appeal the RPDdecision ‘bears testimony to the strong bilateral political relations betweenour two countries’.10 Conservative commentators sympathetic to Huntley,saw it instead as Canada bowing to political pressure from South Africa. Infact, all applications for leave to appeal an RPD decision in the CanadianFederal Court of Appeal have to be made within 15 days (Rehaag, 2012).Hence, the rapid response cannot itself be seen as evidence of capitulation toSouth African pressure. Justice Russell wrote that he had no evidence thatthe Government of Canada was influenced in any way by the South AfricanGovernment in initiating a judicial review of the IRB decision.11 Indeed, itseems highly unlikely that the decision had anything to do with SouthAfrican pressure as the Harper Government has shown little interest in courtingSouth Africa on any issue at all. What seems more likely is that the Minister ofImmigration, who has been very vocal about making Canada’s refugee determi-nation process far more restrictive, viewed the Huntley decision as a dangerousprecedent which needed to be contested (Aiken, Dauvergne, Galloway, &Macklin, 2009; Kaushal & Dauvergne, 2011). If allowed to stand, it wouldpotentially have opened the door to an unwanted flood of refugee claimsfrom white South Africans like Huntley.12

The final aspect of the case, and the main concern of this paper, is nature ofthe argument advanced in support of Huntley’s claim to be a ‘white refugee’.While the RDP hearing took place in camera, there is sufficient documentationin the public domain (especially the RDP’s justification for the decision to grantrefugee status and the court documents from the subsequent appeal) to permit adetailed reconstruction of the legal strategy adopted by Kaplan and the argu-ments that were advanced in support of the application. Here, we distinguishbetween Huntley’s disjointed narrative of his own personal experiences inSouth Africa and the general narrative about South Africa constructed byRussell and Lara Kaplan to support Huntley’s application. Justice Russell var-iously labelled this ‘the Kaplan view’, ‘the Kaplan family view’ and the‘Kaplan family point of view’.

William Davis of the RDP had described the Kaplans’ portrayal of con-ditions for whites in South Africa as the ‘lifeline’ of the Huntley case.13

Justice Russell saw this as a product of the negative personal experiencesand emotional involvement of counsel Russell Kaplan in the case, including‘the fate of his brother (in South Africa) and the close-knit, mutually supportivenature of the Kaplan family’.14 Less charitably, he noted that Lara Kaplan’s tes-timony was ‘little more than a personal view propagated from within a prosper-ous and successful white South African family that, since the end of apartheid,finds the “good life” they lived before 1994 not as good as it was’.15 This paper

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argues that the ‘Kaplan view’ cannot be properly understood if it is viewedpurely through the lens of the Kaplan family’s own experiences. Rather, itseeks to situate the Huntley case and the Kaplan view within the context ofthe post-apartheid emigration movement of South Africans to Canada. Thekey argument here is that the Kaplan view of South Africa as a racial dystopiais actually part of a broader narrative that circulates within the post-apartheidSouth African diaspora in Canada and beyond.

Disengaged diaspora

One of the major continuities in South Africa–Canada relations before andafter the end of apartheid is the flow of human resources from one to theother. Before 1990, Canada was one (albeit comparatively minor) internationalrefuge for opponents of the apartheid regime and white liberals who weredeeply pessimistic about the country’s future. Contrary to expectations, theend of apartheid did not stop the flow of South Africans to Canada, althoughit fundamentally changed the profile of the immigrants. Between 1991 and2006, just over 19,000 South Africans moved to Canada bringing the totalnumber close to 40,000. Ever since, between 1200 and 1400 South Africansimmigrate to Canada each year, bringing the overall total nearer to 50,000 atthe present time. This steady movement shows few signs of letting up.Russell and Lara Kaplan were both born and raised in South Africa and immi-grated legally to Canada as adults, though at different times. Brandon Huntleydid not. He is one of a small number of South Africans (less than 2000 in 2010)who migrate temporarily to Canada for work under the country’s rapidlygrowing Temporary Foreign Worker Program (Nakache & Kinoshita, 2010;Figure 2).

The majority of South African immigrants enter Canada as permanent resi-dents in the ‘economic class’ filling skills gaps in the Canadian labour market.Most South African immigrants are highly skilled and educated with a dispro-portionate number of professionals in their ranks. The post-apartheid migrationof professionals and other skilled workers from South Africa to the UK, theUSA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada is commonly viewed as a ‘braindrain’ with negative impacts for South Africa (Crush & Pendleton, 2011;Joudrey & Robson, 2010). In 2009, Dr Abraham Nkomo, South Africa’sHigh Commissioner to Canada, complained publically that South Africandoctors migrate ‘at a very high cost’ to South Africa causing ‘a huge loss’ ofinvestment in education and training.16 Repeated efforts by the SouthAfrican government to get Canada to place a moratorium on the hiring (orpoaching in its words) of South African skills have met with little success.

