Pieter Dirk Uys, the performer, writer, and satirist, thinks that many young South Africans living in the UK are backward and racist.
In an article carried in the London based weekly, The South African, to celebrate Heritage Day, Uys wrote, "My South Africa is not the United Kingdom, because happily many of our racist youth have left our rainbow shores to create their own a De la Rey-style Blankostan Homeland in the London suburb of Richmond."
It may have been that Uys was taking poetic license with an easy appeal to lazy stereotypes about South Africans who live abroad. Yes, there are those who left because they are gatvol with South African politics, and there are those who fled crime. But there are also those who just want to travel, gain work experience and make some hard currency before returning. And there are those who are driven by the prospects of a global career.
All of these, including those who say they'd prefer to forget South Africa entirely, are prone to bouts of nostalgia and longing for home.
To think that all South African expats in the UK are exclusively white is of course demented. Yes they are predominantly white, but PD Uys should attend the annual South African Chamber of Commerce cocktail party in London or some other function and he might meet black South African bankers or lawyers. If hospitalized he would very probably come across a black South African nurse.
And its hardly the case that they are a group of right wingers waving the old South African flag. Only a handful turned up last week at the Red October protest outside the South African High Commission in London. Far more turn up at rugby matches or in pubs waving the South African flag.