After the Bell: SA's Afrikaner 'refugees' - the great trek … and the even greater trek

The sight of 49 Afrikaner (one assumes) farmers (one assumes) boarding a US State Department jet to take up refugee status in the USA leaves me with complicated and conflictual feelings. Are we meant to feel sorry for these departees, or should we envy them? It’s a terrible thing to feel you have no choice but to leave your country. But can you really pity people for seeing an opportunity and grasping it? 

This is the first group to arrive in the US after being vetted by the US embassy in SA following US President Donald Trump’s executive order to resettle these Afrikaner “refugees” who have been “victims of unjust racial discrimination”. As many have pointed out, calling white South Africans refugees because they are discriminated against in the new South Africa is an insult to history. Are they uncomfortable about living in SA because of discrimination, or do they just not feel comfortable sharing their space with people of different races? If it’s the former, good luck to them. If it’s the latter, goodbye to them. 

We don’t know the answer to these questions, but my guess is that the answers will reflect what individual South Africans believe themselves as much as what the 49 people in question say about their situation. These “refugees” are some of the most well off émigrés in the history of refugeedom. We don’t know their individual circumstances, but we do know that white households earn nearly five times more than black households on average, according to the 2022/2023 Income and Expenditure Survey by Statistics South Africa. That’s not accumulated wealth; that’s current earnings.  

Yet, the “refugees” have a few arguments up their sleeves too: my guess is that all, or almost all, have been victims of crime in SA. The Ministry of International Relations put out a statement that said: “We reiterate that allegations of discrimination are unfounded. The South African Police Service statistics on farm-related crimes do not support allegations of violent crime targeted at farmers generally or any particular race.”

This is actually not true. Almost all studies over the years do not say allegations of disproportionate murders of white farmers are “unfounded”. What they say is that it’s impossible to know precisely because both the numerator and the denominator in the calculation are difficult to ascertain. Part of the problem is that SA’s crime stats don’t make this calculation easy because they combine murders and related crimes into “agricultural land/farms/plots and small holdings”. Others say, it’s not that hard, and it’s definitely true. 

But, you know, my feeling is that you don’t really need the statistics. If you have a situation in which people are isolated in a vulnerable situation with available wealth to steal and on top of that politicians are screaming at the top of their voices that these people are deserving of denigration, well, what do you think is going to happen?

The real tragedy of the situation is that while the Trump administration is allowing a handful of Afrikaners to become refugees, he has also scrapped asylum for tens of thousands of real refugees whose plight is often really heartbreaking. Over the years, the US has accepted about 100,000 refugees a year; all that is on hold. I hope the 49 people on the plane to Washington know how lucky they are. 

The irony of the whole situation is that the SA’s “refugees” left on the same day that the SA athletics team, which is thoroughly and fabulously multiracial, absolutely triumphed in the World Athletics Relays championship in Guangzhou, China. Four teams of four participated; all made it through to the finals; the two men’s teams won; the women’s team came third. In the 4x100 victory, the same team that won a silver medal at the Paris Olympics, won against the mighty US team which has taken home 15 Olympic gold medals in the event over the years. It also beat the Canadian team which pulled ahead of them to win gold in Paris. 

The SA team topped the tables at this tournament, and all have qualified for the World Athletics Championships, which takes place in September in Tokyo. The team is lucky to include experienced sprinter Akani Simbine, who is turning into an absolute star, anchoring the 4x100 and, I would guess, the team as a whole. Listening to him describe the race, his ease and calm is a real window into the post-apartheid generation, full of hope and expectation. 

And that is where the real problem lies; it’s the economy stupid. Ultimately, South Africa has let down the younger generation: too fixated on old ideas; too blinded by old ideologies; too focused on the group and not on the whole team. As psychiatrist Irvin Yalom teaches - despair often stems from our inability to accept the past. 

It’s so odd, and yet so refreshing, that it’s SA’s sportspeople who are showing the way, as entrepreneur Mark Barnes pointed out in our podcast that will be published tomorrow: the key is to develop a common purpose and focus on the prize. That’s how to win. DM