A more detailed economic and social profile of the South African diasporain Canada emerges from an online survey conducted in 2010 by the Southern

194 J. Crush

African Migration Programme (SAMP) at Queen’s University (Crush, Chi-kanda, & Pendleton, 2012). The online and postal survey was completed by1485 respondents, of whom 83 per cent emigrated to Canada after 1990. Thesurvey also provided an opportunity for respondents to elaborate in writingon issues including why they left South Africa, why they came to Canada,what links they maintain with South Africa and whether they would everreturn to South Africa. A total of 638 respondents shared their views onthese issues, some at considerable length.

The majority (59 per cent) of the respondents immigrated to Canada underthe ‘economic class’ of entry. Another 11 per cent entered under the familysponsorship class, 4 per cent to study and 4 per cent in the provincialnominee class. None had been admitted as asylum seekers or refugees. Only6 per cent of those completing the survey were temporary workers (Huntley’smeans of entry). The respondents are a highly educated group: 56 per cent hadobtained a tertiary education qualification in South Africa and another 21 percent a technical or vocational diploma or certificate. Some 28 per cent alsohad a professional qualification. Forty-three per cent had continued their edu-cation outside South Africa. South Africans in Canada are also high incomeearners compared to the overall Canadian population (Table 1). For example,26 per cent of the respondents who immigrated to Canada after 1990 earnmore than $200,000 per annum (compared with only 1 per cent of theoverall population.) Or again, 43 per cent earn more than $100,000 comparedwith 6 per cent of the overall population. At the other end of the wage spectrum,

Figure 2. South African immigration to Canada, 1980–2009.

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only 14 per cent earn less than $25,000 per annum compared with 44 per centof the local population.

Globally, a great deal of attention is currently focused on the role and poten-tial of migrant African diasporas as agents of development in their countries oforigin (Plaza & Ratha, 2011). This phenomenon – known as diaspora engage-ment – rests upon close personal, professional and economic linkages with‘home’ and takes a variety of concrete forms including remittances, investment,knowledge and technology transfer, educational exchanges, philanthropy,charitable donations and return migration. An obvious question is whetherSouth Africans in Canada are an engaged diaspora with attitudes and activitiescommensurate with that status. Certainly, the survey respondents reported vis-iting South Africa relatively often (only 18 per cent had never been back sincearriving in Canada) and 20 per cent return at least once a year. The vast majorityof all visits are connected with family issues and events. Most still have familyin South Africa to visit (79 per cent have brothers and sisters, 76 per cent haveparents and 52 per cent have grandparents there).

On most measures, however, there is a clear pattern of disengagement(Crush et al., 2012). Half of the respondents (54 per cent) have taken out Cana-dian citizenship and another 30 per cent are permanent residents (all of whomare recent immigrants eligible for citizenship after a period of continuous resi-dence in Canada). South Africans in Canada are neither large nor frequentremitters. Forty-two per cent had never remitted funds to South Africa andonly 13 per cent do so on a monthly basis. Half have never remitted goodssince arriving in Canada. Funds and goods are remitted almost exclusively tofamily members for their immediate use. There is no collective remitting andno broader pattern of remitting, for example to support community projects.

In the year prior to the survey, less than 3 per cent of the respondents hadbought a house or property in South Africa, exported or imported goods fromeither country, or invested in a business in South Africa. Looking to the future,86 per cent thought it unlikely that they would invest in the country. Only 25

Table 1. Annual income of Canadian population and South Africans in Canada.

Canadian population South Africans in Canada

Less than $25,000 44.1 14.4$26,000–$50,000 29.2 19.6$51,000–$75,000 15.2 12.4$76,000–$100,000 5.7 10.8$101,000–$200,000 4.7 16.6More than $200,000 1.0 26.2

Source: Statistics Canada, SAMP Diaspora Survey.

196 J. Crush

per cent said they were likely to make charitable donations that would benefitSouth Africa and 14 per cent that they would consider sending money fordevelopment projects in South Africa. Less than 1 per cent belonged to a dia-spora association in Canada and less than 10 per cent to a South African alumniassociation, a South African ethnic or cultural association, a professionalassociation in Canada or an NGO or faith organisation in Canada with linksto South Africa.

