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Turns out Trump was speaking nonsense in his Oval Office encounter with Cyril Ramaphosa, e.g. claiming that a memorial hillside with crosses was a burial ground and holding up a report about the Democratic Republic of Congo. What a surprise. South Africa may have a high murder rate but claims of a white genocide are apparently false. I suppose some might say his approach, including allowing Afrikaners into the country but suspending entry for refugees from elsewhere, was refreshingly new and he was just daring to be different but I suspect he was trying to appeal to white supremacists or anyone - and I wonder if this may be more than one might expect, if he's bothering to do this - who thinks blacks killing whites upends the proper order of things.
Jo wrote: Turns out Trump was speaking nonsense in his Oval Office encounter with Cyril Ramaphosa, e.g. claiming that a memorial hillside with crosses was a burial ground and holding up a report about the Democratic Republic of Congo. What a surprise. South Africa may have a high murder rate but claims of a white genocide are apparently false. I suppose some might say his approach, including allowing Afrikaners into the country but suspending entry for refugees from elsewhere, was refreshingly new and he was just daring to be different but I suspect he was trying to appeal to white supremacists or anyone - and I wonder if this may be more than one might expect, if he's bothering to do this - who thinks blacks killing whites upends the proper order of things.
From Satanism to Genocide: Moral Panic and White Supremacy in South Africa Madness. This kind of ridiculous staged ambush is why he's so despised. And he purposely keeps quiet about an actual genocide in Gaza. Now undermining the UN by backing an Israeli Aid convoy so food can be weaponised. The ultimate Evil. Reports suggest he is about to declare himself King. The tariffs are merely about him controlling the world for his own ends. Weaponise food, goods, services.
I couldn't care less about some site, farmers should not be killed not should the S. African chant about killing Whites. Imagine if Trump sang that about Blacks. The media would have a fucking meltdown.
Jo wrote: Too true, Downing Street Cat. He seems to have no moral compass.
I was prepared to give him a chance, believing Biden to be exacerbating the wars in both Ukraine and Gaza. But he's sold out Ukraine and Gaza, and both Israel and Russia have intensified attacks. The ICE expulsions upon innocent citizens for me is the ultimate betrayal of his own country and its values. Trump knows this is his last Saloon, his Final Soiree, his Swan Song. He had a chance to prove us all wrong. He still does. But thus far I hate what I have seen. The entire façade that White South Africa is suffering at the hands of a Black President is typical 2025 Trump. Divisive and wrong, both morally and factually.
Well said, DSC. I suspect Israel and Russia have intensified attacks because they think Trump is a pushover. Maybe the Oval Office showdowns, the ICE explusions, the punitive tariffs on allies, etc. are an attempt to show he's a strongman. I didn't have much hope his promises would bear fruit. Conmen tell people what they want to hear.
I thought Ramaphosa handled it well too, hedda.
GM neatly proves my point. Some people get particularly exercised at the idea of blacks killing whites. It's just not right to their way of thinking. And Trump, apparently one of them, knows how to push their buttons.
Jo wrote: Well said, DSC. I suspect Israel and Russia have intensified attacks because they think Trump is a pushover. Maybe the Oval Office showdowns, the ICE explusions, the punitive tariffs on allies, etc. are an attempt to show he's a strongman. I didn't have much hope his promises would bear fruit. Conmen tell people what they want to hear.
I thought Ramaphosa handled it well too, hedda.
GM neatly proves my point. Some people get particularly exercised at the idea of blacks killing whites. It's just not right to their way of thinking. And Trump, apparently one of them, knows how to push their buttons.
I know a few Afrikann immigrants near me ( I won't say where as Barney will stalk me) but they were farmers who had extended family members murdered by Blacks. I have seen the scars on their heads and bodies, and they are horrific.
They survived the ordeal and were saved by a neighbour who heard a gunshot when he was pulling up. He was at the right place and the right time.
An Afrikan woman owns a paper shop near me, my sister-in-law, who left S.A. as her husband was murdered also.
I only started talking to them when I recognised their language and accent from a mile away. I used to have holidays in S.A., and we just got chatting once they realised I could understand what they were saying to each other.
I remember when Gary Busey was on The Apprentice, they had to promote South Africa as a task. Busey, flipped out and went on about the crime and murder he saw there. He is not wrong.
