A follow up on Zuma's meeting with white South African's

from AFP via Google

You might remember yesterday's post that previewed Zuma's meet. Now we have details what happened on the visit. - Kale

PRETORIA — Jacob Zuma, leader of South Africa's ruling ANC party, promised Thursday to break the silence on white poverty as he met Afrikaans residents of a township living without running water or electrity.

Zuma, favourite to become only the third black president of South Africa at elections next year, said he had been shocked and embarrassed by the plight of the residents of Bethlehem, situated on the outskirts of the capital Pretoria.

"I am shocked and surprised by what I have seen here," said Zuma.

"The vast number of black poverty does not mean that we must ignore white poverty which is increasingly becoming an embarrassment to talk about."

Although the level of unemployment among the country's more than four million whites is only around a fifth of the overall jobless rate, research says the numbers of them living in poverty are growing.

The trade union Solidarity, whose membership is mainly Afrikaans, handed Zuma a report which claimed that unemployment among whites was increasing by nearly double that of the national average.

The visit by Zuma to Bethlehem -- his second this year -- is seen as highly symbolic given resentment among sectors of the white community that President Thabo Mbeki's government has done little to address their plight.

As well as residents of the trailer homes in Bethlehem, other whites living nearby came to tell Zuma about their daily struggle at a time of rising food and fuel prices.

"Most of us feel like outcasts and we cause embarrassment to our fellow whites," said Maritjie Vos who lives with her two adult children and four other families in a three-bedroom house.

"Zuma has been the first leader to come down here to listen to our problems."

Bethlehem resident Nico Vosloo, who looks older than his 43 years, said the Afrikaans community often felt they had no one to turn to.

"Zuma must push for a law to allow destitute people like us to access basic income grant," said Vosloo.

"We cannot wait until we are 65 years to access the old age grant. I have never worked for the past 17 years. How am I supposed to survive?"

Solidarity general secretary Flip Buys welcomed Zuma's visit as an acknowledgement that poverty did not only affect the majority black population.

"For a long time whites have been seen as rich and blacks poor. Talking about white poverty has been seen as politically incorrect," said Buys.

"The emergence of this scourge has left everyone looking for answers."

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