Patterns of asset holding in South Africa show a systematic pattern of‘disinvestment’ over time. Only a minority of those who immigrated toCanada between 1990 and 2010 still hold these assets (in total, 28 per centhave a bank account, 16 per cent have investments, 11 per cent havesavings, 10 per cent own a house, 6 per cent own land and only 1 per centown a business in South Africa; Table 2). If these assets are cross-tabulatedwith the year of entry to Canada, in every case almost 40 per cent or moreof the asset holders had immigrated in the previous five years. By contrast,less than 10 per cent of those with these assets arrived in Canada between1990 and 1994.

Allied to this pattern of disinvestment are high levels of disinterest in returnmigration to South Africa. Only 14 per cent said they had given a great deal ofthought to returning to live in South Africa. Even fewer (6 per cent) said it waslikely they would return to live and work in South African within two years.Slightly more (11 per cent) said it was likely within the next five years.These findings are in stark contrast with a SAMP survey of health professionalsin South Africa itself, which found that 47 per cent had given a great deal ofthought to leaving the country (Crush & Pendleton, 2011).

Table 2. Assets in South Africa by year of immigration to Canada.

Year of immigration

1990–1994 1995–1999 2000–2004 2005–2010

Assets

Per centholding

asset

Per cent ofasset

holders

Per cent ofasset

holders

Per cent ofasset

holders

Per cent ofasset

holders

Bank account 28.1 6.3 12.1 31.6 50.0Business 1.5 3.7 7.4 37.0 51.9House 10.0 6.1 11.1 31.1 51.7Investments 15.7 9.5 14.1 37.4 39.0Land 6.1 4.5 15.4 31.8 48.3Savings 11.4 4.8 11.6 34.0 49.6

Source: SAMP Diaspora Survey.

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South Africans who have emigrated to Canada since the end of apartheidtherefore engage in a process of physical and economic disengagement fromSouth Africa, confining their interactions to a narrowing circle of friends andrelatives still in the country. At the same time, the survey suggests that theyremain deeply engaged psychologically and culturally with South Africa.The first marker of this is their personal identity. Despite the fact that overhalf are now Canadian citizens, 88 per cent agreed/strongly agreed (withonly 4 per cent in disagreement) with the statement ‘being from South Africais an important part of how I view myself’ and 82 per cent agreed/stronglyagreed (6 per cent in disagreement) with the statement ‘I feel strong ties withpeople from South Africa’. A strong South African identity is expressed inand reinforced by various cultural practices including eating foods fromSouth Africa (92 per cent), listening to South African music (83 per cent),wanting their children to know about South African culture (82 per cent),reading newspapers from South Africa (77 per cent) and so on (Table 3). Onevery measure, more than 50 per cent of respondents responded in theaffirmative.

Identification as South African and engagement in practices and activitiesconsistent with that identity does not translate into a positive set of ideas andimages about the country, however. Asked to compare Canada and SouthAfrica on a variety of social, economic and political indices, Canada consist-ently scored more highly (Table 4). On three key indicators that resonatewith the Huntley case (personal and family safety; racial, ethnic and culturaltolerance; and prospects for job advancement), over three-quarters of therespondents rated Canada more strongly. Other indicators on which a largemajority rated Canada over South Africa included income, upkeep of public

Table 3. Cultural practices of South African Canadians.

ActivityPer cent

Yes

Eat traditional foods from South Africa 92Listen to music from South Africa 83Want your children to know about the culture of South Africa 82Read an online or print newspaper from South Africa in the last year 77Consulted a website relating to South Africa in the last year 76Joined a social networking group that is associated with South Africa in

the last year61

Find that most of your best friends are from South Africa 60Want your children to learn a South African language 56Closely followed political events in South Africa in the last year 53

Source: SAMP Diaspora Survey.

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amenities, and medical services. South Africa rated more highly than Canadaon only one indicator, social life.