I have never had an issue in S.A but I did see crime there and I did witness a carjacking from a hotel window. I did have my wallet pinched but that happens anywhere even in the Cotswolds.
The media did report what Mugabe was doing to Whites in Zimbabwe, but for some reason, they didn't report South Africa. I guess they like the fantasy that Mandela created a Utopia there, which is utter B.S. Apartheid never left.
... White farmers have been murdered in South Africa. But those murders account for less than 1% of more than 27,000 annual murders nationwide. Experts said the deaths do not amount to genocide, and Trump misleads about land confiscation.
“The idea of a ‘white genocide’ taking place in South Africa is completely false,” said Gareth Newham, who heads a justice and violence prevention program at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa.
“As an independent Institute tracking violence and violent crime in South Africa, if there was any evidence of either a genocide or targeted violence taking place against any group based on their ethnicity this, we would be amongst the first to raise (the) alarm and provide the evidence to the world.” ...
Newham said the primary motive for almost all farm attacks is robbery, which has long been documented.
“Attacks where there may be evidence of racial or political motives (i.e. slogans written on the wall at a scene of a crime, or words spoken by the attacker according to the victim), are exceedingly rare and make up only a few percent of the cases recorded,” Newham said.
The majority of murder victims nationwide are poor, under- or unemployed young Black males, Newham said.
“Murder victimisation is far more correlated to class, gender and location than race,” Newham said. About half of murders take place in about 12% of the precincts, “primarily townships or poor areas in metropolitan cities mostly populated by black African people.” ...
Nechama Brodie, a journalist who wrote a book on farm murders and has fact-checked the topic, ... said AfriForum, a nongovernmental organization focused on Afrikaners, is one of the more reliable sources of information about killings of white Afrikaans-speaking farmers. AfriForum data, which is based on information from police, private security services, victims and media reports, showed about 50 farm murders a year.
Brodie said that a white farm owner’s death is more likely to be covered in the news than the killing of a rural smallholder. The majority of the country’s smallholders and rural residents are Black.
“South African media coverage of murder victims is extremely selective, and creates a false depiction of who is most at risk,” Brodie said. ... An open letter to Donald Trump by Theo de Jager (interview here)
Dear President Trump,
I am an Afrikaner farmer in the Limpopo province of South Africa and lead the biggest network for family farmers; Saai, which is similar to your Farm Bureau or National Farmers Union. ...
It is critical for you to understand that the tensions in our country are not simply a black-and-white issue. Many black family farmers, from other cultural communities, suffer just as much—if not more—under the weight of corruption, poor service delivery, and state inefficiencies. Families who are beneficiaries of land reform, and the traditional communities who share the rural spaces with our commercial farmers, are delivered to the same challenges as us, and often worse. Land reform in South Africa has failed to create a class of profitable black farmers, as they are often denied title deeds and left at the mercy of political elites and corrupt officials. The system has been captured, benefiting only a select few while leaving aspiring black commercial farmers and smallholders with little hope.
We respectfully ask that any future policies consider these realities and not punish hard-working black families who share our struggles. ...
Lots of stats in this article from AFP. There are apparently wildly exaggerated claims on social media about the number of white farmers being murdered in South Africa.
There will always be killings and abuse and murders - very rarely by sensible people on grounds like skin colour or religious faith. Loonies can be motivated by the most absurd excuses.
James O'Brien on Trump's obvious ambush of the SA president and the lies he told re South Africa.
It's a remarkable phenomena how Trump can blatantly lie as he has his entire life and is given a pass by most of the media & especially his rusted on MAGA crowd. But not only that he comes across as the nastiest petty bitch when criticized.
Is he the thinnest skinned politician of all time?
Maybe Trump's supporters don't care whether he's telling the truth if whatever he says reflects their world view.
Another thing I can't understand about his supporters is how they accept him despite his felony convictions and the fact that he was found liable for sexual abuse. Do they believe he didn't commit the crimes or do they just not care?
Is it just me, or is the murder of farmers in South Africa terrible because murder is terrible and not especially terrible because many victims are white?
Reposting from the quote I posted above:
Brodie said that a white farm owner’s death is more likely to be covered in the news than the killing of a rural smallholder. The majority of the country’s smallholders and rural residents are Black.
“South African media coverage of murder victims is extremely selective, and creates a false depiction of who is most at risk,” Brodie said. ...
Forums 
