A mysterious genocide
Apparently, there is a genocide ongoing in South Africa right under our noses. It has festered and gotten so bad that the American President Trump has offered its victims, white South Africans, asylum in the United States. With the first batch of these white refugees already in the US, President Trump last week ambushed and […]
Apparently, there is a genocide ongoing in South Africa right under our noses. It has festered and gotten so bad that the American President Trump has offered its victims, white South Africans, asylum in the United States.
With the first batch of these white refugees already in the US, President Trump last week ambushed and confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House with evidence of this “genocide” and demanded explanations.
White South Africans who have emigrated to the United States as refugees or asylum seekers have raised concerns over rising crime, economic instability, affirmative action policies such as the Black Economic Empowerment and Employment Equity programme, and land expropriation without compensation as reasons for leaving South Africa. They say that they seek asylum in the US, arguing that they face targeted violence, discrimination, or loss of property rights due to their race.
The US has, as far back as 2019, granted asylum in high-profile cases such as that of the Potgieter family during Trump’s first coming, but most claims have been denied since then because the US government did not officially recognise white South Africans as a persecuted group… until now, that is.
Many of those South Africans emigrated due to economic decline, high unemployment, and concerns over property rights, same as the thousands or tens of thousands of Latin American asylum seekers who are turned back at the border, or deported back to where they came from.
Something quite interesting is the fact that Trump is a president who campaigned on promises to abolish DEI (diversity, equality and inclusion) practices in US public institutions and the closure of America’s borders.
I have always thought that those who scream racism at everything they dislike were attention-seeking drama queens, but there is simply no spinning the fact that this is a racist policy from a president with clear racist antecedents. That I know of, there is no case of wanton mass murder being perpetrated against white South Africans by anyone, no case of deliberate targeting of essential civil infrastructure in white neighbourhoods, no blockade of food and water and medical supplies, yet the American government seems convinced that there is a genocide against white people in South Africa but there isn’t one against the Palestinian people.
Donald Trump has faced widespread accusations of racism throughout his public career and presidency. There are numerous statements, policies and actions that demonstrate his racial insensitivity or outright racism.
In 1989, Trump took out full-page ads calling for the death penalty for five Black and Latino teenagers falsely accused of raping a white woman in Central Park, New York. Even after DNA evidence exonerated them, Trump refused to apologise.
In 2018, Trump referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as “shithole countries” while discussing immigration. When launching his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump said some Mexican immigrants were “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.” After the 2017 Charlottesville rally, where a white supremacist killed a counter-protester, Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.” Trump has also been praised by American white nationalist figures like David Duke and Richard Spencer.
Despite being only seven per cent of the South African population, white South Africans own 72 per cent of all private land in the country. The average white household earns at least five times what the average black South African family earns. Yet, Oga Trump insists that there is a genocide in South Africa. White organisations like the AfriForum and Suidlanders argue that white South Africans face systemic discrimination and certain right-wing groups in the US, such as VDARE, the Heritage Foundation have amplified these alarm bells.
If DEI was so intolerable when its beneficiaries are blacks, Hispanics and other minority groups, it is clearly welcome as long as the beneficiaries are white. It is so obvious that if Syrian or Honduran immigrants aren’t genuine refugees but economic migrants, then there is just no way the white South Africans are also not economic migrants. His “zero tolerance” for immigration is clearly a farce. For one thing, white South Africans do not face state persecution comparable to groups from war-torn countries.
At the White House, a visibly flustered Ramaphosa denied accusations of systemic persecution, attributing emigration to economic factors affecting all races. It is of note also that one of the photos handed to him by Trump was actually from the crisis in Congo. It is also noteworthy that no reputable international organisation, such as the UN, Amnesty International, etc recognises or has spoken about a “white genocide” in South Africa.
To anyone with a functioning intellect and conscience and living in today’s world, the term “white genocide” should be no more than a controversial and misleading phrase used by certain groups to describe the demographic changes and violent crimes affecting white South Africans, alongside the rest of the population of South Africa. It is important to clarify key facts:
Genocide is defined by the UN as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. There is no evidence of a systematic, government-led campaign to exterminate white South Africans.
South Africa has one of the world’s highest violent crime rates, including murders, farm attacks, and home invasions. While white farmers have been targeted in some violent attacks, crime affects all racial groups, with Black South Africans being the majority of victims.
Post-apartheid land reforms aim to address historical injustices, but its implementation has been slow and controversial. Some white farmers have faced expropriation or pressure to sell land, but this is part of a legal, though sometimes flawed process, not genocide.
The white population in South Africa has declined due to emigration, many leaving for economic or safety reasons, not mass killings, and it is a fact that the term “white genocide” is used by far-right groups to stoke racial fear and chaos despite lacking factual basis.
While white South Africans face real challenges, including crime, economic pressures, land disputes, calling that “genocide” is mischievous and inflammatory. Such narratives distract attention from broader issues like inequality, crime, and reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa.
Oga Trump denies being racist, but his history of racially charged rhetoric, policies and associations is telling. The real kicker, however, is his promotion of the narrative of a mysterious genocide against white South Africans while denying an actual genocide going on in Palestine.