Herman Wasserman writes:

Amidst the slew of executive orders issued by US President Donald Trump—ranging from reinstating plastic straws, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, and proclaiming that only two genders exist—one, in particular, reverberated around braais, brandies-and-cokes, and bakkies from Brackenfell to Benoni: the executive order “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa,” which included the policy that the “United States shall not provide aid or assistance to South Africa” and that the “United States shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.”

The reaction to the announcement that Afrikaners—historically beneficiaries of the policy of apartheid, which included the most egregious state-sponsored dispossession and disenfranchisement—would now themselves be branded as refugees, ranged from ridicule to enthusiasm. Among Trump’s considerable support base among conservative Afrikaners, there was a smug elation following what they read as a recognition of their complaints that they were being threatened, marginalized, and at risk of losing their land. These complaints had particularly been fanned and promoted in recent years by the Afrikaner rights group AfriForum, who had been pushing a white genocide narrative for many years. Representatives of AfriForum had visited Washington, where they met Republican officials, appeared on conservative media outlets like The Tucker Carlson Show, and also extended their roadshows to conservative think tanks and conferences in Europe, like CPAC in Hungary. Here, they painted a dire picture of a South Africa where white farmers are under constant attack, on the verge of losing their ancestral land, and unfairly targeted by a corrupt and totalitarian government that discriminates against them in a type of reverse apartheid. Their deft communication strategy found sympathetic ears among US conservatives, and with Trump’s reelection, this campaign finally paid off. The White House’s justifications for the executive order read almost like an AfriForum press release and it is clear that AfriForum’s white victimhood discourse heavily influenced the Trump administration’s rhetoric and rationale.

Within South Africa—outside of the conservative minority of Trump supporters—the executive order met with responses ranging from ridicule to disgust. The government, political parties, and civil society groups have condemned it as a misrepresentation of South African policies and social realities. Faced with the strong backlash, AfriForum rejected Trump’s offer and said they remain committed to the country, but blamed the ANC government for the White House’s animosity. [Continue reading…]

Andile Zulu writes:

The Afrikaner nationalism of organizations such as AfriForum and the right-wing populism of Trump or Musk work in cohesion to cloak the unsustainable and exploitative property relations that have made all of our lives worse. In order to retain the fruits of colonial plunder, defend the tyranny of private property, protect the power of our capitalist overlords, and undermine the possibility of reform or revolt, the white right-wing must invent myths that fuel fear, nourish resentment, deepen divisions, and incite conflict.

Bewildering as it may seem to those living in South Africa, the narrative that claims white people are helpless victims of oppressive racial discrimination by a black government craving revenge is not entirely marginal. In high school, university, and as an adult, I have occasionally encountered white people who sincerely suspect they are being primed for or will eventually be victims of violent, state-sanctioned discrimination.

One need not waste too much time debunking the myth of white persecution in post-apartheid South Africa. The empirical evidence is abundant and clear. Relative to the vast majority of the black population, most white citizens have better educational opportunities and outcomes, are more likely to find employment and earn higher wages, are less likely to endure poverty or food insecurity, and generally live in neighborhoods that enjoy better service delivery and safety from crime. This does not mean that the lives of white citizens are untouched by suffering and struggle; whether it be the rising cost of living, financial precarity, dysfunctional local governments, or violent crime. But these obstacles are not thrown upon white South Africans specifically because they are classified as white; they are symptoms of an increasingly incapacitated state run by kleptocrats who manage a debilitating capitalist economy. [Continue reading…]

NBC News reports:

A day after 59 white South Africans were welcomed to America as refugees, more than 86,000 South African farmers — who are mostly white — are gathering this week at the NAMPO Harvest Day trade fair, an annual agricultural exhibition considered the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

Over four days, the attendees will discuss innovations in technology, collaborations and various other elements of an industry that last year generated nearly $14 billion in revenue.

Notably, according to one participant, there is no planned discussion of violence against white farmers or “Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored, race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation” without compensation, as President Donald Trump wrote in a Feb. 7 executive order that opened the way for the 59 South Africans to come to U.S., despite a ban on refugees from other nations. [Continue reading…]