Is there a White Genocide happening in South Africa?
Well, ‘no’ seems to be the answer. No organisation or observers either internationally or inside South Africa have given any credence to that claim.
This includes organisations and political entities representing white Afrikaners in South Africa – some of which may oppose the ANC led government or have qualms with the situation in South Africa, but have never implied anything like a genocide.
The notion of ‘white genocide‘ in the former Apartheid state is a longstanding right-wing trope, particularly in the US: which is presumably where President Trump gets it from.
This whole controversy with Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House might also tie back to Israel and Gaza – which we’ll get to in a moment.
South African born Elon Musk is probably another source for Trump’s focus on South Africa. Musk – the child of an Apartheid-era emerald mine owner – has been pushing the white genocide narrative for a while.
He was also pissed off because Starlink hasn’t been able to operate in South Africa due to equality-based ownership rules in the country. This might actually be the source of Musk’s general hatred of ‘DEI’ initiatives in America – which he seemed to pass on to President Trump.
South Africa, it should be understood, is still trying to address the racial and class-based disparities and imbalances created by decades of white supremacist rule: which is why things like distribution of ownership, opportunity and wealth is still such a cornerstone issue.
We’ll come to the matter of Trump’s bizarre meeting with South Africa’s president in the White House shortly.
But they are apparently trying to create a false impression: evidenced by the highly publicised acceptance of white refugees from South Africa into the US – seemingly the only group of foreigners being welcomed into MAGA’s United States, with all other refugees or asylum seekers from other locations being broadly demonised and rejected.
Trump suspended the broader US refugee settlement programme on his first day in office, which left more than 100,000 asylum seekers from various countries like Afghanistan and war torn Congo stranded, despite having previously been approved for resettlement. But he then signed an executive order to grant refugee status exclusively to white Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch and French Colonialists.
But the ‘refugee’ status of the South Africans arriving in the US has been highly refuted – no one apart from the Trump administration seems to consider them refugees at all.
Which implies a false narrative being purposefully spun – with the President’s White House ambush of Cyril Ramaphosa being a prefabricated part of that.
Certainly South Africa is a troubled country, with a history of problematic governance and very high crime rates. Most of the murders of white farmers are considered basic violent crime, predominantly linked to robbery – and not race.
Attacks on white farmers are also disproportionately represented in media, as compared to killings of black landowners: and in the context of the broader and more general crime rate.
In other words, attacks on white landowners are simply viewed in the context of overall violent crime, which is very high.
Any notion of some kind of reverse-Apartheid is contradicted by the fact that white South Africans still make up the wealthiest demographic. White farmers also own about 78% of farmland with private title deeds and 50% of all land in South Africa, according to estimates by agriculture experts. This is despite making up only 7% of the overall population.
White South Africans also account for an estimated 62% of top management positions, despite black South Africans accounting for 80% of the population.
It’s really hard to make any case that white South Africans are an oppressed minority. Much less a victim
of genocide.
The question is: why are Trump – and some right-wing misinformation peddlers – so obsessed with maintaining a generally inaccurate narrative about South Africa?
Well, one obvious reason is the desired narrative of white victimhood. It also feeds nicely into the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ idea.
But, perhaps more troubling, is the implied lingering distaste for the overthrow of Apartheid in the former Colonial state.
This has been evident in some far-right circles and literature for many years. Even the kid shooter (Dylaan Roof) who murdered black worshippers in a church in Charleston in the US a decade ago was apparently obsessed with Colonial era South Africa and white-run ‘Rhodesia’ (now Zimbabwe). He was (in)famously wearing the flags of those specific nations.
But there may be another reason too.
It might not be a coincidence that the Trump camp is talking of ‘genocide’ in South Africa: and that South Africa was the country to bring the genocide charge against Israel in 2023.
It was the government of South Africa that brought the genocide charge to the International Court of Justice regarding the situation in Gaza.
Israel and the United States both expressed outrage over this.
Is this actually in part a petty revenge maneuver? To accuse the South Africans of the thing that the South Africans accused Israel of?
It could well be. It’s the type of vengeful reprisal one expects from both the Zionist operators and the Trump administration.
At a time where Israel’s real-time and documented mass murder in Gaza is building to a horrific climax, is it mere coincidence that South Africa is being spuriously accused of a ‘genocide’?
It could also be a deflection tactic to draw some focus off of Israel’s current endgame escalation in Gaza. But, more likely, it’s an attempt to tarnish South Africa with the same language/accusations that South Africa tarnished Israel with.
The ANC and South Africa has long been ideologically linked to the Palestinian movement, going back to Nelson Mandela, who famously refused to distance himself from Yasser Arafat (and from Muammar Gaddafi) and the PLO in a televised conference in New York.
Mandela and others in the ANC saw the South African struggle as interlinked with the struggle of the Palestinians.
Israel’s relationship with post-Apartheid South Africa has been an adversarial one: and Zionists in Israel have traditionally held solidarity with the white minority in South Africa and with the Apartheid-era government in general, with which Israel was very closely allied.
In fact, when South Africa’s current government spearheaded the genocide charges against Israel in late 2023, it was right wing white South Africans who primarily objected to it.
It’s odd that President Trump was so committed to this clearly pre-planned spectacle with the South African president in the White House: especially if it was based on dubious information.
The inflammatory anti-white speech that Trump showed a video of to the invited press was in fact of a minority party figure not connected with the government or with policy.
And the footage of people allegedly mourning at mass graves of white South Africans was in fact footage from a protest in 2017.
Likewise, we have to assume the rest of Trump’s claims are unverified at best and highly questionable in terms of context.
South Africa is a problematic country with major issues to deal with: especially its problems with rampant criminality.
But its problems are not entirely surprising, given its long history of Colonial domination, racism and disharmony.
Modern, post-Apartheid South Africa is still a relatively new entity, trying to find its way.
While its governance has been very far from perfect since the death of Nelson Mandela, foreign manipulators and propagandists interfering with the country or misrepresenting its problems for dubious reasons is clearly only going to make things worse.
Every accusation is a confession. That’s Israel and the Zionists in a nutshell. As for Musk, he becomes more and more overtly fascist by the day. As I joke with my friends: The thing about Musk is that I hated him first!