Having lived in South Africa for 30 years I am finding it very hard to stay objective on the recent news about Trump allowing a few white Afrikaans South Africans into the US. Trump is circling a truth with lie, which potentially could make things
worse for white South Africans rather than better.
Most alarming is the fact I'm seeing a lot of racial hatred aimed at white South Africans of all kinds. There is no excuse for that. Racism is wrong. Always. I think Trump is extremely dangerous, but he hasn't made me hate Americans.
- I do not hate Jews because the Israeli government is being an ass to Palestinians. I have Jewish friends; I have Muslim friends
- I do not think my lovely Russian doctor is evil because of Russian aggression towards other countries
- I do not think Shona are evil because Mugabe committed genocide on the Ndebele in the 1980s in my birth land of Zimbabwe. I have Shona friends; I have Ndebele friends
Generic hate of any group is always wrong
Always Wrong
So now let me try to tackle this very complex question about South Africa and why I'm feeling so angry at Trump. No, SA violence is not on the level of Ukraine or Palestine, but it left me with C-PTSD so slow, eroding, constant heightened awareness of danger is still mentally and emotionally damaging.
I have no doubt there are White South Africans, Afrikaans speaking or English, who would love to step away from that and move somewhere where they didn't have to constantly deal with being judged by the colour of their skin. Because yes, White South Africans of all kinds were/still are being constantly judged at a level I have never ever seen other colonial whites (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US, etc) being judged.
I'm not a born South African, I never felt at home there, but I have South African relatives and friends, of all races. I worked in a library that served the local (White Afrikaans) farming community and they were the kindest and nicest people I ever met in South Africa. Maybe I got lucky and met the best? I cannot say. All I can share are the things I experienced or that my friends and family experienced.
These are the things I know:
The attitude in the West, that all white-owned farms should be handed to black farmers is hypocritical. I will agree to it the moment I see these same countries wanting US, Canadian, Australian farmers to hand back their farms.
I can fully support the current South African government wanting to hand over unused land to black farmers. I absolutely cannot support people like Julius Malema inciting violence and death on White farmers. Especially considering the fact many of the farms are on lands that were not populated by any African tribes at the time.
https://www.news24.com/no-malema-european-settlers-didnt-steal-the-land-20161108
The original people of South Africa are the Khoi San. The Zulus and Xhosa migrated south in to South Africa a few 100 years before the Dutch began moving east and north in the 1700s. But check my dates, there may be discrepancies. Some settlers (Dutch, French, German) arrived in the 1600s and some were in the 1800s, like the English, Irish and German settlers in the Eastern Cape who arrived here mostly after the Napoleonic and Crimean wars.
Oh and please also bear in mind that not all farm lands were simply taken. My one teacher's family farm was given to her English missionary father/grandfather by a Zulu king as a thank you for bringing Christianity to his people.
Are White South African farmers (and I do wish they'd include ENGLISH ones) worthy of refugee status?
Well, there are about 3-4 farmers murdered each month in South Africa. That has been consistent, sometimes much higher figures, since the 1990s. Is that normal? I don't know. Do Maoris constantly murder White New Zealand farmers monthly? Do Native Americans attack Canadian and US farms? I have no idea.
If they do, then no this is normal and not a reason to give people preferential treatment or sympathy.
If they don't, then perhaps these farmers have a reason to be feeling anxiety and concern for their families?
If you were them, would you take a free Green card and plane ride to a better life?
Is this the final hypocrisy of the West who seem to want Africa handed back
completely to native Africans yet refuse to do the same in their own
countries? And how come it's OK to hand back ancestral land in Africa,
but my friends and family cannot return to their ancestral lands in
Europe and Britain? Are well supposed to simply vanish, like mist? My family's ancestry in Africa goes back to the 1700s with a German ancestor. Some arrived later, it's true, but Africa is as much a part of who I am as North America is a part of modern day Americans.
