THE granting of asylum to Brandon Huntley by Canada on the basis that he and other white South Africans were targeted for criminal persecution because of their skin colour says more about the Canadians and Huntley than South Africa.

Unlike the clearly unschooled and unread Huntley, we know too well that crime knows no skin colour.

The Canadians ought to have asked their country's representatives for a real picture of the crime situation in South Africa. Contrary to the Canadian refugees board's response to the outcry over the Huntley ruling, such a move would have helped them to arrive at a more informed decision.

If they had, they would have known that like everywhere else in the world, it is the poorest that are most susceptible to crime. In South Africa the poor happen to be predominantly black.

Huntley betrays the misguided racist thought held by many in South Africa that crime is a political expression and a means of settling scores caused by the 300 years or so of white racism.

Naturally there are many who are appalled by both Huntley and the Canadians, and correctly so.

In effect Huntley perpetrates the racism he says he has fled in our country.

He is implicitly saying that the perpetrators of crime are black and the victims white.

Come to think of it, our anger is wasted on such a numbskull and his sympathetic party of simpletons.

When people display such shocking levels of ignorance as Huntley and the Canadian refugees board have, they deserve our pity, not our anger.