WHILE Bill Clinton, the pride of Little Rock, Arkansas, was recently busy eulogising our revered leader, Mr Mandela, as "the greatest statesman of the 20th Century," the sardonic American magazine, Instauration, was giving a distinctly different picture of our sadly diminished status. Instauration wrote:

"Remember when any article bashing the White government of South Africa got front page placement? The New York crowd that did so much to wreck the only First World country in Africa prefers to turn away from the looming disaster. Still a few lines of truth manage to slip by every now and then. Reporter Suzanne Daly recently wrote an article on the progress of Johannesburg since the end of White rule.

"Bottom line: don’t plan on taking any vacations there, from now till the end of time. The once elegant Johannesburg has become, in Daley’s words, ‘a teeming, hustling, unmistakably African metropolis.’ Translation: Jo’burg is turning into another hellish Third World dung-heap.’

"Our readers who know the Third World will recognise the New South Africa. The swarms of unemployed and vaguely threatening young men. The sidewalks, filthy and crowded with vendors selling cheap Chinese and Korean gimcracks. The chaotic traffic. Dirt and trash everywhere. The smell of urine, faeces and rotting garbage. Defaced buildings. Parks stripped of vegetation and filled with loafers.

"He runs a real estate company that manages 45 ‘mostly older’ (read slum) buildings in the city’s central business district. ‘We are seeing the smaller guys - mostly Black - moving in and starting new businesses,’ says Ken. (Notice the use of the cute word ‘guy,’ as if they were just like Tom, Dick and Harry from the golf club). Fifty percent of these businesses fail in the first year whether they are Black, White or pink. Nevertheless, it’s a ‘positive thing,’ eh, Ken?

"Care to drop your wife off downtown around midnight where these ‘Black, White or pink guys’ are roaming around? To the vast majority of sane White South Africans downtown Johannesburg has become a ‘place of fear and disorder.’ Certainly no surprise there. Just what did the liberal and moderate Whites think would come with the end of White rule?

"All they had to do was pick up a copy of The Washington Post and they could have read the fate of their fair city. All the big corporations that pushed so hard for an end to apartheid are finding the reality of Black majority rule not quite their cup of tea. Times Media, a major newspaper and magazine publisher (How delicious if they are connected to the putrid Time magazine we all know and love) is fleeing to the suburbs, along with anybody else who can afford it.

"The Carlton Hotel (has shut down) . . . nobody wants to stay downtown any more. The Johannesburg Art Gallery has seen its number of visitors go from a high of 150 000 a year to 50 000 last year. Black street vendors are camped out on the sidewalks, cooking their meals on piles of burning coal. The police don’t bat an eye. No wonder Whites are heading for greener pasture.