The White Genocide Myth: A tale of twists and segregation
Extremist organisations could not have picked a better time to accuse South Africans and the government, because of the civil unrest due to the frustrations of the majority of the poor with corruption within government, lack of service delivery and land reform . Mfundo Saint, a patriotic (South) African tackles the tough subject with a purpose to enlighten the globe on whether the claims of a white genocide in Mzansi are are true.
Everybody remembers the "Squatter Camps in South Africa" Google search which showed white South Africans in clustered shacks and caused a national outcry which forced Google to respond for their part in the misinformation agenda or #FakeNews if you like.
"We understand that this can cause harm to people of all races, genders and other groups who may be affected by such biases or stereotypes, and we share the concern about this. We have worked, and will continue to work, to improve image results for all of our users." — Google
Though some argued that the search results where due to a lot of people visiting a report prepared by the national broadcaster to show white citizens living in poverty, a few months down the line a more serious topic was doing the rounds on social media as political organisations and NGOs who claim to represent the white citizens in South Africa who are being "forced" off their land because of the "white genocide" of farmers in the country.
To put things into perspective farm murders are less than 0.5% (62 out of 20336) of the total murders in South Africa per annum, while murder of white farmers only represents 0.2%. This image clearly indicates that the conceived genocide is nothing more than extremist propaganda engineered to mislead and misinform the unsuspecting ‘global citizens’. These institutions went even further and accused the government of reducing these figures so the "genocide" could go unnoticed by the world. It got to such a point that the Australian Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton offered citizenship for white farmers who "felt unsafe in their own country".
Why are organisations accusing black South Africans of this non existent genocide?
The issue can be related to the announcement of the government’s intentions to amend section 25 of the constitution, (it has been voted for and approved by the SAn Parliament — see Expropriation Act, 2019 here) to allow for expropriation of land without compensation in order to speed up land reform in South Africa.
The issue of land redistribution was one of the points of redress of the oldest liberation movement in the continent, the African National Congress when it rose to power in 1994, but since then the process has been nothing but slow with people waiting up to 20 years to receive updates for their land claims.
Extremist organisations could not have picked a better time to accuse South Africans and the government, because of the civil unrest due to the frustrations of the majority of the poor with corruption within government, lack of service delivery and land reform .
Unfortunately the masses are justified in their frustrations. Though this has never translated into any white murders (because people have brains luckily) there are still those who fear for the outcomes with some even alluding to belief there is reverse apartheid at play. This couldn’t be further from the truth. South Africa’s democracy was built on the foundation of sacrifice, and until now the only sacrifice white South Africa has had to make is hiring educated black people in their companies. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which asked white people who actively enforced the laws of apartheid, murdering millions and displacing thousands of families to come forward and confess, can never be called a sacrifice.
In light of the announcement of the amendment to the constitution, scores of extremist groups in South Africa and around the world have decided to sell the "white genocide" and "reverse apartheid" rhetoric to their European, Australian brothers and sisters asking for donations to help white citizens in South Africa to relocate to Europe, Australia and America. Even President Donald J Trump has been called upon to intervene and it is no surprise that in August he announced via his twitter feed that US Secretary of State Mr Mike Pompeo will be investigating the reports of large scale killings of white farmers in South Africa.
These stunts are not doing Brand South African any good when it comes to the economy which has been going through a very slow pace thanksto the stock market crash a decade ago. The positive progress of the land reform amendment to the constitution is being met with hostile economic attacks as we saw the ZA Rand weaken but in part due to the fear of the land grabs rhetoric being perpetuated by white extremists misusing their right to freedom of speech enshrined in the constitution of the Republic to cripple the economy into submission so that the political powers that be are pressured to slow the rate of economic transformation the country desperately needs.
A clear example of how far white extremists are willing to go to protect their privilege can be traced back to 2015 when university students where protesting the use of Afrikaans as a medium of teaching in top universities across the country. This protest was due to the special privilege that this affords Afrikaner students who learn in their home language from pre-school right through to tertiary level, never having to switch to English like all African students. This means university classes across the top campuses in South Africa have English classes with majority of African students at any moment in the class or predominantly white Afrikaans classes with much smaller numbers where even teaching materials are translated. The argument here was either they stop using Afrikaans as a medium of instruction as a whole or afford the predominant African students in the area covered by these institutions the opportunity to learn in their own home language. At the University of Pretoria the debate was so heated that when the multiracial student march that was going to hand over a memorandum of grievances to the Dean was met with hostility from the Afrikaans factions of the University, mainly Afriforum, who where blocking the path of the planned march. A literal sticks and stones fight ensued during that conflict.
White privilege has protected Caucasians for a very long time in South Africa and any change is often met with hard hitting propaganda and misinformation. They are always quick to paint a South Africa full of savages everytime the people have called out the government on its inactivity in addressing issues related to white privilege. The same people who claim to be progressive are the first to cry foul when they are called to the table to make sacrifices.
There is no white genocide in South Africa and there will never be one. All South Africans understand the importance of moving forward as a country but there are those who would tarnish its image in hopes of having sanctions imposed on us for a genocide that doesn’t exist in order to prove that African States cannot function with African presidents - pursuing economic conditions that will allow all Africans an equal opportunity in the local and global economy. I close in the words of Julius Malema, President of the Economic Freedom Fighters: "We do not want them to leave, we want them to stay and build this country with us".
Mfundo Saint is a Creative Genius at Algorhythmlab.com with a passion for education, hip hop and grass 🙈
