Latest news with #GreatReplacement
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
The Trump Admin Reportedly Wants An Office of Remigration. That's Alarming.
A sweeping plan to revamp the State Department would establish an Office of Remigration, a term popularized by far-right activists in Europe and white nationalists who want the mass removal of immigrants. The proposed new office was included in a 100-page-long notice to Congress from the State Department, which has been viewed by publications including CNN, Wired and The Handbasket. That document reportedly describes the Office of Remigration as a 'hub for immigration issues and repatriation tracking' aimed at facilitating 'interagency coordination' on 'removals/repatriations.' It also reportedly details using State Department funds to help advance 'the voluntary return of migrants to their country of origin or legal status.' The term 'remigration' is an alarming one that's effectively 'a euphemism for ethnically cleansing non-white people from Western countries,' Christopher Mathias previously wrote for HuffPost. 'Remigration is an immigration policy embraced by extremists that calls for the removal of all migrants—including 'non-assimilated' citizens—with the goal of creating white ethnostates in Western countries,' Wired's David Gilbert explains. It's been promoted by Germany's far-right party, Alternative für Deutschland, as well as Austria's far-right Freedom Party, and the term is rooted in the premise of forcibly deporting non-white people from Europe regardless of citizenship status, according to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. The Freedom Party, for instance, has backed the 'remigration of uninvited foreigners' with the goal of promoting a more 'homogenous' country, The Associated Press reports. It's also a term that Trump and his senior adviser Stephen Miller have used before. '[We will] return Kamala's illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration),' Trump wrote in a September 2024 Truth Social post. 'I will save our cities and towns in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and all across America.' 'THE TRUMP PLAN TO END THE INVASION OF SMALL TOWN AMERICA: REMIGRATION!' Miller added on X. Experts note that remigration is often promoted in conjunction with the racist and conspiratorial 'Great Replacement' theory, which claims that elites are trying to displace white people with people of color in Western countries. Far-right leaders believe the answer to this supposed threat is to remove immigrants and people of color wholesale. The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
DW
23-05-2025
- Politics
- DW
Fact check: Trump's South Africa 'genocide' claim is wrong – DW – 05/23/2025
Fake news in the White House: the footage Trump wants to use to prove the 'mass murder of white farmers in South Africa' is outdated. The white crosses on the roadside are from a demonstration in 2020. During his visit to the White House, US President Donald Trump confronted South Africa's head of state Cyril Ramaphosa with claims that white farmers are being mass murdered in South Africa. The narrative that white population groups are being systematically and deliberately killed is not supported by facts and official statistics. It has been circulating in right-wing circles for years and is linked to the racist conspiracy myth of the "Great Replacement." Claim: "These are the -- these are burial sites right here," Trump said (White House video minute 24:25), while describing a footage during a meeting with Ramaphosa at the White House on May 21. "Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there's approximately a thousand of them. They're all white farmers, the family of white farmers," added Trump. DW Fact check: False The statement that every cross stands for a white farmer who was murdered in South Africa is false. Image: X Trump's claim was already circulating on social media before Ramaphosa's state visit to the US. On May 12, a user on X explained that every cross stands for a murdered white farmer in South Africa. The video post has been viewed almost 55 million times at the time of publishing. A reverse image search shows that the footage used by Trump with the white crosses on the side of the road was already shared on social media in 2020 and 2023 . These are not, as Trump claims, the gravesites of more than a thousand murdered farmers. 'Ramaphosa, how many more must die?' Instead, the scenes show a protest near the South African city of Newcastle on September 5, 2020. The protest was triggered by the murder of married couple Glen and Vida Rafferty on their farm in August 2020. Among others, the South African newspaper Newcastle Advertiser reported on the incident: "Trucks, tractors, trucks, bakkies, vans, sedans, scooters, motorcycles, helicopters and airplanes – vehicles of almost every description formed part of the Move ONE Million group's procession deep into Normandien today (September 5)." [...] "Just after the Horn River bridge, hundreds of symbolic wooden crosses had been erected along the route by volunteers. Almost halfway to Hanover, the farm where Glen and Vida Rafferty were murdered, an enormous banner was strung above the road: 'President Ramaphosa, how many more must die???'" South African politician Julius Malema was expelled from the ruling ANC party for fomenting divisions. Image: Guillem Sartorio/AFP In another passage of the video used by Trump, the South African politician Julius Malema is shown proclaiming the slogan 'Kill the boer, kill the farmer'. The footage was taken at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, where the left-wing South African party 'Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)' celebrated its tenth anniversary in August 2023. Media