Latest news with #Amerikaner
The Citizen
19-05-2025
- Politics
- The Citizen
Second chance for Amerikaner ‘refugees'
Amerikaner refugees are bit players who have strayed into the spotlight in a piece of political theatre between the ANC and Trump. The first group of Afrikaners from South Africa to arrive for resettlement in the US. Picture: Saul Loeb / AFP The granting of refugee status to a small group of white Afrikaners by the US – an offer that has been extended to include members of other racial minorities who can credibly demonstrate that they are being discriminated against – will have profoundly negative implications for SA. It puts the ANC-led government in a quandary about a slew of controversial legislation regarding hot-button issues such as race quotas, black economic empowerment, property and language rights and hate speech. Trump placed marker on SA Beyond the silly hyperbole about genocide and rampant land seizures, the important fact is the world's most powerful nation has laid down a marker that there are indeed 'bad things happening in South Africa', to quote US President Donald Trump, and that these amount to racial discrimination. While the local media childishly insists on putting the word refugee in quotation marks whenever they refer to those going to the US under Trump's executive order, that word is now a juristic definition of their status. It's a hugely important legal distinction with far-reaching implications. It not only opens the door to many thousands of minority-group citizens – not just farmers, not just Afrikaners, not just whites – fleeing to the US, but will undoubtedly influence other immigration authorities. WATCH: SA 'refugees' leave for US 'Amerikaner refugees' vs South Africans For the moment, however, the matter is playing on a much pettier level. Who would have thought that the departure of fewer than five dozen Afrikaners could cause such an outpouring of undeserved media vitriol and government anger? It's especially odd given that an estimated 1-2 million people have emigrated unremarked upon since the ANC took power. The national ego has been badly dented and it transpires that hell hath no fury like South Africans scorned. Even our normally imperturbable president has given public vent. Cyril Ramaphosa last week lambasted the group as 'cowards' who would 'very soon' be scuttling back to South Africa with their tails between their legs. ALSO READ: Trump administration slams church for refusing to resettle white South Africans in America Will the Amerikaners get caught in the Trump vs ANC crossfire? Meanwhile, everyone is hard at work seeking scapegoats. Afrikaner civic action group AfriForum, for one, is firmly in the crosshairs. The Amerikaners, as they've derisively been dubbed, hopefully realise things will be hard. They are bit players who have strayed into the spotlight in a piece of political theatre between the ANC and Trump. They should know, too, that back home their every failure will be magnified and gloated over, their every success minimised. It's a misguided response by the government and its cheerleaders. The reality is that SA, if it continues on the ANC's present course, will experience a massive exodus of human capital it can ill afford to lose and those leaving in future will mainly, but by no means only, be minorities. However, all the quibbling about whether the Amerikaners are just wallowing in victimhood or genuinely seeking refuge mean less than the smug commentators assume and the dishonest politicians pretend. Yes, there are gradations of agency, of volition, across the spectrum of emigrant, exile and refugee. But contradictions abound. There are penniless, footsore emigrants and plump, wellshod refugees. Perhaps the thing that they most have in common is heartache. ALSO READ: Afrikaner claims of persecution are a fat lie What lies ahead for Amerikaner refugees While some may leave the land of their forefathers with a sense of relief – a smile on their lips and a song in their hearts – in my experience, they're relatively few. To depart this South Africa, the ancient land that magically weaves through our present hopes, fears, triumphs and defeats, is not easy. To leave behind permanently the land that has forged one's identity and in doing so become part of one's soul, is heartrending. It's a death of sorts. But also, if one is fortunate, it can be a do-over, a second chance, or even a rebirth. NOW READ: Victory for asylum seekers: High Court declares parts of Refugees Act unconstitutional
The Citizen
14-05-2025
- Politics
- The Citizen
Why do we mock Amerikaners?
It's easy to shrug off statistics and chants if you are not threatened. The governing party is wrong to ignore minority fears. A group of Afrikaners gathered outside the American Embassy in Pretoria to deliver a memorandum to US President Donald Trump. Picture: Nigel Sibanda / The Citizen Do we really have to mock people who use an opportunity to leave their country of birth when invited to settle elsewhere? It's a big, potentially traumatic step for any family. Compassion would not be out of place. So what if South Africans who have left for the US do not fit the United Nations (UN) definition of refugees? US President Donald Trump has executive authority to order that the Afrikaners be treated as refugees. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says: 'Refugees are people forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. 'They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as a result of who they are, what they believe in or say, or because of armed conflict, violence or serious public disorder.' To debate whether the Amerikaner trekkers fit this definition is to miss much. So, too, the haggling about whether Trump is correct to describe what's happening in SA as genocide. ALSO READ: Texas Chicken Run highlights white privilege As we know from SA's case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, legal definitions of genocide are complicated. By those standards, Trump is wrong. Yet SA is objectively a very violent country where the murder rate is consistently among the highest in the world, and racial targeting is a reality. Folk don't feel protected when the Constitutional Court says whipping up mobs to chant, 'Kill the farmer! Kill the boer!' while emulating gunshots, 'Pa! Pa! Pa!', is not hate speech. Try to imagine how that looks to the targets, and to the outside world, where President Cyril Ramaphosa's assurances are not persuasive. It's easy to shrug off statistics and chants if you are not threatened. The governing party is wrong to ignore minority fears. Ramaphosa thinks he needs to educate Trump. On Monday, he said: '… those who have fled are not being persecuted, they are not being hounded, they are not being treated badly. They are leaving ostensibly because they don't want to embrace the changes taking place in our country.' In doing so, Ramaphosa perpetuates the ANC myth that anyone who opposes race laws is anti-transformation. Wrong. One can support transformation while objecting to laws which prescribe that races should be treated differently. ALSO READ: Afrikaners pawns on Trump's board Trump's ally, South African Elon Musk, baulks at bringing his Starlink network here because of the requirement that 30% must be given to local blacks. The ANC does not see racism in existing legislation, including the panoply of black economic empowerment laws, preferential procurement rules and new regulations which make race disclosure a requirement for property transfer. Indeed, the Employment Equity Amendment Act, which is being challenged in the High Court in Pretoria by the DA, discriminates on racial grounds. So, too, does the proposed R100 billion transformation fund aimed at supporting blackowned businesses, to the exclusion of others. This racial preferencing turns off investors and, therefore, impedes job creation. Instead of shaming those who leave, it might be wiser to acknowledge legitimate fears. If the new Amerikaners could foresee a safe, prosperous future in South Africa for their families, they would not leave this beloved country. Me? I ain't goin' nowhere. NOW READ: New race quotas will stifle economic growth
