Latest news with #HendrikVerwoerd
Mail & Guardian
29-05-2025
- Business
- Mail & Guardian
Elon Musk and the irony of calling black economic empowerment racist
For Elon Musk, to call broad-based black economic empowerment 'racist' is to eat at the table apartheid set for you and complain when someone else is finally offered a chair. Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest African-born man and, arguably, its most confident beneficiary of generational advantage, recently called South Africa's broad-based black economic empowerment (broad-based BEE) policy 'racist' — a sentiment increasingly echoed by some local South Africans who view redress through the distorted lens of personal grievance rather than historical responsibility. It's a statement so steeped in irony that even the ghosts of apartheid must be laughing — if not weeping. That is, the architects of apartheid — men like Hendrik Verwoerd, BJ Vorster and PW Botha who designed a nation around racial exclusion, the systems they built that still shape land ownership, education and capital, and the moral stain they left on South Africa's collective conscience, might themselves find it darkly amusing that a billionaire born into their system now claims to be a victim of the modest policies intended to redress their legacy. For context, broad-based BEE is a constitutional corrective measure aimed at broadening economic participation in a country where, until 1994, economic exclusion was state policy, not an unfortunate oversight. In contrast, apartheid's architecture was unapologetically and systematically racist: the Population Registration Act, Group Areas Act, Bantu Education Act and job reservation laws didn't merely discriminate; they surgically engineered white economic dominance. That dominance is precisely what broad-based BEE seeks to rebalance. Musk's claim is not only historically tone deaf, it is philosophically disingenuous. To cry 'racism' in response to redress is to mistake rebalancing for reversal. And it reveals a more unsettling truth — when you've been standing on a platform your whole life, equality can feel like a step down. One wonders whether Musk, who is never short on opinions or ambition, has ever considered the ancient logic of Aristotle or, more pointedly, whether he and others are inclined to understand it. Writing in Nicomachean Ethics , Aristotle argued that 'equals should be treated equally, and unequals unequally in proportion to their inequality'. In South Africa, we are not grappling with parity, but with the structural residue of engineered inequality. Redress, then, is not discrimination, it is moral logic. Put simply, treating equals equally means giving everyone the same treatment when they are in the same position. But when people have been treated unequally for generations, justice requires a different approach — one that corrects the imbalance. That's why fairness doesn't always mean treating everyone the same, it means helping those who've been disadvantaged to reach the same starting line. And what of those South Africans comfortably situated, well-educated and often beneficiaries of generational advantage who argue that 'it wasn't our generation' who created apartheid, so why should 'they' be burdened with its legacy? To them, the question must be returned — if you did not build the house, but you live in it, benefit from it and defend it against renovation, are you not still responsible for its condition? Historical accountability is not about guilt, it is about participation in repair. Justice is not a backward-looking punishment, it is a forward-looking commitment to shared dignity — our collective dignity. To be clear, the failure of broad-based BEE to deliver broad-based empowerment lies not in its intention, but in its execution. The ANC-led government bears responsibility for allowing elite capture, fronting and narrow enrichment to undermine what was meant to be a structural rebalancing. Instead of building inclusive economic capacity, it too often reinforced patronage networks. But if the ANC eroded trust through dysfunction, the Democratic Alliance is deepening public suspicion by challenging the constitutionality of the broad-based BEE Act in court. Rather than proposing viable alternatives for redress, the party's actions risk signalling that any attempt to correct historical injustice is, by default, unjust to those who benefited from it. Yet, in typical Musk fashion, his intervention in South African discourse lacks nuance and arrives via tweet. One moment, he decries broad-based BEE, the next, he tweets an old video of Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema, as if to say: ' S ee? This is the real threat.' It's a lazy pivot, to be honest. Shifting the conversation from the facts of structural injustice to the spectacle of populist provocation. Malema's often incendiary 'kill the boer' rhetoric is indeed unhelpful, especially in a country still healing from generational trauma. It risks reinforcing fear and feeding narratives that sidestep the real work of transformation. But, to conflate Malema's performance politics with the foundational purpose of broad-based BEE is to mistake smoke for fire. It's not justice Musk is afraid of, it's the rebalancing of