outlets like public broadcaster SABC News reported on the event. Dangerous hate speech Julius Malema was a member of the South African ruling party African National Congress ANC before the EEF was founded and was expelled from the party in 2012. The song is an old declaration of war from the apartheid era and has been classified as hate speech in South Africa on several occasions. South Africa's President Ramaphosa distanced himself from the aforementioned statements immediately after the video screening. The President said those speeches are not his government policy. South African farmers refute Trump: No 'white genocide' To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video South African farmer Theo de Jaeger, head of the Southern African Agri Initiative, also told DW that there is no genocide of white farmers in South Africa (see video above). After Trump recently offered white farmers asylumin the US, he wrote a public letter to the US President, feeling compelled to set the record straight. "We were scared that he might misunderstand what it's all about. I sent him that letter that the challenges we have are not only challenges for white farmers, there are even bigger challenges for black farmers," he told DW. Land distribution in South Africa is still extremely unequal more than 30 years after the end of apartheid. According to a 2017 report by the South African government , white people own around 72% of agricultural land, while black South Africans only own around 4% of individually registered farms. White South Africans make up only 7.8%of the total South African population. This article was originally written in German. This article is part of a cooperation with the fact check teams of the public broadcasters ARD-Faktenfinder, BR24 #Faktenfuchs and DW Faktencheck.
DW
23-05-2025
- Politics
- DW
Fact check: Trump's 'evidence videos' do not show 'genocide' – DW – 05/23/2025
Fake news in the White House: the footage Trump wants to use to prove the 'mass murder of white farmers in South Africa' is outdated. The white crosses on the roadside are from a demonstration in 2020. During his visit to the White House, US President Donald Trump confronted South Africa's head of state Cyril Ramaphosa with claims that white farmers are being mass murdered in South Africa. The narrative that white population groups are being systematically and deliberately killed is not supported by facts and official statistics. It has been circulating in right-wing circles for years and is linked to the racist conspiracy myth of the "Great Replacement." Claim: "These are the -- these are burial sites right here," Trump said (White House video minute 24:25), while describing a footage during a meeting with Ramaphosa at the White House on May 21. "Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there's approximately a thousand of them. They're all white farmers, the family of white farmers," added Trump. DW Fact check: False The statement that every cross stands for a white farmer who was murdered in South Africa is false. Image: X Trump's claim was already circulating on social media before Ramaphosa's state visit to the US. On May 12, a user on X explained that every cross stands for a murdered white farmer in South Africa. The video post has been viewed almost 55 million times at the time of publishing. A reverse image search shows that the footage used by Trump with the white crosses on the side of the road was already shared on social media in 2020 and 2023 . These are not, as Trump claims, the gravesites of more than a thousand murdered farmers. 'Ramaphosa, how many more must die?' Instead, the scenes show a protest near the South African city of Newcastle on September 5, 2020. The protest was triggered by the murder of married couple Glen and Vida Rafferty on their farm in August 2020. Among others, the South African newspaper Newcastle Advertiser reported on the incident: "Trucks, tractors, trucks, bakkies, vans, sedans, scooters, motorcycles, helicopters and airplanes – vehicles of almost every description formed part of the Move ONE Million group's procession deep into Normandien today (September 5)." [...] "Just after the Horn River bridge, hundreds of symbolic wooden crosses had been erected along the route by volunteers. Almost halfway to Hanover, the farm where Glen and Vida Rafferty were murdered, an enormous banner was strung above the road: 'President Ramaphosa, how many more must die???'" South African politician Julius Malema was expelled from the ruling ANC party for fomenting divisions. Image: Guillem Sartorio/AFP In another passage of the video used by Trump, the South African politician Julius Malema is shown proclaiming the slogan 'Kill the boer, kill the farmer'. The footage was taken at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, where the left-wing South African party 'Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)' celebrated its tenth anniversary in August 2023. Media outlets like public broadcaster SABC News reported on the event. Dangerous hate speech Julius Malema was a member of the South African ruling party African National Congress ANC before the EEF was founded and was expelled from the party in 2012. The song is an old declaration of war from the apartheid era and has been classified as hate speech in South Africa on several occasions. South Africa's President Ramaphosa distanced himself from the aforementioned statements immediately after the video screening. The President said those speeches are not his government policy. South African farmers refute Trump: No 'white genocide' To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video South African farmer Theo de Jaeger, head of the Southern African Agri Initiative, also told DW that there is no genocide of white farmers in South