The Kaplan view

In his judgment at the Federal Court of Appeal, Justice Russell spoke of the‘excesses’ of Lara’s testimony to the RPD and observed that she was not themost objective witness to call to bolster Huntley’s claim for refugee protec-tion.17 He also felt that Russell Kaplan was not the most objective counselthat Huntley could have chosen to represent him.18 Justice Russell’s conclusionwas based primarily on the Kaplans’ highly emotional account at the RPDhearing in which they both broke down in tears while Lara recounted thedetails of the attack and torture of their brother, Robert, by three black assailantsin his South African home in 1997. According to the judge, the Kaplan familyclearly had a ‘heavy emotional investment in the outcome of this case’ and‘wanted to assert their view of “reverse apartheid” before the world’. RussellKaplan has remarked that Huntley was a test case for ‘informing the worldwhat a sickly place South Africa is for many white South Africans’.19 In hisview the case ‘contributed towards placing the plight of many white South Afri-cans in South Africa on the world stage’. In other words, the objective was notsimply to obtain refugee status for his client but to open the door for furtherclaims by white South Africans by presenting the situation in South Africain a certain light.

Table 4. Comparisons of life in Canada and South Africa.

Better inCanada per

cent

Better inSouth Africa

per centNo differenceper per cent

No opinionper per cent

Personal and familysafety

98 0 1 1

Upkeep of publicamenities

92 2 2 4

Racial, ethnic andcultural tolerance

84 3 9 4

Prospects for jobadvancement

77 8 10 5

Level of income 69 12 11 7Medical services

and treatment69 22 7 2

Level of taxation 31 28 26 15Social life 33 47 17 3

Source: SAMP Diaspora Survey.

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Justice Russell was of the opinion that William Davis of the RPD was ‘cap-tivated by the Kaplan view of what is happening in South Africa generally’. AsDavis had written:

(Lara Kaplan) brought to the hearing from her own personal experience, a vividand detailed account of what is taking place in South Africa today vis-a-vis theAfrican South Africans and the white South Africans and the indifference ofthe mainly African police force to protect them. White South Africans, shealleges, are no longer welcome in South Africa.20

Justice Russell distilled this narrative into several key elements of the ‘Kaplanview’ of South Africa. According to the Kaplan’s, (1) black South Africans hatewhite South Africans for historical reasons and all whites are regarded asequally responsible for apartheid and that they ‘should be eradicated andstomped on like an ant’ (in Lara Kaplan’s words); (2) the present situation inSouth Africa is one of ‘reverse apartheid, which is in 200 per cent of all theminds of white South Africans’ (in Kaplan’s words); (3) all whites in SouthAfrica feel the hatred of black South Africans towards them; (4) blackSouth Africans have ‘no regard’ for the lives of white South Africans andSouth African society is ‘brutal’; (5) most crimes in South Africa are committedby black South Africans against white South Africans; (6) the police will donothing about the crimes committed against white South Africans; (7) themainly black South African police are ‘corrupt’ and are ‘in cahoots’ withblack criminals; (8) the police will not help white South Africans becausethe whites deserve what is happening to them for historical reasons and it is‘payback time for the blacks’; (9) what is happening to whites in SouthAfrica at the hands of black South Africans is ‘some kind of genocide’; and(10) since the end of apartheid the South African government has adoptedand promoted policies aimed at replacing white South Africans with blackSouth Africans in positions of power and influence.21

Amongst her statements to the Huntley hearing was the following assertionabout the attitudes of the South African police towards crimes against whites:

(The police) never do anything. What police? There is no law and order there,there is no proper police force. It’s free reign in South Africa, kill who you wantand get away with murder . . . . They are so poorly paid they get backhands, it’sfull of fraudulent (sic) and corruption and there is no proper police force likethere was prior to 1994. They could not handle it even if they wanted to andto be honest I don’t think they want to. They don’t care, if you are whiteSouth African and you report a case it’s like, you know, sorry, I’m busy. I’mon my teabreak. That’s the perception . . . They – everybody including thepolice force seems to believe that if you are a white South African and youare attacked it’s because you deserve it. It’s coming to you, it’s due to you,it’s long overdue.22

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Russell Kaplan deposited a selection of lurid newspaper articles detailing anarray of violent crimes, attacks against white farmers in the rural areas, andthe impact of affirmative action which had supposedly ‘stripped the countryof 75 per cent of its skilled population and is responsible for the deprivationof the constitutional and social rights of the white population’. JusticeRussell examined these articles in detail and concluded that Davis had reliedon material that was ‘strong on opinion but not on facts’ and that far from sup-porting the case actually contradicted the allegations of criminality based onracial discrimination.23 Justice Russell heavily criticised Davis for ignoringthe RPD’s own National Discrimination Package’s List of Documents onSouth Africa that supposedly provide an alternative perspective on crime andviolence in South Africa and for not reviewing ‘more authoritative, objectiveand less emotionally partial sources’.24

