What is a "bantustan"?

[LoZoccolo]

As in, "If there is ever a revolution in this country, I sincerely hope people like him, ________, LoZoccolo and ________ have their property expropriated and are deported to a right-wing bantustan."

Should I be afraid?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. Bantustan

Bantustan refers to any of the territories designated as tribal "homelands" for black South Africans and Namibians during the apartheid era. The term "bantustan" was first used in the late 1940s and was coined from Bantu (meaning "people" in the Bantu languages) and -stan (meaning "land of" in the Persian language, equivalent to the Latin ending -ia and the Germanic -land). It was based on Hindustan, a term used to refer to the land beyond the Indus/Sindhu India. It was a disparaging term used by critics of the apartheid-era government's "homelands" (from Afrikaans tuisland).

The word "bantustan" is often used in a pejorative sense when describing a country or region that lacks any real legitimacy or power, and that sometimes emerges from national or international gerrymandering. It has been used particularly by opponents of Israeli policies towards the Palestinian populations of the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantustan

[Rue]

2. Wiki article on "Bantustan":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantustan

I guess how afraid you should be of this depends on whether you're an optimist or pessimist. Me? I'm still not sure myself . . .

EDIT: Beaten to the punch :) Considering how on top of it DUers are, I'm not surprised.

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Bantustan = a reservation/forced relocation camp.

The term comes from South Africa during the Apartheid era, when the ruling whites forced blacks into "tribal homelands", which came to be called "Bantustans" (Bantu = "people" in the Bantu languages of Africa, -stan "land of", as in Hindustan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, etc).

[Hoping4Change]

9. I love your HL Mencken quote. nt

Helpful map too. thanks

[rocktivity]

4. Bantustans were ghettos where black South Africians (Bantus)

were forced to live during the apartheid era. A right-wing bantustan sounds a lot worse, though.

[ret5hd]

5. did you really not know...

and really not know how to use google...

or did you just want more people to know that it was said?

just askin'...i got no dog in this fight.

[LoZoccolo]

6. Do /you/ know how to use Google?

;)

[applegrove]

7. Apartheid worked by forcing all black South Africans to return to

a Bantu-stand (small countries within SA that each person had to go to according to whereabouts they were born..even if they were born in what was the "true" South Africa). People had to return there if they 1) were unemployed 2) and the end of their work shift 3) were kids 4) were sick 5)were going to school 6) were retired....

Basically - every moment you were not working you have to go back to the bantu-stand (unless there were barracks for workers or a room in the house for the servants to sleep over).

And the bantu-stand was a different country (each with a separate social service program and outside the reach of taxes on any businesses or national industry). They were made up of shantytowns and a few middle class areas. There were no jobs. And like I said they didn't get any of the economic pie that was South Africa. You couldn't own anything outside the bantu-stand.

So - basically - the moment you were not making money for South Africa... you were shoved into another country. That means the moment you might "take" out of the SA economy - you were forced by law to leave.

So South Africa got the workers they wanted - and rock bottom prices (as there was always severe unemployment in the bantu-stand due to overcrowding and no ability to own anything or get credit).

Almost like slavery. But not quite. Because you were free to quit your job and go live in a slum where of course the bantu-stands themselves could not generate enough taxes to provide really much in the way of social services.

Black South Africans put into the economy their labor and got nothing out of it.

Was also used as a tool to keep the people divided as the bantu-stands were all over the place and mobility between the two was not allowed.

Something like 80 percent of the country of South Africa lived on these bantu-stands.. the worst lands..obviously without resources or great farmland...which made up 13% of the country. Or thereabouts. South Africa has a temperate climate (see great agriculture)and huge resource endowments like tons of gold and diamonds. So it was like a Canada or Russia resource-wise. Only the Whites saw any of this money.

Was obviously systematic attempt to keep people poor, uneducated, powerless, desperate, sick, unemployed, and all the social strife that goes with that. So they would never have a chance at political power (oh - they got to vote - on the bantu-stand!).

People had to carry passes for jobs. And passes (citizenship cards) saying where they really belonged.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. Yes, black people were considered "citizens" of whatever Bantustan was

allocated to their tribe, even if they'd never been there. Note from the map that these "homelands" were the result of gerrymandering on steroids, mostly consisting of disjointed chunks of useless land.

You may have heard of the song "Sun City." The title refers to a resort in Bophuthatswana, which like Indian casinos. took advantage of the fact that South Africa's puritanical laws on personal behavior didn't apply there. South Africans could go there to gamble, drink themselves silly, and have sex with whomever they pleased, As in Las Vegas, the casino owners tried to attract big-name entertainers, and a group of singers pledged not to perform there, singing a song that went, "I ain't gonna play Sun City."

[LoZoccolo]

10. These are actually left-wingers who want to send me to a bantustan.

Messed up, isn't it?

[applegrove]

11. Huh?

[LoZoccolo]

12. The sentence in the original message...

...was posted on a left-wing message board about me and two other people.