SOUTH Africa was this week vilified by Brandon Huntley who was granted refugee status by the Canadian government on the basis that he is under threat from black South Africans.

Cry the vilified country that is barely recovering from 46 years of brutal apartheid rule, student and activist massacres, forced removals, theft of natural resources, farm slavery and slave wages.

Crime must be the thorniest issue after HIV-Aids, with some calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty while others affirm that it will persist as long as national wealth defiantly remains in the hands of a minority. Surprisingly, studies reveal that violent crime affects blacks more than it does whites.

Huntley claims he was attacked seven times by "black people" yet an investigation by The Star found that he never reported the attacks

His actions, and Canada 's reaction, mirror a continued asinine white fear of swart gevaar, which did not explode in 1994 as anticipated, nor when Jacob Zuma became president.

Yet (some) white South Africans continue to fear that the very high electrified walls will not be enough to protect them from an ensuing black onslaught.

Would Canada accept a black farm labourer who felt victimised by the unwillingness of the white minority to relinquish their ill-gotten wealth?

Be taken in if he said he works for slave wages, is never allowed off work to vote, his family was forcibly removed from the farm, his brother was shot dead by a farmer who thought he looked like a baboon, his other brother was dragged half-dead behind a bakkie and his father was brutally assaulted and fed to lions?

Eddie Gaffane, Midrand