Justice Russell appeared to think that the ‘Kaplan view’ was a direct reflec-tion of the Kaplan family’s personal experiences in South Africa. The question iswhether the construction of South Africa as racial dystopia is actually part of abroader discourse that circulates within the white South African diasporaabroad. Certainly, Kaplan’s representation of South Africa as dystopia isechoed and reinforced by groups such as ‘We are White Refugees’ who assidu-ously follow and comment on the Huntley case, organised an online petitionagainst the Canadian government’s decision to appeal the IRB decision and con-tinuously add to the reservoir of negative imagery about post-apartheid SouthAfrica. The argument here is that the dystopian views advanced by Russelland Lara Kaplan sit comfortably within a broader narrative about South Africaby white South Africans in Canada. The evidence is to be found in theunprompted responses of respondents to the SAMP diaspora survey.

A considerable number of survey respondents portrayed South Africa as anextremely violent society in which the residents live in a constant state of fearand anxiety:

I was personally attacked and assaulted eight times in one year. My eldest daugh-ter was robbed and held at gun point three times in one year. My house wasrobbed twice in one year, whilst I was in the house. (Respondent No. 26)

Crime was a big factor in my decision to move away from South Africa. Myselfand four other family members had been carjacked over the years. My immediatefamily and relatives had been victims of robbery and or burglary of some sort. Itwas just a matter of time before someone was murdered. (Respondent No. 107)

I realised that sleeping with a gun under my pillow was not normal practice. Thestatistics at the time were that one out of three women would be raped, and if youwere raped, you would contract HIV/AIDS. That equals a death sentence for me.(Respondent No. 345)

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I worked in a Security Armed Response Control Room, and we would receive thedistress calls from homes that we monitor. The things I heard as we would dis-patch armed guards to try and help, was unimaginable. There is no media outthere, Canada included, that show the true occurrences that take place in SouthAfrica. I promised myself I would not have children in South Africa and tookmy entire family (mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, wife) to Canada. I havenever returned, nor will I ever. (Respondent No. 319)

Many of the respondents argued that whites were particular targets simplybecause of their colour: ‘No one feels safe in South Africa anymore, especiallythe whites as they are targeted and attacked on a daily basis’ (Respondent No.473). South Africa, in the view of another, is riven by ‘crime, corruption, unfairdiscrimination, killing of white farmers and crime targeted towards whites’(Respondent No. 114). Canada, by contrast, is a country which offers ‘a safelife and opportunities for White people’ (Respondent No. 77).

The idea that the white population is under siege because of their skincolour extends well beyond personal knowledge of incidents of crime and vio-lence. Here there are clear echoes of the Kaplan view’s claim that the violentattack on their brother is evidence of a systematic and planned racial genocideagainst whites of which the world is completely unaware:

After Nelson Mandela was elected president the situation instead of beingresolved was flipped around in South Africa, and everyone who was white wasnow being racially discriminated against. This involved jobs, education, and allother aspects of life. (Respondent No. 419)

The only links I maintain with Africa are with my family members. I would returnonly if the political regime were to change to one that is ‘white-friendly’ anddoesn’t actively want to get rid of me. I view the current political climate inSA as genocide in the making, and believe the levels of so-called ‘crime’ areencouraged as a way to rid the country of white people. (Respondent No. 217)

I think a lot of people are totally unaware of what is really happening in SA. I haveto say that SA is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, however cor-ruption, crime, affirmative action and reverse apartheid makes it very difficult tolive there. There is very little or no future for white South Africans. The crime isnot petty crime, it’s barbaric, senseless. (Respondent No. 353)

Attacks on white farmers feature prominently in the narrative and are oftenused as a platform for racist comments about Africa and Africans:

The infamous Boer killings started, and what that means is basically if you are awhite farmer you will be slaughtered for your land because the black majorityfeels that it’s theirs to begin with, even with their lack of education and historysense. (Respondent No. 419)

202 J. Crush

I emigrated because the Government took my farm and gave it to the Black peoplewho now are not effectively and economically managing it. I emigrated becausewe had several farm attacks and murdering of farmers in our region without anyhelp of anyone. The media does not inform Canada about the ‘quiet WAR’ goingon in Africa right at this moment. (Respondent No. 222)

Every day we read about white people who get killed in their homes and are livingin fear for their lives. Jobs are being taken away from the white population. ThankGod for the white brain power for many years whom the black people hate in SA.If it was not for them, SA would have been the same as East, West and NorthAfrica. (Respondent No. 166)

Personal and hearsay stories of violent crime are also laced with vituperativeaccounts of the callous and indifferent response of the police and the govern-ment: ‘Get rid of the criminal government’ wrote one ‘and get rid of the butch-ers and the police force that is absolutely useless as they work mainly on bribes’(Respondent No. 499).

