59 Afrikaners from South Africa get refugee status in US

In a strange twist of logic, US President Donald Trump, who had been opposed to immigration, had declared in February this year that white South Africans would be granted refugee status in the US because they faced discrimination in their own country, and that they even faced ‘genocide’. In response to this 59 Afrikaners reached the US.

The Afrikaners are descendants of 17th century Dutch colonists, and they are farmers. They are also known as Boers, and the British colonists had fought a war with them in South Africa. The Afrikaners were also the main proponents of the apartheid regime in South Africa which had ended in 1994.

The African National Congress (ANC) government representing the African black majority had said that it could expropriate huge lands owned by the Afrikaners for public interest. This has been interpreted to mean that the Afrikaners were being dispossessed. And Trump used this as a ground of discrimination. He also said that he is not supporting the Afrikaner cause because they are whites. He said that their colour does not interest him.

The reason behind Trump’s special interest in the Afrikaner issue is because of his close aide and billionaire Elon Musk, who is a South African by birth. And he has been talking of discrimination against the white minority.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said, “We think that the American government has got the wrong end of the stick here, but we’ll continue talking to them.” Trump said that South African leaders would be travelling to Washington for discussion on bilateral issues, but that he will not travel to South Africa for the G20 summit in November unless the situation changed.

The statistical record is that the white minority owns three-fourths of private land and they have 20 times the wealth of the black majority. The unemployment rate among whites is 10 per cent compared to three-fourths among the blacks.

There was a similar issue of whites owning large tracts of farmland in Zimbabwe too, and under the dictatorial rule of Robert Mugabe they were sought to be thrown away without any compensation. It led to tensions and the move did not alter the volatile economic situation in the country. Many Zimbabweans went to South Africa seeking employment, and this had given rise to tensions in South Africa which was facing unemployment and economic stress of its own.

The ANC in South Africa has been working on a nuanced policy and it did not exclude the white minority. The whites form a significant part of the political process and of the national parliament. They have a voice which they had denied to the black majority during the apartheid era.

There has been opposition to Trump’s move from the local Episcopal Church which was asked to resettle the Afrikaners. Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe in a letter to the congregation members said, “It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years.”

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement, “The decision by this administration to put one group at the front of the line is clearly politically motivated and an effort to rewrite history.”

Trump and his aides are sure to ignore any criticism of their Afrikaner policy. It is also likely that not many Afrikaners would take up the Trump offer because they are quite rooted in South Africa and they are as close to the soil as the black majority. They are not going to uproot themselves and be absorbed in a large society where they do not count for much.