The shit-show in the Oval Office last week where Donald Trump confronted the South African delegation led by Cyril Ramaphosa put the world's attention on an inconvenient truth SA society, that is, in particular ANC, ANC government, leftwing public intellectuals and mainstream media, prefer remain unspoken and unchallenged.
From president to press, the left has reacted with outrage repudiating the 50 Afrikaner refugees to the US. They say the victimhood these people claim, a tiny minority of the Afrikaner population, is false.
But the left are the last to talk about fake victimhood. Just recently Ramaphosa was in Eastern Cape blaming the poor state of services on apartheid. And, they say, white males occupy most management positions which they're going to stop.
Apartheid, the gift that keeps on giving.
I once chatted with an Afrikaner, an acquaintance, about this and that. I incidentally mentioned the book on Cape Town's history I was reading. One chapter was about the displacement of brown people during apartheid under the Group Areas Act.
In telling this I was conveying information, not passing judgement, least of all on my acquaintance's cultural origin and their role in apartheid. But she must've felt that way because she said during the Boer War Afrikaners were interned in concentration camps.
The Group Areas Act and Boer War had no similarity but clearly she felt the burden of a hundred year's victimhood. History lesson over, the conversation ended awkwardly.
Now, perhaps my acquaintance was discomforted because I belong to a group that collectivelybwas affected by group areas. In fact, after the Act was passed my father was forced to sell family property in Eastern Cape for next to nothing - literally. The price wasn't even enough for the deposit on a house in a working class part of Cape Town. My family had to move from a rented house in Claremont (the part that became yuppie Harfield Village) to the Cape Flats. Our neighbours all came from somewhere else.
The majority of people, like us of all races, just got on with our lives. We didn't harp on and on about how we're victims of apartheid or circumstances. As a rule we don't except by the cost of living and dodgy services. But now among a tiny population of all races it's de rigeur to be a victim of apartheid, the ANC, Trump even.
Whites are not economic victims - the social data proves it. But they are the victims of a continous campaign from the left - mainstream media, intelligentsia and both moderate and extreme left parties - to undermine them and their contribution to society using the political power that ironically a race-neutral constitution provides. It's understandable to feel uneasy and threatened especially when supposedly jocular songs calling for their death are sung.
The left elite - black economic and political elite, media and intellectuals - are not victims either. They've had political and economic power for thirty years to do what they wanted. It's not whites/Afrikaners' fault they made a mess of it and are incapable of learning the lessons of their mistakes. They - the blue light, Constantia and Sandton-mansion, designer-wearing, Blue Label-drinking, boardroom member/CEO brigade - are not victims. They're not under threat from anyone, least of all whites and even their own people - black, poor whose misfortunes they still blame on apartheid, white males and Afrikaners.
Afrikaners who took up the US' offer are economic refugees as much as political. Now commentators and government are crucifying them when no-one knows really knows what it's like to walk others' shoes. I doubt the mainstream media are explaining their side - their fears, expectations and ambitions as citizens. Except it's another day of condemning them.
But the hatred of them is more about the damage it's doing SA's reputation than presentung a false narrative of persecution. And for this the ANC, which still wields power, must take responsibility, which we know it's unable and unwilling to do. They have permitted the culture and practice where whites and particularly Afrikaners are deemed obstacles to nation-building and prosperity. It's stupidity and/or a deliberate attempt to distract us from the abject failure the ANC's and left's project of purported transformation. And ultimately self-defeating.
So a small number of Afrikaners went to the US under Trump Administration's programme. More may follow. The hysteria over it - DM leading the way with so-called responsible and balanced coverage - shall not change the US' mind nor the perceptions of the country's, let's be honest, poor race relations under the ANC. If anything, it's likely to entrench it.
But what we can agree upon is Afrikaners are not presently victims. Neither are the left. And that goes for the ANC and media commentators too.
PS. A couple of years ago a neighbour who emigrated to Australia in the 90s visited. He said life there was good. I said he made a good decision. Given the state of SA - a fragile state on the way to failed unless things change fast - sometimes I wish I'd made a decision to emigrate.
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