Another persistent theme with clear echoes in the Kaplan view concernswhat the respondents refer to as ‘reverse discrimination’ (that is, affirmativeaction and Black Economic Empowerment or BEE). They represent them-selves, and whites in general, as victims of these policies:

The government couldn’t care less about the future of my children. The govern-ment couldn’t care less about safety and security. As long as they achieve theirpolitical ambitions which basically consists of putting black women then blackmen (and make your way up through the different lighter colour schemes andsexes until you get to white men) into any job whether they have the ability todo it or not. (Respondent No. 67)

As a family physician in South Africa I was forced by the ANC government totake on a black previously disadvantaged partner as part of affirmative action.Now you have to ask yourself if such a partner is a family physician and qualifiedor is he or she still disadvantaged? After the so-called watering down (drop instandards to accommodate him/her) mickey mouse qualification he or she leftuniversity with, I was expected to drop my standards to help this candidate.This would have resulted in me doing the work as a physician and guardingmy own patients against my underqualified black partner. I refused to drop stan-dards and saw emigration as the only option. My family members were murderedand the spineless South African Police Service failed them. It was and still is just amatter of time before the ongoing policy of genocide against my white SouthAfrican countrymen and women will be completed. (Respondent No. 66)

A co-worker was promoted to a Management position despite not being able tooperate a computer (I therefore had to do all her typing and e-mails) – yet sheearned almost double my salary (Reason given: B.E.E)!! (Respondent No. 26).

I was laid off at Telkom on management level, because I’m white. They had to‘correct’ the numbers by having less white managers. Crime levels reached a

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high of family being murdered and raped just because they are white people I willnever return. I am too afraid I will get a letter again spelling out that I loose (sic)my job because I’m white. We can send billions of dollars to Africa and the Blackpeople will waste it with corruption like they have been doing for ages – don’tyou read the news over there? (Respondent No. 57)

The white population of South Africa, argued one, has no future ‘because theyare now at the bottom of the list for employment opportunities’ (RespondentNo. 578). Some recounted personal experiences of victimisation; forexample, ‘When my husband lost his job in SA we realised the future lookedscary since we could not survive on my salary and he was unlikely to findemployment because of BEE’ (Respondent No. 610).

None of the over 600 respondents showed any sympathy with or appreci-ation for the rationale behind these corrective policies. Nor do they appear torecognise that their own educational and economic advantages, which makethem attractive to Canada, might well have been at the expense of the blackpopulation which was severely victimised and discriminated against underapartheid. Insofar as apartheid is mentioned at all, the term is used primarilyto describe the present, as in ‘reverse apartheid’. The use of the term in thismanner clearly shows very little appreciation of what it was actually like tobe black in South Africa before 1990. To equate the current situation ofwhites in South Africa (who have generally done extremely well economicallysince the end of apartheid) with the treatment of blacks under apartheid displaysa profound ignorance of what apartheid was but is also highly misleading.

The diaspora narratives also promote the notion that Canada and the Westdoes not know or care about what is happening to whites in South Africa:

The ANC hopelessly failed its own people in my opinion, and the rise of charac-ters like Malema, who will surely be the next president, will lead SA to the samefate as Zimbabwe. But oh to be politically correct in Canada is more importantthan anything else, so let the people be murdered in the hundreds of thousandswithout any Canadian press coverage, and continue to live in poverty and zerohope for the future and rather sing the praises of the great hero Mandela tomake us feel good about ourselves here in North America. Never acknowledgethe realities for fear of uttering what could be interpreted as racist.

In many cases, the sense of outrage about Canadian attitudes spills over intoovertly racist diatribes about Africa and Africans. While there is no evidencefrom the Huntley case that he, or the Kaplans, are racist, the same cannot besaid for all of their fellow South Africans in Canada. If anything, the Kaplanview seems to find the supposed genocidal war against whites quite understand-able given the history of the country and the natural human desire for revenge.

