Shall I stay or shall I go? To be specific, shall I go to Australia? And should it be Sydney or Perth? What’s rent like, and house prices, salaries and medical care, and how much are the movies and eating out?
What’s it really like to emigrate?
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 75 700 South African-born people were living in Australia in 1999. Their rate of immigration was accelerating, with 7 300 arriving that year, more than double the 3 300 in 1998.
A former Capetonian, I’ve lived in Sydney for 18 years. The soul-searching questions started on the flight to Johannesburg a fortnight ago, sitting next to Ryan, who was going home after a year’s backpacking.
Ryan (24) and his family live in Sandton, with an armed security guard outside. ”If they’re picking between two houses, you want yours to look more formidable,” he says.
His family has been accepted into Australia, and their ”three-year plan” is to emigrate when his younger sister finishes school. His parents, who left Zimbabwe 11 years ago, now think the writing is on the wall for South Africa.
There’s a lot more on Ryan’s mind than your average Aussie bloke’s. Emigrating is not a fait accompli for him. ”If I left South Africa, I’d miss the Jo’burg thunderstorms. And I also believe in multiculturalism. I love the place.
”I was quite optimistic before I went overseas, but then my car was stolen again. And I went for a job interview in marketing, and the black interviewer treated me like a thing. At the second interview they said they’re actually looking for a black person and I felt I’m not welcome here anymore. I’m an African, but I am disillusioned.
”Australia is a door to the new world. In Australia, at least you can see where your taxes go … but they are racist in the way they talk about Aborigines and Asians.”
”White flight” is still in full swing from Johannesburg, it seems. Everyone I meet has relatives in Australia, or relatives who’re on their way. A school friend and her husband agonise. They went for a ”look-see” last year and loved it, particularly the parks where their young children could play freely. They are tormented by the vision of Australia and freedom from fear. ”If we don’t go,” says my friend, ”I just realised we’ll end up like your parents — our children will leave us.”
Another friend is moving to Cape Town because it’s safer and prettier, but also because, when the children emigrate (probably to Australia), they’re more likely to visit if their parents are in the Cape.
”Australia is the arsehole of the world,” says a social worker I meet, defensively. ”What’s happening to us here is due, overdue and has been a long time coming,” she says of the crime. A friend from Cape Town is scathing: she can’t understand the lack of commitment to the new South Africa’s future.
Australians are very aware of the influx. Some admire the South Africans’ entrepreneurial spirit, others not. On Bondi beach, comments an Australian friend, you can pick the South Africans by the beach-chairs; their bums have to be raised from the ground.
It’s easy to answer some of the questions I get: movies usually cost around Aus$13,50 (about R75), and you can get a cheap Thai meal for Aus$10 (R55) upwards. A cleaner can cost Aus$20 (R110) an hour, and real estate is horrendously expensive in Sydney.
No, there’s not much crime where I live, in Sydney’s east. It’s wonderfully uneventful really. Small children can cycle outside, or go to the shops on their own, and old people can stroll on the beachfront unaccompanied.
But no, Australia is not nirvana. There has been a gradual erosion of free higher education, comprehensive medical care and other social benefits. Environmental policy lags way behind other developed nations and there is a deeply insular policy on ”boat people”.
Of course Sydney has all the problems of a big city. Drugs are a big one, along with the crimes perpetrated in order to get them.
While many South Africans take to Australia like ducks to water, I can only say that while I have come to appreciate its many virtues, I have never stopped missing the country of my birth. With all its madness and anarchy, South Africa has soul.
But would I trade my small apartment for a Jo’burg mansion? Never. Two people I know of have been held up at gunpoint in their garages in the past week, and I feel fearful and claustrophobic. Maybe Cape Town will be different.