Seeking refuge in Trump's USA won't exorcise Afrikaner demons

Kim Heller

IN the daybreak of shattered dreams and fallen hope, South Africans are desperately searching for a promised land at the end of the Rainbow Nation. For Afrikaners, Trump's America is their newfound nirvana. Some Afrikaners are lining up for a whiter and brighter future in their new homeland of America, choosing the fate of being refugees in a foreign land rather than submitting to a transforming South Africa.

Oscar-winning performances in victimhood by the right-wing public protector of Afrikaner interests, AfriForum, and Afrikaners themselves have touched the sensibilities of the US President, Donald Trump.

In a dramatic cinematic climax, persecuted Afrikaners from South Africa's demonic democracy flee to America. This is a folk tale, written not on the ink of prejudice or persecution but on the fountainhead of racial privilege. In reality, this group of Afrikaners is not running away from persecution but escaping from the very prospect of economic parity and historical justice in South Africa.

On Monday, May 12, America welcomed forty-nine Afrikaners as refugees. They will be provided with shelter and sustenance in the "Land of the Free."

A day after the Afrikaners arrived in America, US Senator Jeanne Shaheen drew attention to the fact that in 2024, the United Nations found that no South Africans were eligible for refugee status.

It is a grand farce from the microwaving of instant refugees to the jolliness of the official reception. The easy embrace of white refugees, who, unlike black or brown refugees, are not viewed as a threat to the American superstructure and cultural symmetry, is racial gatekeeping in action.

Words matter in the trick and treat of politics. Trump's executive order refers to admitting refugees who "can fully and appropriately assimilate." For many Afrikaners, assimilation into a black-governed South Africa has been an exercise in trauma rather than transformation, and they are more likely to embrace and respect white-centered American rules, culture and values than African ones.

Scenes of Afrikaners waving American flags with pride and patriotism, never shown towards democratic South Africa or its flag, were a dazzling display of duplicity. To trumpet this Great Trek of Afrikaners to America as a voyage of escape from persecution is historically, factually, and morally dishonest. Not only does it denigrate the desperate plight of genuine refugees, but it scorns and disrespects the gigantic measures taken by the ANC government to build reconciliation and non-racialism.

After the bloodshed of apartheid and colonialism, Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first democratically elected President, extended a hand of reconciliation and peace to white South Africans, despite their acts of grave inhumanity against black South Africans. In a 1997 speech, Mandela spoke of Apartheid as a deliberate system of colonial economic and spiritual oppression.

Despite being gifted with free passes to be part of democratic South Africa in 1994, white South Africans, on the whole, have abused this gracious gift of goodwill. Three decades later, we have yet to offer reparations for apartheid atrocities and colonial cruelty. Finding easy shelter in the Rainbow Nation, most of us have happily preserved and protected our structural power and privilege.

Democratic South Africa is no paradise. There has been no pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow for the majority of its people. In spinning its tale of Afrikaners as persecuted and prejudiced, AfriForum makes a real feast of the generally poor performance of the ANC government, the alarming unemployment and crime statistics and evokes a worst-case scenario on land seizures.

Farm murders, a tiny fraction of murders in South Africa, have been deliberately exaggerated and emotionalised. The carefully crafted white lies have successfully trumped the truth and helped to fast-track the easy entry of Afrikaners into America. White tears shed for the plight of the Afrikaners have drowned out the cries and pleas from Global South refugees whose case for sanctuary is both legitimate and desperate. Such is the power and heartlessness of whiteness.

AfriForum's crusade in America coalesces comfortably with the rising global wave of right-wing politicking intent on supersizing the currency of white supremacy and rule while junking black governance and sovereignty.

As Afrikaners adventure in America, white South Africans should reflect on their moral compass. We must speak out against the fake claims of persecution against white people in South Africa. We must not dismiss this as a fringe group to which we do not belong or subscribe. For as long as we continue to cash in on our unearned power and privilege, we are implicated in the never-ending story of white supremacy in South Africa.

Some Afrikaners have spoken of losing their country, but South Africa was never theirs. Nor is it the rightful land of any other group of white settlers. While Afrikaners may find their white wonderland in America, South Africans are dealing with the sad reality that our miracle nation is but a myth.

For white South Africans, the pilgrimage of privilege by Afrikaners to America provides an inflexion point. We cannot allow this to build up momentum against transformation or progressive economic policies. White South Africans are prone to symbolic acts of racial harmony. It is not enough. It is time for all white South Africans to show their true patriotism to a just, free and equitable South Africa. We must pass the humanity test and show that we are not the most ungrateful and racist people on earth.

* Kim Heller is a political analyst and author of No White Lies: Black Politics and White Power in South Africa.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.