Trump’s contentious meeting with South Africa’s president

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s meeting with President Trump yesterday began well enough. Ramaphosa brought two South African golfers, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, to help break the ice before the conversation moved to a bit of foreign policy. However, things took a turn when a reporter asked what it would take for Trump to recognize that there was no “white genocide” in South Africa.

Ramaphosa answered for the president and said, “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans.” 

Trump then responded by playing a five-minute video compilation of South African leaders calling for violence against the Boer, which means farmer in Dutch and Afrikaans, including a clip of white crosses lining a road that he claimed were part of a mass burial site for murdered white farmers.

After the video ended, Ramaphosa acknowledged that crime is a problem in his country—South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world—but pushed back on the idea that it was worse for white people than black. The degree to which that is true depends, at least to some extent, on the kind of violence in focus, and we’ll take a closer look at the reality of the situation in a moment. However, it’s important to note that the video was not as representative of that reality as Trump claimed.

The white crosses, for example, were part of a protest staged by activists to draw attention to the farm murders of which the president spoke, rather than the actual graves of those farmers. Moreover, much of the inflammatory and racist rhetoric in the video dated back nearly a decade or more and came from groups that the South African government has since denounced.

That said, the video’s errors and misrepresentations do not mean that white South Africans have nothing to worry about. The violence is real, and many have good reason to be afraid. But if we’re to understand what is really going on in that region, then it’s important to get the details correct, and the video shown by the White House was, at the very least, misleading. 

With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the situation in South Africa, as well as how it got to the place where the leader of the free world is tossing around accusations of genocide. 

Why is there so much violence in South Africa?

In South Africa, white citizens comprise just over 7 percent of the population but own more than half of the land. That imbalance is largely the result of two laws—one in 1913 and a second in 1950—that gave vast amounts of the nation’s farmland to the white, mostly Afrikaner population. These were the settlers of Dutch descent who arrived in South Africa during the seventeenth century. 

To acquire the land, the government removed as many as 3.5 million of its native people from their ancestral homes. And while the post-apartheid government has made steps to bridge much of the inequality that was rampant during the days of segregation, the land disparity remains a stark reminder of how things used to be. 

In response, President Ramaphosa signed a law earlier this year granting the government the ability to take private property without paying compensation. While it’s still unclear if the law will hold up under judicial review and it has yet to be used to take land from anyone, regardless of their race, it has understandably worsened an already tense situation among the Afrikaner population. 

Couple the precarious legal situation with the fact that 50 to 60 farmers—most of whom are Afrikaners—are killed in an often gruesome manner every year, and it’s easy to see why many are growing concerned.

The government has claimed that much of that violence has less to do with race than with the fact that the Afrikaners are often far wealthier—and thus more attractive targets for thieves—than their black neighbors. And there’s good reason to believe that wealth explains at least as much of the violence as race.

Still, as Anthony Kaziboni, a senior researcher at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Development in Africa, noted, “This does not diminish the severity of the violence or the need for enhanced rural safety.” Rather, as he goes on to add, “it highlights the importance of responding with evidence, nuance, and context.”

The sobering truth is that the Afrikaners at the center of this controversy are increasingly targeted by both rhetorical and physical violence. But to call that violence genocide, as President Trump has done on several occasions, is simply wrong. And, it’s emblematic of a much larger problem in our culture today.

When words lose their power

Words lose their power when applied without thought or consistent standards, and we can’t pick and choose when the abuse of provocative language is a problem. There are many examples of people from across the political spectrum abusing labels for their own ends—racist, communist, Nazi, etc.—but genocide is a particularly important term to use accurately. 

After all, if we’re going to rightly denounce calling Israel’s actions in the war against Hamas genocide—though it’s worth noting that the South African government leveled that accusation against Israel at the International Court of Justice—then we cannot use the term to talk about what’s going on in South Africa either.

Moreover, part of the reason we shouldn’t rush to use inflammatory and inaccurate words, even if they seem to enhance our argument in the moment, is that they often aren’t necessary in the end. 

What’s going on in South Africa, for example, is bad and appears to be getting worse. But labeling it a genocide when it’s not gives people license to pay more attention to the overreaction than to the very real problems that exist there. Ultimately, it’s counterproductive and, as Christians, we need to be particularly careful to avoid that mistake. 

You see, God has given us the privilege of sharing the most wonderful story that’s ever been told. But if those around us feel as though they have to take what we say with a grain of salt—that our yes isn’t always a straightforward yes (Matthew 5:37)—then it shouldn’t come as a surprise if they treat the gospel we share in the same fashion. 

Paul warns that unbelievers are already going to be inclined to see the notion that God would die for our sins as “folly” (1 Corinthians 1:18). As such, we need to do everything we can to avoid giving them reason to believe that first impression. 

So, whether we’re talking about the violence in South Africa or the significance of something much closer to home, stick with the truth and trust that it will be sufficient. That is the best way to show a watching world that you are worthy of their trust when it matters most.

Will you prove worthy today?   

Quote of the day:

“Many issues are misconstrued, not because they are too complex for most people to understand, but because a mundane explanation is far less emotionally satisfying than an explanation which produces villains to hate and heroes to exalt.” —Thomas Sowell

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