What does NRC think | By rolling out the red carpet for White South Africans, a disinformation campaign in the US is becoming policy

Rarely are people who flee receive open arms as the group of white South Africans who arrived in Washington this week. Not only their airline tickets and shelter were paid by the US, they were also welcomed with all Egds by two ministers. One of them, sub -minister Christopher Landau, explained at the airport that his own family had found Hitler shelter in the US. According to Landau, the inclusion of the Afrikaners group, descendants of especially Dutch settlers, was proof that the US rejects the « shameful persecution of people based on race ». According to President Trump, the South Africans are even victims of a « genocide. »

This is absurd. The priority of Afrikaners as a ‘refugee’ shows again that the Trump government is willing to make policy based on fake news and conspiracy theories. That policy has the meaning of the word refugee in a time when asylum applications from, among others, Afghans, Iraqis and black Africans in the US have been suspended. Moreover, it intervenes extensively in the mutual relationships of a country, South Africa, which after more than 350 years of colonial oppression has only begun to shake off the loaded past.

More than 63 million people live in South Africa. About 7 percent of the population regards themselves as white. On average, the income of households with a white main cost winner has about four times that of black households. According to Statistics Agency Stats SA, unemployment among black South Africans is 46 percent, while 9 percent of the white South Africans are unemployed. If you include ownership, then the white population is According to inequality researchers Twenty times more capital than the black ones.

It is true that, thirty years after the end of apartheid, it has become less easy for the white minority to get to work or otherwise lead a carefree life. Companies, universities and governments have been given quotas to appoint people from previously disadvantaged groups in managerial positions. That crime in South Africa is a serious problem because of great inequality is also true. It is not incomprehensible that when they live in fear, people seize an opportunity to settle elsewhere.

But also in a relative sense, black South Africans are still the most often victims of crime. Many studies showed that with so -called pussyattacks on isolated white farmers, skin color is not a motif. In order to do something about the unequal distribution of agricultural land, new legislation has to make it easier to expropriate unused land, but no farmer has been put without compensation of his land. White South Africans have lost their legal privileges. But no matter how you look at the numbers, they are not continued.

The fact that a small group of influential South Africans around Trump whisperer Elon Musk has nevertheless wise the US president that Afrikaners should be systematically discriminated against and saved is the crown of years of disinformation campaign of radical-right groups worldwide. Until this week, the FtMusks AI platform grok users gave unsolicited information about the non-existing ‘white genocide’. The fact that such a thing in the US now falls into fertile earth undermines international agreements about asylum and migration. Moreover, it once again exposes a racist ideology that was so professionally settled in South Africa, after the atrocities of the apartheid regime.

To share

Mail the editors