My Take | Trump drums up a fake genocide while sponsoring real one in Gaza
US president tries to confront South African counterpart in Oval Office with unsubstantiated allegations of atrocities against white farmers
Long a staple of the North American far-right’s racist ideology, the so-called white genocide in South Africa has made it into mainstream politics.
That’s thanks to Donald Trump, and his one-time bestie the billionaire Elon Musk. This week, the US president tried to repeat the fireworks that greeted Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office by blindsiding visiting South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with slides showing alleged atrocities against white farmers.
The televised meeting was supposed to focus on trade, especially Trump’s tariffs. Instead, he said, “Dim the lights”, and showed photos and video clips, including one of supposedly hundreds of graves of Afrikaner farmers.
It turned out those mounds with crosses were not real, but part of a 2020 protest in response to the murder of a white farming couple.
Violent crimes are endemic in South Africa, which has one of the highest murder rates in the world. Police statistics show 6,953 people were murdered across the country between October and December 2024. Of these, 12 were killed in farm attacks. Of the 12, one was a farmer, five were farm dwellers and four were employees who were probably black.
Ramaphosa acknowledged the problem of pervasive violent crimes, but denied whites were targeted, and certainly not by his government.