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Conclusion

The merits of Brandon Huntley’s claim for refugee status in Canada will shortlybe re-assessed by the IRB following the finding of the Federal Court of Appealthat the original RPD judgment was unreasonable and contained numerouserrors. This paper is less interested in the particulars of the Huntley claim oreven its implications for other white South Africans in the unlikely eventthat it were accepted second time around. Media attention will no doubt esca-late as the hearing draws closer and a new judgment is announced. Here atten-tion has focused on another aspect raised by the case: that is, the attitudes ofwhite South African immigrants in Canada more generally towards theircountry of origin. As this paper has attempted to show, the dystopian pictureof South Africa painted by lawyer Russell Kaplan and witness Lara Kaplanat the RPD hearing is not peculiar to these two individuals but circulatesmore broadly within the South African diaspora in Canada, in virtually everydetail.

To what extent is this narrative of South Africa as dystopia, the stuff ofeveryday interaction and conversation between South African Canadians? Towhat extent and through what channels is this narrative fed, sustained andamplified by new information, stories and anecdotes from South Africa?Why do diaspora South Africans hold such a relentlessly negative view oftheir country of origin, while simultaneously maintaining a strong sense oftheir identity as South Africans? Is their dystopian narrative peculiar toSouth Africans in Canada or do they have looser spatial boundaries andbroader connectivities? To answer the first three questions satisfactorilywould require further in-depth research. However, some comments on thefourth question are in order. In September 2009, the ‘We Are White Refugees’website launched an online petition to the UNHCR and various governmentson behalf of Brandon Huntley. In all, the group gathered 1026 signatures.Two things stand out: first, the petitioners were drawn from a wide variety ofcountries but the list was dominated by white South Africans in South Africa(53 per cent of the signatories) followed by the USA (11 per cent), Australiaand New Zealand (9 per cent), Europe (7 per cent), the UK (6 per cent) andCanada (5 per cent). Second, many of those signing the petition left commentsthat directly echo aspects of the Kaplan view about the situation and fate ofwhites in South Africa. In other words, the Kaplan view is certainly not con-strained by Canada’s national boundaries. The narrative of South Africa as dys-topia undoubtedly originates and is reinforced by sections of the whitepopulation in South Africa itself and is an example of what Steyn and Foster(2008) call ‘white talk’ and ‘resistant whiteness’.

There is no question that post-apartheid South Africa has experienced unpre-cedented levels of violent crime. But, as Justice Russell observed, it is quite

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another thing to suggest that all crime against whites is racially motivated andpart of a broader campaign of genocide. None of the respondents in theSAMP survey made any reference to the disproportionate impact of violentcrime on the black population of the country (Silber & Geffen, 2009). In theKaplan view, whites are the victims. A 2010 Survey of a representative nationalsample of South Africans painted a very different picture (Ismail, 2010). TheSurvey found that other racial groups were significantly more vulnerable totheft and physical attacks than whites: 11 per cent of whites had experienced aphysical attack on them or their family members in the previous year, comparedto 18 per cent of Black Africans and Indians and 17 per cent of Coloureds. Oragain, while 29 per cent of whites reported a theft from their home in the previousyear, the equivalent figure for other racial groups was 45 per cent for Indians andColoureds and 37 per cent of Black Africans. Fear of crime was also more intenseamongst other groups: for example, 11 per cent of whites said they lived in con-stant fear of crime in their own homes compared with 19 per cent of Coloureds,20 per cent of Black Africans and 54 per cent of Indians. However, when askedwhich was the most important problem facing the country, 22 per cent of whitessaid crime and security (a concern of only 5 per cent of Black Africans). In con-trast, 41 per cent of Black Africans said that unemployment was the majorproblem compared with only 11 per cent of whites. Given the Kaplan viewthat affirmative action and BEE are denying employment opportunities towhites this, too, is, an important corrective finding.

How pervasive is the Kaplan view of racial genocide within the white SouthAfrican diaspora in Canada? On the one hand, it might be objected, by askingpeople about their reasons for leaving South Africa one will inevitably getresponses that focus on the threat to life and security in the country. On theother, there was no compulsion and no additional probing involved in collect-ing the narratives. They were voluntarily offered and there were few contraryviews. While some individual narratives were more extreme than others,they were all of a type and have resonance in the Kaplan view articulated atthe Huntley hearing. We certainly cannot conclude that the view is held andinternalised by all South Africans in Canada. For example, a small proportionof the respondents (around 20 per cent) do engage in some of the activitiesmore typical of an engaged diaspora and see a role for themselves in thefuture development of South Africa. However, the dominant diaspora viewof South Africa from Canada is that it is, at best, a racial dystopia and, moreaccurately, a site of systematic racial genocide against the white population.

