{"id":98,"date":"2009-07-06T12:07:03","date_gmt":"2009-07-06T02:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/?p=98"},"modified":"2017-07-24T17:45:13","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T07:45:13","slug":"only-in-south-africa-3-stolen-cattle-in-a-toyota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/only-in-south-africa-3-stolen-cattle-in-a-toyota\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Only in South Africa’ – 3 stolen cattle in a Toyota sedan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year I was sent some photographs titled ‘Only in South Africa’, showing three brahmans that were tied up and squashed into the back of a stolen car, which is apparently the South African model equivalent of a Toyota Corolla hatchback. I just discovered it on YouTube<\/a>; well worth a look (and a laugh), if you missed it first time around. They’re sizeable animals, not just young calves. I found the comments on the clip equally entertaining; from those who thought the thieves were cruel (the bovine’s night-time ride in the sedan was probably far more comfortable than in the back of a Toyota landcruiser ute in the middle of an Australian summer), to someone now worried something might happen at FIFA in SA (South Africa is hosting the FIFA World cup in 2010; presumably this silly comment was from a pom, and everyone who watches The Bill knows how safe London, and British soccer matches are. Not.)<\/p>\n

I actually thought the theft showed considerable ingenuity. It’s just a pity such skill wasn’t more gainfully employed.<\/p>\n

Of course there is a darker side to it. There are increasing numbers of visitors to this website from countries such as South Africa and Zimbabwe, and often these visitors are researching not just short holiday trips, but the possibility of permanent residency in Australia. The hairdresser I go to was an English South African – now an Australian citizen. Though he has parents and other family members in South Africa, he said he and his wife never want to go back, not even for a quick visit. Only a few years ago they came here with nothing but a suitcase each, and through sheer hard work, a lot of planning and very careful spending, they now own two houses and a business. Talking to some Zimbabweans on the weekend, who have lived in Australia for five years, they said the same thing about not wanting to revisit their homeland. Their grandparents settled on farms on what was then called Rhodesia, under British rule. After a decade of relative calm, improving conditions and racial equality, the social and economic situation began to deteriorate. Over the last ten years, many (white) farmers have been kicked off productive farms and anything not nailed down is stolen (city and country), power supplies are completely unpredictable making efficient business management impossible, there are dire food shortages and it was common to have to queue for up to eight hours straight simply to fill the car up with petrol. So they left and are determined to never set foot in Zimbabwe again. One of the things that apparently struck them as odd, when they first arrived in Townsville, was the sight of cars parked by the road all night. Apparently in Harare, this would never be done, as the car would be completely stripped down to a shell overnight. There are no recycling bins because everything is re-used by those in the direst circumstances who have no alternative but to scrounge for a living. For example this family would tie a string around their empty milk bottles and hang them on the front fence, and someone would help themselves, selling the empty bottles for about a dollar, to help buy food. <\/p>\n

While the reasons why new Australians have had to leave the countries they were born in are often depressing, or even harrowing, such new arrivals are usually a fabulous asset here because they truly appreciate what we so often take for granted. And because they are motivated to make the best of things, they very often fare much better than those who have been handed an easy life by being born here.<\/p>\n

There are a number of websites, government-run and commercial, that contain general information and\/or links to other websites with information on migrating to Australia. The Australian Department of Immigration has a specific website called ‘Move to Australia’<\/a>. BCL is one of many commercial websites which lists links to visa and immigration information, employment and information on employer sponsorship, skills assessment, refugee and humanitarian immigration information, Australian medical services information, and some useful cost of living links such as currency conversion and real estate prices. However like most websites, it concentrates on information relevant to the largest cities. Many migrants do move to Australian regional areas, and often they find the community more welcoming (worldwide, cities tend to be less friendly places). There is a substantial shortage of specific skills in many rural areas. Many farmers from South Africa and Zimbabwe have moved into Australian rural communities and been greeted with great interest and enthusiasm. It is common to hear people from Africa, in particular central and southern countries such as Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa, comment on how similar the landscape and climate is to what they grew up with. There has been a lot of discussion about the migration of farmers from Zimbabwe, for example on Agmates<\/a>, Crikey<\/a> (complete with bleeding-heart fairyland comments; what you’d expect on Crikey) and ABC Television’s Landline<\/a> programme. There are a number of websites run by Africans living in Australia, for example Zimbabweans in Australia, which is dedicated to providing helpful information to Zimbabweans. The Africa Club of Queensland is primarily for running regular social events (based in Brisbane, south-eastern Queensland) however it has an exceedingly comprehensive list of links to different African\/Australian websites; from the Australia-Africa Business Council<\/a> to African sporting associations and African news broadcasters, although South African-centred information sources predominate (presumably simply because these are by far the most prolific). <\/p>\n

Australia also has many migrants who work in medical professions – for example former South African Doctor Bryan Connor<\/a>, who won the prestigious Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Award of GP of the Year in 2006 when he was based in Richmond (Bryan Connor now lives in Cloncurry). Six Minutes (an online newsletter for Australian doctors, run by publishers of respected scientific and medical journals New Scientist<\/a> and The Lancet) has a very interesting discussion on the reasons why South African doctors have moved to Australia, including many comments from those with first-hand experience.<\/p>\n

Apparently whites are only about 1% of the population in Zimbabwe. It’s interesting to ponder how different Australia might be if the population percentages were very different. While there is relatively little racial tension in Australia, such peace should not be taken for granted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year I was sent some photographs titled ‘Only in South Africa’, showing three brahmans that were tied up and squashed into the back of a stolen car, which is apparently the South African model equivalent of a Toyota Corolla hatchback. I just discovered it on YouTube; well worth a look (and a laugh), if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5958,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions\/5958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}