5 days ago
3
NEWYou tin present perceive to Fox News articles!
President Donald Trump’s recent interventions connected South Africa person been met with outrage successful the wide media, and its ‘fact-checking’ machinery has been enactment into overdrive scrutinizing each misstatement oregon exaggeration of the president. Yet, connected the indispensable issues it is Western audiences who are being misled by progressive journalists whose views are, successful turn, dramatically retired of measurement with mean South African opinion.
South Africa is simply a convulsive society. Since it became a ideology successful 1994, over
650,000 South Africans person been murdered. That is much than the fig of intentional homicides crossed the Western satellite implicit the aforesaid play even
though the colonisation of the West approaches 1 cardinal radical portion that of
South Africa is person to 60 million. On a per-capita basis, that amounts to a
murder complaint of astir 40 per 100,000 for South Africa, portion the planetary complaint is person to six per 100,000.
TRUMP'S CRITICISM OF SOUTH AFRICA'S VIOLENT CRIME CRISIS RECEIVES UNEXPECTED LOCAL SUPPORT
In that already convulsive climate, equipped raids connected commercialized farmsteads have, implicit the past 3 decades, occurred astatine a aggregate of the complaint of akin attacks (essentially equipped location penetration robberies) crossed the broader population. In addition, we cipher that astir 20% of equipped raids connected farmsteads person resulted successful execution arsenic opposed to nether 2% for akin attacks elsewhere. We besides justice that the complaint of onslaught connected Black commercialized producers is akin to that faced by their achromatic compatriots.
Because Black and White South Africans alike unrecorded amidst specified violence,
murderous chant, ‘Kill the Boer, Kill the farmer,’ that Trump played astatine magnitude during an Oval Office gathering with his South African counterpart past week, meets with beardown fashionable disapproval locally. An April 2025 canvass recovered that 80% of South Africans either disapprove of the chant, respect it arsenic hatred code oregon judge that it should beryllium banned. Western audiences whitethorn person been told that the chant is purely a metaphorical ‘anti-apartheid’ song, but it was, successful fact, archetypal taught to guerrillas during the equipped conflict against White regularisation successful some Rhodesia and South Africa, wherever farmers were regarded arsenic morganatic subject targets.
US President Donald Trump, right, and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa's president, during a gathering successful the Oval Office of the White House successful Washington, DC, US, connected Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Western audiences are commonly informed that achromatic South Africans, who marque up conscionable 7% of South Africa’s population, ain "three-quarters" of cultivation onshore whereas achromatic South Africans ain conscionable "4%". These figures are misdirection. The bulk of White onshore holdings are successful the arid occidental fractional of the country. These are areas wherever the terrain, climate, and colonisation density is akin to that of Arizona, Nevada, oregon New Mexico. Across the precocious rainfall and densely populated eastbound of the state astir fractional of onshore by productive worth is successful achromatic possession, though not ownership. The crushed for this is that the South African authorities continues to contradict idiosyncratic rubric crossed galore Black communities preferring alternatively that land beryllium held by the state oregon its proxies arsenic a means of societal and governmental control. Granting idiosyncratic rubric would importantly displacement onshore ownership patterns.
Afrikaner refugees from South Africa get connected Monday astatine Dulles International Airport successful Dulles, Va. On Monday, the Episcopal Church said its Migration Ministries services volition garbage a authorities directive to assistance resettle White South Africans who person been granted exile presumption successful the United States. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
The content that onshore ownership patterns, arsenic they are, correspond a nationalist situation mightiness beryllium fashionable successful Western media but is not a presumption held by South Africans
themselves. A caller canvass recovered that apical of the database of section concerns was job
creation, mentioned by implicit 20% of respondents arsenic South Africa’s azygous astir important challenge. ‘Promoting entree to land’ came acold down the list, being
mentioned by little than 5% of respondents.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION
Finally, a precocious enacted portion of expropriation legislation, which has drawn
the peculiar attraction of the Trump administration, is not a benign ‘eminent
domain’ measure, arsenic it is presented. It allows immoderate organ of authorities to prehend any
kind of spot - not conscionable onshore – for beneath its marketplace value. A caller canvass recovered that this thought is opposed by conscionable nether 70% of South Africans and it is seen arsenic a measurement that volition beryllium abused by the notoriously corrupt governmental class.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
At likelihood with elite sentiment successful the West the American administration’s concerns astir violence, spot rights, and economical advancement successful South Africa
resonate intimately with the concerns of South Africans themselves who are successful the main a pragmatic and blimpish radical sharing successful galore of the antiauthoritarian values held beloved by Americans.
Frans Cronje is president of the Washington, DC-based Yorktown Foundation for Freedom. He is simply a erstwhile caput of the South African Institute of Race Relations and chairs that country’s Social Research Foundation.
English (US) ·