White flight, black facts: Debunking the myth of Afrikaner persecution

Daily Maverick

18-05-2025

We live in a world of smoke and mirrors, where fact is sometimes stranger than fiction and where (some) powerful people declare untruths to be true. These lies gain currency among those who would exploit a particular moment for their own personal or political gain or, among those who believe that complex problems have easy solutions.
There has been much 'breaking news' 'just in' on local South African television about the Afrikaner 'refugees' who boarded an airplane chartered by the US government to provide safe haven for these people who have claimed 'refugee' status and are having their US citizenship expedited.
The entire exercise is quite obviously absurd (not to mention a waste of US taxpayer money, but let that not be our problem). But it is entirely in keeping with the lies, drama and illogic of the Trump administration. For Trump the show is the point. And it's quite a show having people virtually airlifted from South Africa, so great is their suffering.
One can almost guarantee that once these so-called refugees are deposited in Texas, Wyoming, Nebraska (insert flyover state name here) they will be forgotten by the Trump administration. Trump has not kept his word about much. His entire presidency is simply an exercise in grift, racism, revenge and ignorance, after all.
This little group will also come to learn that the US is no land of milk and honey. The white utopia that they believe will greet them is in fact a country at odds with itself as it deals with its own racial tensions and inequality. And one in which they will have neither special protection nor special voice.
The lesson will be a hard one.
What is the definition of a refugee?
Despite the show of performative politics, we must not be distracted. Facts do still matter. It is helpful to be reminded of the actual definition of 'refugee', Article 1 of the 1951 Refugee Convention defines a refugee as someone who 'owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of [their] nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail [themself] of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of [their] former habitual residence, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it'.
Regional refugee instruments complement the 1951 convention and have built upon its definition, by referencing a number of 'objective' circumstances compelling refugees to flee their countries of origin. For example, the definition outlined in the 1969 OAU (Organisation of African Unity) Refugee Convention includes 'external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order' (Article 1 (2)). The 1984 Cartagena Declaration includes 'generalised violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violations of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order' (paragraph III (3))'. (The 1951 Refugee Convention | UNHCR).
In addition, Trump has said that among the 'terrible things' happening in South Africa is the 'genocide' of Afrikaners. He actually uses the word loosely all the time. But, in all respects he is a careless man.
To be clear again, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has repeatedly stated that the convention embodies principles that are part of general customary international law… In the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group.
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. (Definitions of Genocide and Related Crimes | United Nations)
No quick fixes for SA challenges
No one denies that South Africa has serious challenges and has (and has had) some pretty unserious policy proposals from the ANC in response. The current Employment Equity Amendment Act that is being challenged in court by the Democratic Alliance is an example.
The ANC has often been more interested in ideology and race essentialism than actually fixing things. It's easier to endlessly legislate targets than to negotiate policies that grow the economy. Employment equity is important. It is important that the workforce looks different after 31 years of democracy and also important that the bureaucracy looks different and delivers effective, corruption-free services to citizens. But often (not always) employment equity and Black Economic Empowerment have been blunt instruments, succeeding in making a small percentage of South Africans very wealthy with little 'trickle down' effect.
The proposed legislation and an Empowerment Fund (as proposed by Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau) cannot be a substitute for the hard work of growing the economy for the benefit of all. The first order of business should be to fix education and to build a country in which knowledge matters and is rewarded. In that way we grow a society of worth and wellbeing. And in all of this affirmative action has its constitutional place because our past remains with us. Denying that is also ahistorical and singularly unhelpful.
There are no quick fixes to the complexity of our challenges.
But, back to the refugees, two things can be true at once: the ANC has led with little integrity, specifically since the Zuma years. We are all still paying the price for State Capture. Many things do not work in our country given the dysfunction of the ANC, which has filtered down to our cities and towns.
What is also equally true is that despite the perceived victim status many Afrikaners (and some other white South Africans) may feel, the facts simply do not bear out the perception that white South Africans, and in particular Afrikaners, have been victims of economic or other persecution. The reality is that intergenerational wealth and past privilege still contribute to the relative wealth and privilege of white people in our country. That should not be a controversial statement, but it often is, sadly.
Unemployment tragically high
According to the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey released at the time of writing, South Africa's unemployment rate remains tragically high at 32.9%. The expanded rate is even higher at 43.1%. The report states: 'The unemployment rate among the black African (37,0%) population group remains higher than the national average and other population groups. The unemployment rate among coloured people is 23.6%, Indians/Asians 13.3% and whites 7.3%. Black African women continue to be the most vulnerable with an unemployment rate of 39,8% in Q1:2025. Coloured women accounted for 24% of the unemployment rate, Indian/Asian women 17.3% and white women 8.6%.'
These statistics, while frightening, are both helpful and show a continued and commendable commitment to the power and utility of data in public life — important for policy discussions and fact-based solutions to our challenges.
So, the true shame (and crisis) is in the fact that the majority of people who have borne the brunt of ANC misrule have been the black majority, not those fleeing to the United States.
But what this unhinged Trump Executive Order shows is that US democracy is being held to ransom by a too-powerful president and very few countervailing forces to hold him back.
Civil society and democracy's guardrails
One thing we do understand in South Africa is that we need to protect our democracy. Our young democracy's guardrails have held up proudly against the pressure of State Capture; our vibrant civil society has stood up for both civil and political rights repeatedly. It was civil society that stopped Zuma's nuclear deal with the Russians, shrouded in secrecy and almost certainly corrupt.
This past week we also heard that President Cyril Ramaphosa sent back the Protection of State Information Bill, or the so-called 'Secrecy Bill'. This bill was the reason for the start of the Right to Know campaign in 2008. Civil society organisations fought a valiant fight to ensure our right to media freedom, against broad definitions of 'national security' and problematic classification processes bent towards excessive secrecy and securitisation of the state.
Ramaphosa sent the bill back to Parliament in 2020, and last week Parliament's legal services agreed that the bill could result in an abuse of power. And so after almost 17 years the matter has come full circle, thanks to activism from the media and civil society organising against such potentially egregious incursions on our freedoms.
The world feels as if it is spinning off its own axis with blinding speed. As facts and reality are increasing casualties, we must not succumb to the show of it all. And importantly we must continue building a country for all who live in it, with our constitution as a touchstone.
That is all of our task and not merely that of mostly failed and flawed politicians. DM