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PaperclipPerfector  14hr ago (text post)   333 thread views

Transnational Thursday for May 22, 2025

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Is there an ongoing genocide against white South Africans? Reuters says there isn't.

Among the claims contradicted by the evidence:

(1) There is a genocide of white farmers in South Africa.

Supporters of the theory point to murders of white farmers in remote rural parts of the country as proof of a politically orchestrated campaign of ethnic cleansing, rather than ordinary violent crime.

They accuse the Black-majority led government of being complicit in the farm murders, either by encouraging them or at least turning a blind eye. The government strongly denies this.

South Africa has one of the world's highest murder rates, with an average of 72 a day, in a country of 60 million people. Most victims are Black.

The high court in Western Cape province ruled that claims of white genocide were "clearly imagined and not real" in a case earlier this year, forbidding a donation to a white supremacist group on those grounds.

(2) The government is expropriating land from white farmers without compensation, including through violent land seizures, in order to distribute it to Black South Africans.

The government has a policy of attempting to redress inequalities in land ownership that are a legacy of apartheid and colonialism. But no land has been expropriated, and the government has instead tried to encourage white farmers to sell their land willingly.

(3) The "Kill the Boer (farmer)" song sung by some Black South Africans is an explicit call to murder Afrikaners, the ethnic group of European descent who make up the majority of whites and who own most of the farmland.

Three South African courts have ruled against attempts to have it designated as hate speech, on the basis that it is a historical liberation chant, not a literal incitement to violence.

In a statement following the meeting between Trump and Ramaphosa, the EFF said it was "a song that expresses the desire to destroy the system of white minority control over the resources of South Africa" and that it is "a part of African Heritage".

(4) Trump played a video clip that showed a long line of white crosses on the side of a highway, which Trump said were "burial sites" for white farmers.

The video was made in September 2020 during a protest against farm murders after two people were killed on their farm a week earlier. The crosses did not mark actual graves. An organizer told South Africa's public broadcaster, SABC, at the time that the wooden crosses represented farmers who had been killed over the years.

(5) The opening scene of the White House video shows Malema in South Africa's parliament announcing: "People are going to occupy land. We require no permission from ... the president." It also shows another clip of him pledging to expropriate land.

Some land has been illegally occupied over the years, mostly by millions of desperate squatters with nowhere else to go, although some land seizures are politically motivated. The land is usually unused and there is no evidence the EFF orchestrated any land invasions.

‘White south Africans shouldn’t be granted refugee status’ is an argument that took a significant blow when the South African government published a statement saying that they were attempting to escape justice by fleeing. What the South African government itself says about its treatment of whites is, well, suspect in that light.

But Trump also clearly cares about this for some reason.

"Genocide" has basically become a vibes-based term over the past few years, so questions involving the term have become increasingly meaningless.

What seems beyond question is that white South Africans are facing extensive race-based persecution.

No more than there is a genocide going on against minorities in Muslim nations. There is strong pressure for displacement. But, I won't call it genocide. We need to reserve that word for the real deal. Can't be diluting definitions for war crimes. (Might be a lost cause)

America has low standards for granting refuge. Indian Sikhs have a 50%+ refugee approval rate despite facing no violence since 1990 and being quite rich by Indian standards. Hell, I'd argue Indian Sikhs are treated a lot better than Hindus in India. (legally and otherwise). White people have a reason to feel unsafe in South Africa. They should leave. They should likely receive refuge by the current standards for refugees in the US.

Three South African courts have ruled against attempts to have it designated as hate speech, on the basis that it is a historical liberation chant, not a literal incitement to violence.

Who cares what a South African court thinks? They haven't been covering themselves in excellence in upholding a stable, successful society. The murder rate there is comparable to the death rate in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

It's also somewhat hard to accept rhetorically, given how 'It's OK to be white' produced such a big storm.

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