By Alec Hogg
Being small and distant means you can get away with swimming against global tides. Simply because nobody important is paying attention. But there’s always the danger that your errant behaviour gets noticed. And when that happens, expect a sharp reminder: that especially when you’re little, rational rules are meant to be kept, not broken.
Ever since inheriting the poisoned EWC chalice at December’s elective conference, Cyril Ramaphosa has promised the impossible. At first many thought he could pull it off. First to stop believing were once enthusiastic foreign investors. Then the world’s most influential media turned hostile. Now CR has a desperate Donald Trump on his back.
In Trump’s moment of greatest need, Ramaphosa’s Folly has become the erratic US leader’s rallying call. Like all effective propaganda, it is based on some truth: White farmers ARE being murdered in increasing numbers. And the ANC HAS adopted a policy to expropriate their land without paying for it. Against that it’s easily forgotten SA is no Zimbabwe Redux.
So on the very day the White House’s Vito Corleone hears his Tom Hagen (aka Michael Cohen) singing to the Feds, Trump tweets about blocking SA’s duty free trade access to the US. Unless, he says, SA ends its abuse of white farmers. What a mess. But a timely reminder that Nation Building works in a climate of reconciliation. Not one where the dark flames of resentment are being fuelled.
Comment from Biznews community member Rabia Weyers
I hope you are well. I don’t think your argument is correct and is a bit too narrow minded. I agree with you on Trump’s motivations and he is as despicable as usual by trying to stir up the fears of white people in his own country and trying to deflect from his current legal woes by pointing to crime and murders that are happening in SA. AgriForum and the like is actively partnering with white nationalists in European countries and in America and is misrepresenting what is happening in this country to stoke the irrational racial fears of white people. Of course, crime is bad and farm murders are terrible and one is too many, but it does not indicate that this is due to ‘genocide’ or anything to do with the land without compensation debate, which should be approached rationally and with consideration for this country’s very despicable past and the legacy it is grappling with now. Trump and AfriForum and their like should be heartily condemned for trying to use this very much needed debate about correcting the ills of the past in terms of illegal land seizures by white people before and after apartheid’s demise. Please see link where the NYT has a more balanced view.
