Sunset for South Africa?

In ten days, I'll be off on my first and probably last trip to South Africa.  For a number of months, I've been reading up on the nation, and come to realize that it's probably five years at best....away from some civil war or internal destruction period, and what exists today (and for the past couple of hundred years)....won't be around by 2025.

So, the chief topic of destruction?  The number three political party in South Africa has a goal....to take without compensation....roughly 50-percent of the farm land.  No one says this is really the end of the discussion, and some suggest that the full 100-percent land-grab will be the end-result.

A complicated story?  Yes.  So I'll tell in three basic ways:

1.  Population growth.  Back around four-hundred years ago when the Dutch started to arrive in the region of South Africa....roughly three times the size of California....they found mostly nothing.  The population, with the original group of Dutch and the local tribes of the region....added up to 700,000.  You can imagine the US region of California, Oregon, and Washington-state....with 700,000 (just a bit more than exist in Portland today).

Somewhere between 1840 and 1860....the population finally reached two-million.  By 1900?  They had finally reached five million people.  By the 1970s?  They were over 22-million.  Today?  55.5-million. 

The problem is that the current pace can be projected out, and you can figure by 2040 (just 20 years away)....it'll be near 75-million. 

Industry growth, the job-market, fair wages?  It can't match the population growth.  It probably maxed out in the 1960s. 

So the public sees virtually every angle of life to be highly unfair and life is about poverty.  Any idiot can create a political party....talk about redistribution of something (doesn't even have to be limited to farms) to bring fairness and happiness. 

2.  The farm story.  In this period of 1650 to 1700....the Dutch came and basically negotiated with local tribes over land.  The Dutch offered land deals....cattle for property.  The chiefs accepted and some hostile situations were avoided.  But let's be honest....in this whole region of 700,000 people in the area the size of three Californias....there's just an awful lot of land and nothing of a threat.

The Dutch and later the English who came in....came to figure out....only around 15-percent of the land is usable as farms or ranch-land.  That's it.  In some cases, it's only useful if you irrigated the property. 

The discovery of gold and diamonds (1860s to 1880s)?  Well....this brought conflict, and eventually the Zulu War.  The avoidance of all-out war with the tribes ended at this point.

The bulk of prime farmland?  Owned by white Dutch/English folks.  Some inherited their property.....over and over.  Some bought their property.  Fairness?  The treaties signed by the tribal chiefs had some legit situation involved....none of this is remembered today, and probably half of the population is attached more to political parties, than to tribal units.

Today, the banks are attached to the farming sector and part of the success story of the past hundred years. When this land law is established....the banking sector will be standing there with numerous loans and unable to really assess success or failure. 

3.  Finally, the political game.  Once the law is invented....who really gets the property?  No one can really say.  It might go to a local black guy who has some deep experience in farming.  It might go to a political party guy with zero experience.  It might go to someone who can't get bank backing on loans and the land lays there unproductive.  No matter what happens....the politicians can claim success. 

The fear of whites?  Why stop at just farms?  You could make a funny rule that all hospitals in the country must be black-owned and managed.....so overnight, you'd find a new owner who was just 'given' the property.

Yes, all of this leads to civil war and conflict.  Tribal leaders?  I suspect they will finally stand up and challenge political leaders, and the country will be sub-divided into twenty-odd countries.  The Western Cape area might be able to survive as one single nation (but it has the least of farm lands). 

So much confusion.....that locals might leave and try to immigrate into Europe?  I would suggest to be one of the ten basic achievements of this chaos approaching. 

I guess I'm getting a view of a land that was, and up until 2018.....was one of the more interesting countries in the world.