Maybe I semigrated, but I’ve also returned to an ancestral refuge

I HAVE thought long and hard about the semigration issue that made headlines again last month. Semigration here refers to a new great trek southward, from South Africa’s hinterland “back” to the Cape, especially Cape Town, purportedly by disaffected whites who are fleeing African nationalism in the northern provinces. Semigration is intra-country relocation, as opposed to emigrating to a different country.

With the new trek, things are, however, not as simple as they may appear. They never are, are they?

Two questions stand out. The first is historical and has to do with (let’s call it) a  new wave of settler colonial migration into Africa’s deeper south – with heavy caveats. The second is political and economic, and cannot be separated from history...