power. And all of this plays out while Starlink, Musk's satellite internet venture, is reportedly making renewed efforts to gain access to the South African market. But, instead of partnering with black-owned enterprises, as required under broad-based BEE regulations, the strategy seems to favour proxy arrangements and regulatory pressure. It's the familiar formula — enter the economy, but avoid transformation. Musk's approach to broad-based BEE appears to mirror his business logic — reach the underserved, but on his terms, not the country's. The irony is staggering — decrying exclusion while resisting the very instruments designed to ensure inclusive access. broad-based BEE does not criminalise whiteness. It does not confiscate. It does not exclude based on race, it includes based on disadvantage. It offers no favours, only a fairer footing in a race some were never allowed to enter. To call that 'racist' is to eat at the table apartheid set for you and complain when someone else is finally offered a chair. Yes, broad-based BEE is imperfect. Its implementation has suffered under the weight of bureaucracy, political opportunism and elite capture. But, its necessity remains unquestionable unless, of course, one believes that justice should come without cost or inconvenience to those who benefited from injustice. Ultimately, this moment calls for a different kind of leadership; one that is not afraid of complexity, discomfort or delayed gratification. South Africa does not need leaders who weaponise redress for political capital, nor those who reduce structural injustice to soundbites. We need leaders who are historically literate, morally grounded and publicly accountable. We need leaders who understand that economic transformation is not a populist slogan nor a corporate box-tick, but a long-term act of national repair. In the face of inherited inequality, true leadership demands not defensiveness but responsibility. Elon Musk's wealth may well fund the future. But his view on broad-based BEE reminds us that history has a peculiar way of repeating itself, especially when the powerful feel discomforted by equality. Justice in South Africa was never going to be comfortable. But if the price of transformation is that a few billionaires feel momentarily uneasy, it is a price well worth paying. Dr Armand Bam is head of social impact at Stellenbosch Business School.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Is there a genocide of white South Africans as Trump claims?
US President Donald Trump has given members of South Africa's Afrikaner community refugee status, alleging that a genocide was taking place in the country. Nearly 60 of them have arrived in the US after being granted asylum. The South African government allowed the US embassy to consider their applications inside the country, and let the group board a chartered flight from the main international airport in Johannesburg - not scenes normally associated with refugees fleeing persecution. South African History Online sums up their identity by pointing out that "the modern Afrikaner is descended mainly from Western Europeans who settled on the southern tip of Africa during the middle of the 17th Century". A mixture of Dutch (34.8%), German (33.7%) and French (13.2%) settlers, they formed a "unique cultural group" which identified itself "completely with African soil", South African History Online noted. Their language, Afrikaans, is quite similar to Dutch. But as they planted their roots in Africa, Afrikaners, as well as other white communities, forced black people to leave their land. Afrikaners are also known as Boers, which actually means farmer, and the group is still closely associated with farming. In 1948, South Africa's Afrikaner-led government introduced apartheid, or apartness, taking racial segregation to a more extreme level. This included laws which banned marriages across racial lines, reserved many skilled and semi-skilled jobs for white people, and forced black people to live in what were called townships and homelands. They were also denied a decent education, with Afrikaner leader Hendrik Verwoerd infamously remarking in the 1950s that "blacks should never be shown the greener pastures of education. They should know their station in life is to be hewers of wood and drawers of water". Afrikaner dominance of South Africa ended in 1994, when black people were allowed to vote for the first time in a nationwide election, bringing Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) to power. Afrikaners currently number more than 2.5 million out of a population of more than 60 million - about 4%. None of South Africa's political parties - including those that represent Afrikaners and the white community in general - have claimed that there is a genocide in South Africa. But such claims have been circulating among right-wing groups for many years and Trump also referred to a genocide during his first term. The claims stem from attacks on white farmers, or misleading information circulated online. In February, a South African judge dismissed the idea of a genocide as "clearly imagined" and "not real", when ruling in an inheritance case involving a wealthy benefactor's donation to white supremacist group Boerelegioen. South