Africa (see video above). After Trump recently offered white farmers asylumin the US, he wrote a public letter to the US President, feeling compelled to set the record straight. "We were scared that he might misunderstand what it's all about. I sent him that letter that the challenges we have are not only challenges for white farmers, there are even bigger challenges for black farmers," he told DW. Land distribution in South Africa is still extremely unequal more than 30 years after the end of apartheid. According to a 2017 report by the South African government , white people own around 72% of agricultural land, while black South Africans only own around 4% of individually registered farms. White South Africans make up only 7.8%of the total South African population. This article was originally written in German. This article is part of a cooperation with the fact check teams of the public broadcasters ARD-Faktenfinder, BR24 #Faktenfuchs and DW Faktencheck.
Otago Daily Times
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Afrikaner ‘refugees' just pure theatre
The mythical Afrikaner exodus. As my flight landed in South Africa on Sunday, I looked in vain for the plane that was due to take off with the first 49 white, Afrikaans-speaking "refugees" of the many thousands who are supposedly going to find safety from racist persecution in Donald Trump's United States. Then I realised that they were probably taking a charter flight from a different terminal. It would have been a lot cheaper to buy them tickets on a scheduled commercial flight, but the notion of "refugees" demands a certain amount of drama and this piece of theatre needed all the help it could get. They aren't actually refugees. They are bit-players in a secular passion play staged by Trump, probably at the suggestion of his more-or-less-faithful sidekick Elon Musk, who grew up very rich in apartheid-era South Africa and shares Trump's belief in the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory. Musk, of course, is also fighting his own private battle against the Great Replacement by having as many white babies as possible. You would think the world's richest man would realise that his goal could be more efficiently achieved by artificial insemination (and a modest trust fund for every successful Musk baby), but it turns out that he prefers the human touch. Another way to get up white numbers, especially in the United States, is white immigration, but that is quite tricky because white people in most other countries don't want to move to the US. You can see why not, given the violence, the politics and the dreadful healthcare system, but it therefore puts a very high premium on white refugees. Getting around Trump's ban on asylum for refugees was easy. The ban on refugees is really meant to keep out people from " countries", as Trump calls them. South Africa, despite some truly terrible townships, is not a at all. The problem then becomes what to call these "desirable" white immigrants. Even Trump can't simply say "all white South Africans are welcome", because to exclude others simply on the basis of colour is blatant racism. He might think it, but he can't say it. Language is a less offensive distinction, but you can't just say Afrikaans-speakers or you will also get millions of non-whites: more than half of Afrikaans-speakers are "coloured" (mixed-race) or black (many rural blacks speak it as a second language). That is why the presidential decree says that only people "of Dutch and French descent" will be given refugee status (but exempted from the refugee ban). However, it still doesn't work. At least half the coloureds have some Dutch or French ancestry if you go back far enough. There will still not be an avalanche of white South Africans arriving in the US, because the great majority of white South Africans live quite comfortable lives. Three decades after the end of apartheid, the average white South African still has 20 times the wealth of the average black South African. Two particular grievances drive South Africans arriving in the US this week and those who may follow. One is the belief that whites, and especially white farmers living on isolated farmsteads, are being killed just because of their race. The other is an allegation that white-owned farms are being expropriated without compensation. White South Africans on the far right and the Maga hard right in the US believe both those things, but they are both untrue. No farms have been expropriated without fair compensation. A new law makes expropriation without compensation possible in extreme circumstances, but it has not yet been used at all. Whites are 7% of South Africa's population, but they are only 2% of the murder victims. Almost all of the farm murders occur in the context of armed robberies gone wrong, and black farmers are equally affected. Forty-nine white farmers were murdered in 2022-23, but bear in mind that most farmers are white: 85% of the country's farmland belongs to whites. South Africa is burdened by a particularly bad history of oppression and inequality which it will take generations to alleviate. The great majority of its people try to behave well, but it has the usual case-load of exceptions: the feckless, the cruel and the greedy will always be with us. I'll give the last word to an old friend, a white South African who shared the African National Congress' struggles in the old days. "If you had told me in 1984 (the height of apartheid) what South Africa would be like now," he said, "I would have been delighted. If you had told me the same thing in 1994 (the first free election), I would have wanted to cut my throat." Same information, viewed from different time perspectives. They are doing the best they can. • Gwynne Dyer is an independent London journalist.