AcknowledgementsI would like to thank the following for their work on the SAMP Diaspora Survey: MaryCaesar, Abel Chikanda, Cassanda Eberhardt, Ashley Hill, Wade Pendleton and Sujata

206 J. Crush

Ramachandran. The research was funded by IDRC’s Migration, Poverty Reduction andDevelopment in Southern Africa Project. Thanks are extended to Bronwen Dachs and toEdgard Rodriguez and Paul Okwi of IDRC for their help.

Notes1. Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423–09, Minister of Citizenship and

Immigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, 24 November 2010, Para. 216.2. IRB Ruling: Brandon Carl Huntley RPD File/No. Dossier SPR: MA8-04910 at

www.cbc.ca/news/pdf/huntley-decision.pdf (accessed 26 September 2012).3. IRB Ruling: Brandon Carl Huntley RPD File/No. Dossier SPR: MA8-04910 at

www.cbc.ca/news/pdf/huntley-decision.pdf (accessed 26 September 2012).4. A Google search in 2009 found that the case had been the subject of 113,000 press

stories and articles; see Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423-09, Ministerof Citizenship and Immigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, Affidavit from StephanieGude, 2 November 2009, Para. 3.

5. ‘Brandon Huntley: An Open Letter to Canada,13 September 2009’ at http://www.scribd.com/doc/20519947/FF-04-b-142-SA-Academics-Open-Letter-to-Canada-Re-Brandon-Huntley (accessed 26 September 2012).

6. Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423-09, Minister of Citizenship andImmigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, 24 November 2010, Para. 220.

7. Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423-09, Minister of Citizenship andImmigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, 24 November 2010, Para. 231. For analysisof the idiosyncratic nature of RPD decision-making see Rehaag (2007–8).

8. Positive grant rates for those adjudicating more than 50 cases in 2008 varied from4 per cent to 92 per cent. Davies (at 73 per cent of 155 decisions) was classified inthe ‘extreme grant rate’ group by the Canadian Council for Refugees at http://ccrweb.ca/documents/rehaagdatamarch09.htm

9. The acceptance rate for Zimbabwean asylum seekers between 2005 and 2009 was10 per cent in South Africa and 74 per cent in Canada.

10. ‘Dlamini-Zuma Welcomes Canada’s Decision On Huntley’ Immigration WatchCanada 21 October 2009 at http://www.immigrationwatchcanada.org/2009/10/21/dlamini-zuma-welcomes-canadas-decision-on-huntley/

11. Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423-09, Minister of Citizenship andImmigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, 24 November 2010, Para. 254.

12. Between 2005 and 2010, the Minister of Immigration applied for leave to appeal anRPD decision on only 133 occasions, of which 78 were granted Rehaag (2012, p. 15).

13. Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423-09, Minister of Citizenship andImmigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, 24 November 2010, Para. 173.

14. Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423-09, Minister of Citizenship andImmigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, 24 November 2010, Para. 229.

15. Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423-09, Minister of Citizenship andImmigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, 24 November 2010, Para. 207.

16. ‘Africa says Canada is stealing MDs’ Prince George Citizen 19 August 2009 (athttp://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/article/20120326/PRINCEGEORGE0101/303269996/-1/PRINCEGEORGE (accessed 30 September 2012).

17. Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423-09, Minister of Citizenship andImmigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, 24 November 2010, Para. 177.

18. Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423-09, Minister of Citizenship andImmigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, 24 November 2010, Para. 180.

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19. Russell Kaplan, ‘Huntley Accomplished “African White Refugee” Objectives’ athttp://why-we-are-white-refugees.blogspot.ca/2010/12/huntley-accomplished-african-white_5407.html (accessed 29 September 2012).

20. Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423-09, Minister of Citizenship andImmigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, 24 November 2010, Para. 184.

21. Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423-09, Minister of Citizenship andImmigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, 24 November 2010, Para. 204.

22. Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423-09, Minister of Citizenship andImmigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, 24 November 2010, Para. 190.

23. Federal Court of Appeal, File No. IMM-4423-09, Minister of Citizenship andImmigration v. Brandon Carl Huntley, 24 November 2010, Para. 210–229.

24. The RDP’s 2008 National Documentation Package on South Africa would actu-ally have been of limited use to Davis. There was no documentation in thesection entitled ‘Crime and Criminality’ and ironically only one newspaperarticle in the section on ‘Police and Security Forces’ entitled ‘Criminal JusticeSystem Near Breakdown’. These sections are still blank in the 2012 iteration;see http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca:8080/Publications/PubNDP_CDN.aspx?id=1789and http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca:8080/Publications/PubNDP_CDN.aspx?id=5314(accessed 20 November 2012).

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