It was an afternoon flooded with harsh paradoxes. Despite the heart-wrenching brutality unfolding in Gaza, where a potential catastrophic humanitarian crisis involving death of as many as 14,000 infants loomed, the US President Donald Trump directed accusations of ‘white genocide’ towards South Africa. With little regard for tact, he bluntly questioned the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa about the alleged murders of white farmers in South Africa. Clearly blindsided, Ramaphosa had no option but to gently defend against the provocative line of questioning; yet Trump seemed keen on either sparking a dispute or forcing a submission.
In Trump’s narration, white South African citizens were reportedly fleeing due to violent and ethnically biased laws, with the president using imagery to support his stance that a ‘genocide’ was underway. As part of his demonstration, Trump asked for the room’s lights to be dimmed and played a video featuring South African opposition party leader Julius Malema endorsing land expropriation in a parliament session. An additional clip showed Malema leading the chant ‘Kill the Boer’, a slogan that calls back to the era of mobilization against apartheid rule.
According to Trump, another video depicted burial sites for over 1,000 white farmers. But these claims couldn’t be further from the truth. There is no evidence supporting a white genocide in South Africa. White South Africans not only control a larger share of the country’s property, but they also enjoy better access to resources like education, healthcare, and employment opportunities, and boast a higher overall living standard than Black South Africans.
Although they make up only around seven percent of the total population, white South African residents are the owners of 72 percent of the country’s agricultural land, compared with just four percent by Black Africans who constitute 81 percent of the population. Rather than being burial sites, the ‘white crosses’ Trump referred to were elements of a protest in 2020 symbolizing farmers allegedly murdered.
Throughout Trump’s unwarranted onslaught, Ramaphosa managed to maintain his composure, looking on with an air of puzzled calm. Presumably, he came prepared knowing that both Trump and Elon Musk had been tangling with South African issues. For Elon Musk, who rejects compliance with South Africa’s laws requiring a minimum of 30 percent economic involvement or company ownership by Black South Africans, the initiation of his Starlink project in the country is on hold.
Attempting to discredit South Africa was an orchestrated effort, underscored by the landing of 54 white ‘refugees’ from South Africa in the US earlier the same month. Prior to Trump’s assumption of office, the Biden administration had voiced its disapproval of Pretoria’s decision to charge Israel with genocide in the International Court of Justice. Lobbyists for Israel also made their own attempts to tarnish South Africa’s image in Washington.
What could be a more effective diversion, then, but to accuse South Africa of acting out a genocide? By framing the narrative this way, real issues of human rights violations elsewhere conveniently escape the spotlight. This year, the South African government passed a law endorsing land expropriation aimed at bridging the substantial disparity in land possession among the public.
While detractors criticised the move as a ploy to unjustly seize private land without compensation, Ramaphosa’s office defended it as a constitutionally approved legal procedure facilitating fair access to land as guided by the South African Constitution. Following the law’s enactment in January, a legal scholar expressed doubt about its efficacy for meaningful land reform. She acknowledged the potential severe impact on property rights, but suggested compensation would be forfeited in only very limited cases.
While there have been no instances of land taken by the state without compensation as of yet, the Trump administration halted aid to South Africa in February over accusations of ‘unfair racial discrimination’. In August 2018, Trump had first delved into this topic by ordering the then US secretary of state to investigate claims of ‘land and farm seizures’ and ‘large-scale killings of white farmers’ in South Africa.
Trump’s comments likely drew from right-wing American news reports spotlighting unverified accounts of rampant murders of white farmers in South Africa. However, a Washington Post analysis of the country’s crime statistics indicated that compared to the general population, farmers were considerably less likely to be victims of violent crime.
For Trump, adopting the narrative of a ‘white genocide’ was a successful strategy—exploiting the fears and biases of his Maga support base and further propagating white supremacist ideologies around a community allegedly under threat. The Southern Poverty Law Center expressed concern over Trump’s move, noting it as an alarming indication of white nationalist ‘white genocide’ narratives becoming mainstream – narratives which consider farm murders in South Africa as a key feature.
Various organizations raising awareness about the emergence of white supremacy in the US during Trump’s first term also voiced their concerns. Curiously, no statement condemning the ‘white genocide’ allegations has been released by the pro-Israel lobby. Disturbingly, Trump’s successful diversion from the ongoing genocide in Gaza serves their interests.
President Ramaphosa is not without his own controversies. He will always be associated with the tragedy in 2012, when 34 black miners were shot dead by police in a small mining town. Though not president at that time, a commission of inquiry later cleared Ramaphosa of any wrongdoing. The incident still stirs controversy and discomfort among many.
During Ramaphosa’s White House visit, a reporter asked Trump what could lead him to rethink his ‘white genocide’ stance. Ramaphosa’s response was simple but poignant – ‘It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans.’, he said. The fact that Ramaphosa has emerged from this confrontation largely unscathed, successfully avoiding direct accusations of overseeing a ‘white genocide’ in a country where black citizens experience disproportionate hardship, is not just irony, it is a sobering tale.
The unemployment rate among Black South Africans was around 38 percent last year, in contrast with just eight percent for white South Africans. In a narrative filled with deep inequalities, rampant crime and systemic lack of opportunities for the majority, it remains white fears – echoing mindsets that once justified apartheid – that the Black South African President had to appease. The saddest irony is that even three decades post apartheid, two white South African golfers and a businessman were his best chance to soothe a US President’s ‘concerns’ over a non-existent ‘white genocide’—all to seal the deal on vital mineral sales.
The post Trump’s False Accusations of ‘White Genocide’ in South Africa appeared first on Real News Now.
About Author
