Understanding Trump's Attack on South Africa

Hypocrisy is the key to politics

Many of my subscribers have undoubtedly been following the recent debate regarding the dispute between South Africa and the United States.

For what it's worth, I wanted to share my perspective on what I think is going on and why the situation is dangerous for South Africa.

First, I don’t believe America would have reacted this way if South Africa had not filed a complaint against Israel at the International Court of Justice, alleging genocide. US-South Africa relations have always been vague and ambigious, but alienating America’s most important ally in the Middle East was the final straw in a series of diplomatic missteps. As a result, we are now shifting toward being viewed as a US “enemy state”.

Before South Africa took its case to the ICJ, I asked Minister Gwede Mantashe, then Minister of Energy, whether the ANC had conducted a cost-benefit analysis on the matter. His response was purely emotional, insinuating that I supported oppression. When I mentioned that my wife was from the Middle East and that I fully understood the treatment of Palestinians, he became even angrier. From that exchange, I had the impression that the ANC had never seriously attempted such an analysis and that the government had not taken a calculated risk in its decision. Consequently it is paying the price, that many of us including myself warned about, because America does not tolerate "anti"-western actions”.

That aside, as an Afrikaner myself, I’d like to share my perspective on what I believe is happening locally and where this recent resentment inside South Africa comes from. In my view, it stems from three main causes, which cannot simply be dismissed as “racism” or “disinformation” by our local media houses, who should know better.

1. The land issue in South Africa is an ongoing conflict that remains a lingering legacy of colonial rule, which the government has yet to resolve clearly. Current legislation aimed at expropriating farmland for example refers to the concept of “nil compensation”, but it fails to precisely define what 'nil compensation' entails. Additionally, the situation is exacerbated by the fact that the current foreign minister, in his youth, delivered demagogic speeches and made threats reminiscent of those by Julius Malema - the leader of the third largest opposition party who openly called for “the slaughter of whites”. To provide more context, since 1994, a series of brutal farm murders have occurred in South Africa. Unlike in Zimbabwe, these attacks were not state-sponsored. Even Afrikaner organizations sympathetic to concerns about farm murders acknowledged that the killings were part of a broader trend of violence in the country. However, they cautioned against the political climate in which they occurred.The statistics show that approximately eight farm murders occur per month, while the general trend in South Africa—the most violent country in the world—was around 40 to 50 murders per day.

   However, what is frequently absent from discussions is the government's dismissive stance toward the issue and its failure to acknowledge the impact on local Afrikaner communities, who feel increasingly threatened by inflammatory political rhetoric that periodically flames up in South Africa. Many of these murders have been notably been marked by extreme sadistic brutality, often preceded by incident where the victims were tortured for hours before they were executed. Yet, to avoid provoking a 'white backlash,' local media largely downplayed the problem and suggested that it was a conspiracy theory promoted by “white supremacists”— that is until it gained international attention, notably when it was highlighted by Donald Trump during his first term in office. What is even more tragic is how counter productive the debate was, because I don’t believe that many white people, including Afrikaners, actually oppose land reform—so long as it’s not implemented in the manner that occurred in neighbouring Zimbabwe where notably Robert Mugabe launched a state sponsored murder campaign against the former white Rhodesians.

2. The language issue, too often overlooked by many commentators. I have repeatedly tried to publicly raise awareness about the sensitivity of language for Afrikaners, but each time, I have failed to convince my counterparts in the South African media that this is a major point of contention. The recent Bela Bill is just one of many measures the South African government has implemented during decades of education reform. Each time, linguistic concerns have been largely ignored, with the government siding against groups who argued in favor of Afrikaans only instruction. There was a positive attempt in the mid-1990s when Nelson Mandela created the Gerwel Commission, which proposed reasonable legislation to promote language rights. However, when I spoke to Apartheid historian Herman Giliomee, he told me that these opportunities were lost due to internal struggles among Afrikaner chancellors within universities. The English-Afrikaans issue in South Africa is comparable to Quebec, where there is a minority, who for historical reasons for feel sensitive about their home language being absorbed by the historical colonial language.

3. Racial policies. Many internal conflicts, that are now being exploited, could be avoided if South Africa abandoned race-based laws and instead adopted a class-based approach to affirmative action policies that exists in many western countries such as France, the UK, and throughout the European Union. Many white people, especially those in the diaspora, feel alienated and migrated because raced based classification laws forced them to seek green pastures elsewhere.

   As a result, we find ourselves in a dangerous situation where Donald Trump is now surrounded by many white South Africans—such as those from the "PayPal Mafia"—who have become very successful in the United States but still remember how they were treated when the country “retrenched them”. Elon Musk is not a sole actor, but rather a symptom of the larger problem. As the graph below shows, South Africans have some of the highest earnings in America among all African migrants, (the value is median, hence it is not influenced by Musk’s richness).

   Unfortunately unlike the Israeli Lobby, they carry a resentment against the local SA government.

   

Finally, I believe that many opportunists are exaggerating the situation and exploiting it for obvious reasons. However, it is important to not be too dismissive and to recognize that some of these concerns are real and relatively simple to address. The ANC must reflect on its role in creating this situation and its inaction on implementing solutions that were written years ago. It is not only about Israel but also about how whites, particularly Afrikaners, were treated in the new democratic dispensation.

Finally, it should go without saying that few today would deny the impact of Apartheid on the black population at large and that they too feel threatened when they see Musk taunting the ANC president Ramaphosa. But what provoked the diaspora was how the South Africa government alienated them in the post 1994 dispensation—showing indifference when they were forced out of the civil service, when their language was marginalized, or when the government justified exclusion by citing a so-called "skills gap" as a pretext for not employing whites. The most blatant example of this is the fact that 150 South Africans helped build a nuclear reactor in the United Arab Emirates while their own country continued to struggle with electricity shortages.

I am personally pessimistic that America’s approach will allow the ANC to make concessions while enabling the United States to avoid exerting a “maximum pressure” campaign on South Africa. Elon Musk’s recent move to “sanction” Julius Malema may be welcomed by many whites who have long sought action for his impunity, but I suspect that their support for Musk and Trump is bound to backfire, because it is going to make the ANC supporters “rally around the flag”.

If the history of Iran and Zimbabwe is anything to go by, sanctions do not help reform a situation. In fact, the evidence shows that they often make it worse—especially for the average person. This includes “individual sanctions” that Afrikaner lobby groups such as Afriforum and Elon Musk are now advocating for.

I do not see anything good to come of this.