EMILY GILL

Although I do not typically write about international politics, the May visit of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to the Oval Office and his interchange there with President Trump could not help but catch my attention. Trump has recently admitted a first group of Afrikaners, many of whom are farmers, to the U.S. with refugee status. Afrikaners are a Dutch-descended, white ethnic minority that ruled the black majority with an iron fist during apartheid in South Africa. Since apartheid ended in 1994, the government has tried to adjust the economic imbalance created by apartheid by redistributing some black South African land previously seized by first colonial and then apartheid governments. The government has long purchased land from white farmers. Despite these efforts, black citizens lag behind white citizens on almost every count. White farms comprise about half of South Africa, but whites are only 7% of the population.

This year, President Ramaphosa signed a law that enabled the government to seize land without compensation when this is in the public interest. Landowners may challenge seizures through a legal judicial process, and legal experts suggest that these seizures should be rare. Back in the 1990’s, however, Trump seized on a news item suggesting that nonwhites might eventually constitute a majority in the U.S., reacting by saying that the U.S. was not “going to become South Africa.” The country has high levels of violence, unfortunately, and some killings of white farmers have occurred — but at levels no higher than those of violent crimes against others.

The situation has apparently been top-of-mind for President Trump. Afrikaner activists (a minority of white citizens) have noted the rallying cry of “Kill the Boer” (Boer means farmer in Dutch and Afrikaans) from which the ruling African National Congress party distanced itself many years ago. But this plus efforts to help black South Africans have apparently resonated with Trump administration officials against D.E.I., who told Afrikaner activists at the White House in February that public policy should be based only on merit. All these factors eventuated in the claim by the Trump administration that the South African government is engaged in a genocide against white South Africans, especially white farmers.

When so many others, such as former Afghan allies, are being turned away from the U.S. as refugees even before they are given an opportunity to explain why they deserve that status, the obvious question is why South Africans are different. Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau replied that South Africans are not a threat to national security. Moreover, “They could be easily assimilated into our country.” In other words, they are white. I cannot help but recall a remark made by President Trump during his first administration when he wondered why people wanting to immigrate to the U.S. could not be Norwegians.

With free elections in 1994 that raised Nelson Mandela to the presidency, the upholders of apartheid were also allowed to compete, winning 20% of the vote and a role in both the government and in the drafting of the country’s new constitution, one that enshrined their rights. There is in fact corruption in South Africa that has enriched a black elite, and the Afrikaans middle class has declined as in many countries. But a high level of violence, particularly in rural areas, does not equate to government complicity, let alone to white genocide. As put by journalist Richard Poplak, South Africa is a violent state, “But the forgiveness extended to the white minority at the end of apartheid is one of the most exceptionally human and humane moments of our species’ bloody history.” Afrikaners are a minority in South Africa, but this does not mean they are victims. It is deplorable that refugee status is accorded to white South Africans when it is denied to the truly needy.