Cape ‘homeland’ a thinly veiled yearning for the past

To people in other parts of South Africa, especially those dealing with the consequences of ANC cadre deployment, the Western Cape can sometimes seem like a different country.

So strong has that impression been that it has fuelled “semigration” from places like Gauteng, and lately KwaZulu-Natal, because people perceive – mostly correctly – that places run by the DA are more efficient.

That feeling of superiority has bred, in some quarters, the belief that the province can “go it alone” and become its own independent republic.

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Full autonomy

The leader of the Cape Independence Party wants to introduce a Bill into the Western Cape legislature calling for full autonomy.

Phil Craig believes this can be done without any reference to central government. The whole idea, though, is a non-starter; not only because the province is not economically viable without central government support, but no political party would back independence, not even the governing DA.

It will be appealing, though, to those who believe they can set up an enclave where, by virtue of demographics, black Africans would be a minority.

No national, or even provincial, government would countenance this thinly-veiled return to the apartheid era of race-based “homelands”.

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