Africa does not release crime figures based on race but the latest figures revealed that 6,953 people were murdered in the country between October and December 2024. Of these, 12 were killed in farm attacks. Of the 12, one was a farmer, while five were farm dwellers and four were employees, who are likely to have been black. Defending his decision to give Afrikaners refugee status, Trump said that a "genocide" was taking place in South Africa, white farmers were being "brutally killed" and their "land is being confiscated". Trump said that he was not sure how he could attend the G20 summit of world leaders, due to be held in South Africa later this year, in such an environment. "I don't know how we can go unless that situation's taken care of," he added. South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has said it was "completely false" to claim that "people of a certain race or culture are being targeted for persecution". Referring to the first group who have moved to the US, he said: "They are leaving because they don't want to embrace the changes that are taking place in our country and our constitution." The government denies that land is being confiscated from farmers, saying that a bill Ramaphosa signed into law in January was aimed at addressing the land dispossession that black people faced during white-minority rule. But the law has been condemned by the Democratic Alliance (DA), Ramaphosa's main coalition partner in government. The DA say it will challenge the law in South Africa's highest court, as it threatens property rights. Trump's close adviser Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, has referred to the country's "racist ownership laws", alleging that his satellite internet service provider Starlink was "not allowed to operate in South Africa simply because I'm not black". To operate in South Africa, Starlink needs to obtain network and service licences, which both require 30% ownership by historically disadvantaged groups. This mainly refers to South Africa's majority black population, which was shut out of the economy during the racist system of apartheid. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) - a regulatory body in the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors - told the BBC that Starlink had never submitted an application for a licence. Musk has also accused the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the fourth-largest party in South Africa, of "actively promoting" a genocide through a song it sings at its rallies. Racially charged row between Musk and South Africa over Starlink EFF leader Julius Malema's trademark song is "Shoot the Boer, Shoot the farmer", which he sings at political rallies. Afrikaner lobby groups have tried to get the song banned, saying it was highly inflammatory and amounted to hate speech. However, South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled that Malema is within his rights to sing the lyrics - first popularised during the anti-apartheid struggle - at political rallies. The court ruled that a "reasonably well-informed person" would understand that when "protest songs are sung, even by politicians, the words are not meant to be understood literally, nor is the gesture of shooting to be understood as a call to arms or violence". Instead, the song was a "provocative way" of advancing the EFF's political agenda - which was to end "land and economic injustice". Lobby group AfriForum filed an appeal against the ruling, but South Africa's highest court refused to hear the case, saying it had little chance of succeeding. In 2023, South Africa's former President Thabo Mbeki urged Malema to stop singing the song, saying it was no longer politically relevant as the anti-apartheid struggle was over. The ANC says it no longer sings it, but it cannot "prescribe to other political parties what they must sing". It doesn't look like it. In March, a business group said that close to 70,000 Afrikaners had expressed interest in moving to the US following Trump's offer - from an estimated population of 2.5 million. On Monday, the US embassy in South Africa released a statement clarifying the criteria for resettlement, saying it covered people from any racial minority, not just Afrikaners, who could cite an incident of past persecution or fear of persecution in the future. South Africa's most recent census, done in 2022, shows that Coloureds, (an officially used term meaning people of mixed racial origin) are the largest minority, making up 8% of the population. They are followed by white people, including Afrikaners, at 7%, and Asians at 3%. After Trump's offer, Afrikaner lobby group Solidarity posted an article on its website headlined: "Ten historical reasons to stay in South Africa". In parliament last week, the leader of the right-wing Freedom Front Plus party said they were committed to South Africa. "We are bound to Africa and will build a future for ourselves and our children here," Corné Mulder said. Do Afrikaners want to take Trump up on his South African refugee offer? PODCAST: Are white Afrikaners really being targeted in South Africa? What's really driving Trump's fury with South Africa? Go to for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica Africa Daily Focus on Africa
