Afrikaner claims of persecution are a fat lie

World history is never short of chilling accounts of genocide victims. Think of the Holocaust, Gaza, Ardamata massacre, Rohingya, Tigray, Darfu, Rwanda and Bosnia – among many.

Massacres are the intentional and systematic destruction of a racial, ethnic, national or religious groups – but we have not seen any in South Africa since the dawn of democracy.

This week, US President Donald Trump and – as economist Khaya Sithole puts it – “his immediate echo chamber, dominated by disinformation agents”, rolled out a red carpet to welcome the first batch of Afrikaner settlers, fleeing from “genocide” and “being killed”.

Top US officials said the Afrikaners had been “living under a shadow of violence and terror” in South Africa – an assertion Pretoria has described as “devoid of all truth”.

Trump wasted no time in echoing the narrative when addressing a White House media briefing, saying he was allowing the group to stay in America to avoid “a genocide that is taking place”, because “they are being killed”.

What a fat lie.

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If you saw television footage of the so-called refugees, they appeared well-fed – different to those seeking asylum from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo or Sudan.

Having benefited from their privileged past of apartheid, the Afrikaners can only convince Trump of their suffering, not locals.

Where were Trump and his cronies to offer black South Africans refugee status when millions of disenfranchised majority endured the wrath of apartheid – from Sharpeville to the Boipatong massacres?

To be commended for having taken a stand against the Trump refugee circus is the Episcopal Church in the US, has which ended its nearly 40-year refugee resettlement partnership with the American government.

The church refused a Trump administration request to help resettle the Afrikaners.

Presiding bishop Sean Rowe said the Afrikaner episode crossed a moral line, with the church refusing to help while other refugee programmes remained largely frozen by the White House.

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What makes the Afrikaner group so special, compared to real refugees from Africa?

The Episcopal Church, part of the global Anglican Communion, boasts among its leaders the late archbishop Desmond Tutu – a celebrated and vocal opponent of apartheid in South Africa.

“In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,” said Rowe.

“Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the US federal government.”

“The stated reasons for Trump’s actions are claims of victimisation, violence and hateful rhetoric against white people in South Africa – along with legislation providing for the expropriation of land without compensation.

“As white South Africans in active leadership within the Christian community, representing diverse political and theological perspectives, we unanimously reject these claims.”

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Best news to come out of the US, showing we still have Americans with a moral high ground.

South Africa is a culturally and politically diverse country, enjoying constitutional democracy.

While Trump is celebrating the arrival of the first batch of refugees, he needs to know that there are millions of Afrikaners who will never swap South Africa for anything else in the world.

To them, South Africa is home and there is no other – not even America.

I have said it before: Afrikaners are not a homogeneous group, with many having played a role in the anti-apartheid movement.