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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
The Citizen
14-05-2025
- Politics
- The Citizen
White persecution myth: What the data on jobs and land really says
There's no genocide and no persecution. There is, however, discrimination based on race in many sectors of our society. The first group of Afrikaners from South Africa to arrive for resettlement in the US. Picture: Saul Loeb / AFP There has been plenty of emotional comment from both sides on Donald Trump's crusade to save Afrikaners and other minorities in South Africa from genocide and land expropriation without compensation. That's why it is interesting to consider a few facts – as opposed to opinions. Two which emerged this week should give pause for thought. In the unemployment figures released yesterday for the first quarter of 2025, there were stark differences in the rate of joblessness across the various race groups. Most noteworthy, though – especially given the current narrative that whites are being discriminated against in the work sector – is that white unemployment stands at 7.3%, while the rate for black Africans is 37%. Those are facts, not opinions. Another fact, which we report today, is that not only have forced land expropriations not yet started – the hysterical claims of right-wingers notwithstanding – but the government has spent R217 million in 2024-25 in settling land claims mainly from black people. ALSO READ: Texas Chicken Run highlights white privilege Land has been acquired for money and not by force and people deprived of their land during the years of colonialism and apartheid have been compensated. Taken together, whether you like it or not, those two facts give the lie to the assertion that white people are being persecuted. And therein lies the rub. No genocide, no persecution. But there is discrimination based on race in many sectors of our society. That, along with fear of crime – which is at insane levels – is why many, and not just ethnic minorities – have left this country. Those 49 people who arrived in Washington this week were looking for a better life for their kids. That's a powerful motivator. Many see little hope for our broken country – and that's why we must fix it. NOW READ: Afrikaners pawns on Trump's board
The Citizen
13-05-2025
- Politics
- The Citizen
Texas Chicken Run highlights white privilege
The US fast-tracking of Afrikaner refugees highlights white privilege, while thousands of other refugees are left stranded in limbo. It has probably cost the US state department almost $1 million (about R18 million) to charter a wide-body Boeing 767 to fly the first batch of 49 white Afrikaner 'refugees' to their new home in America, to say nothing of the fast-tracking of the asylum process, which normally takes up to three years. Then, there will need to be some financial support for these people fleeing 'persecution' at home. Presumably some may claim their land has been expropriated or that they're unemployed because B-BBEE discriminates against white people. All the while, another 12 000 people who have been through the full, formal process to get US residence as refugees, are left hanging because President Donald Trump officially suspended the refugee programme the day he took office on 20 January. Now, as the Yanks might say about their new compatriots, that's some white privilege right there… According to the US embassy, the asylum offer is now open to any South African who is a member of a minority and who has either experienced 'persecution' or believes they may be subject to persecution. ALSO READ: Ramaphosa to meet Trump, says 49 Afrikaners headed to US are not 'refugees' No doubt there will be many who will see this as an opportunity to get out of a country inexorably being run into the ground by the ANC – but is this fleeing from persecution or is it merely economic migration? The right-wing lobby in this country has succeeded in convincing Trump that white people are not safe in South Africa. And, in so doing, they have thoroughly poisoned the well of race relations here. Interesting to see that one of those lobbyists, Kallie Kriel, has no intention of joining the Texas Chicken Run, because he wants to stay and improve things here. So, Kriel, why didn't you try to do that right from the beginning, instead of lighting the fuse and then melting into the background? NOW READ: Afrikaners who accepted Trump's refugee offer 'know there's no persecution in SA' – expert