Winnipeg Free Press
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
A look at Trump's Afrikaner ‘refugees'
Opinion As my flight landed in South Africa on Sunday, I looked in vain for the plane that was due to take off with the first 49 white, Afrikaans-speaking 'refugees' of the many thousands who are supposedly going to find safety from racist persecution in Donald Trump's United States. Then I realized that they were probably taking a charter flight from a different terminal. It would have been a lot cheaper to buy them tickets on a scheduled commercial flight, but the notion of 'refugees' demands a certain amount of drama and this piece of theatre needed all the help it could get. They aren't actually refugees. They are bit-players in a secular passion play staged by Trump, probably at the suggestion of his more-or-less-faithful sidekick Elon Musk, who grew up very rich in apartheid-era South Africa and shares Trump's belief in the 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory. Musk, of course, is also fighting his own private battle against the Great Replacement by having as many white babies as possible. Another way to get up white numbers, especially in the United States, is white immigration, but that is quite tricky because white people in most other countries don't want to move to the United States. You can see why not, given the violence, the politics and the dreadful health care system, but it therefore puts a very high premium on white refugees. Getting around Trump's ban on asylum for refugees was easy. The ban on refugees is really meant to keep out people from 'sh-thole countries,' as Trump calls them. South Africa, despite some truly terrible townships, is not a sh-thole at all. The problem then becomes what to call these 'desirable' white immigrants. Even Trump can't simply say all 'white South Africans' are welcome, because to exclude others simply on the basis of colour is blatant racism. He might think it, but he can't say it. There will still not be an avalanche of white South Africans arriving in the United States, because the great majority of white South Africans live quite comfortable lives. Three decades after the end of apartheid, the average white South African still has 20 times the wealth of the average Black South African. Two particular grievances drive South Africans arriving in the United States this week and those who may follow. One is the belief that whites, and especially white farmers living on isolated farmsteads, are being killed just because of their race. The other is an allegation that white-owned farms are being expropriated without compensation. White South Africans on the far right and the MAGA hard right in the United States believe both those things, but they are both untrue. No farms have been expropriated without fair compensation. A new law makes expropriation without compensation possible in extreme circumstances, but it has not yet been used at all. Whites are seven per cent of South Africa's population, but they are only two per cent of the murder victims. Almost all of the farm murders occur in the context of armed robberies gone wrong, and Black farmers are equally affected. Forty-nine white farmers were murdered in 2022-23, but bear in mind that most farmers are white: 85 per cent of the country's farmland belongs to whites. South Africa is burdened by a particularly bad history of oppression and inequality which it will take generations to alleviate. The great majority of its people try to behave well, but it has the usual caseload of exceptions: the feckless, the cruel and the greedy will always be with us. I'll give the last word to an old friend, a white South African who shared the African National Congress's struggles in the old days. 'If you had told me in 1984 (the height of apartheid) what South Africa would be like now,' he said, 'I would have been delighted. If you had told me the same thing in 1994 (the first free election), I would have wanted to cut my throat.' Same information, viewed from different time perspectives. They are doing the best they can. Gwynne Dyer's new book is Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World's Climate Engineers.
