“Good riddance!” This was the reaction of Nontsikelelo “Nsiki” Mazwai, a prominent South African poet and activist, to the May 11 departure of 49 Afrikaner ‘refugees’ who ‘fled South African terror’ to live their American dream. This follows President Trump’s controversial executive order in February, offering refugee status to these Afrikaners – descendants of mainly Dutch, French Huguenots, and German colonial settlers who first came to South Africa in the 17th century, claiming that this minority white community faces unfair treatment in the African country. The star expressed her joy at the departure of the 49, hopeful that the batch was the first of many to take up Trump’s offer. Mazwai was just expressing the feeling shared by most Black South Africans as the news of the departure of the 49 ‘Amerikaners’ was met with jubilation by most netizens. Some of them asked Trump to quicken the process of removing them from South Africa, others wished that other Western countries make similar offers to all whites, while others went on to request the addresses of those who had left so that they could take up the homes and, more importantly, the land. Such are the race relations in the Rainbow Nation, 31 years after the end of apartheid.

Not so fast

Unfortunately for those rubbing their palms in gleeful anticipation of the mass-departure of Afrikaners from South Africa, no such thing appears to be happening anytime soon. After Trump made his offer at the behest of AfriForum, a right-wing Afrikaner group, a paltry 67,000 Afrikaners made enquiries about the US offer, out of the 2.7 million Afrikaner population in South Africa. Worse still, it has been emerging through the vetting process that even some of those making the enquiries are not even the supposedly "endangered" Afrikaner farmers but actually the generality of white South Africans hoping to try a soft life in the US. The poor uptake of the offer has been regarded by most analysts as a frank referendum on the veracity of Trump’s discrimination claims, from which many Afrikaner leaders have distanced themselves.

Piet Croucamp, an associate professor of political science at South Africa’s North West University, also questioned the validity of Trump’s claim.

“You will have noticed that there is much resistance (to Trumps offer) in many parts of the world because people from Afghanistan, Syria and a number of war-torn countries have been shooed away while there was a special dispensation for a group of white people from South Africa and I think there is legitimate concern in the criticism,” Prof Croucamp told Al Mayadeen English. 

Two-state ‘solution’

Trump’s claims of ill-treatment of Afrikaners have only served to feed into the narrative of right-wing Afrikaners that have, for a long time, been pushing for a separate white state. The dream of a Volkstaat (‘People’s State’), also called a Boerestaat, a proposed white homeland for Afrikaners, who also call themselves a white tribe, within the borders of South Africa, has been fondled by some of these Afrikaners since the end of apartheid in 1990. The proposed state would include other white South Africans if they accept Afrikaner culture and customs.

‘We want recognition’

Trump's executive order and claims were good news, especially to residents of Orania and Kleinfontein, South Africa’s two whites-only towns that these right-wing Afrikaners, who are opposed to racial integration, carved for themselves when their apartheid rule ended.

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However, while Trump’s idea of helping these purportedly endangered Afrikaners is to resettle them in the US, for the residents of these two towns, the solution lies in the creation of a separate white nation – a two-state ‘solution’ – which they say they hope the US would recognize in the same way it has recognized "Israel". In the aftermath of Trump’s executive order, the town sent a delegation to the US to lobby Washington to seriously consider this request.

“We wanted to gain recognition, with the American focus on South Africa now,” Orania Movement leader Joost Strydom told the media upon return from the US.

It is this suggestion that has infuriated most black South Africans, with the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters party accusing Orania’s leaders of “destroying the unity of this country.”

Misgivings over two-state ‘solution’

Experts, however, doubt that calls for a two-state ‘solution’ would gain traction, even among most Afrikaners, considering that they are part of the minority, but privileged, whites who already control nearly 80% of South Africa’s land and economy.

“You are part of a 7% minority but somehow still manage to control over 70% of the country’s wealth,” said activist Pieter Kriel, dismissing the whole white genocide narrative. “That is not persecution, that is privilege on a guilt trip.”

The World Bank has consistently ranked South Africa the most unequal society, an enduring legacy of nearly 350 years of white settler rule that culminated in 42 years of Afrikaners’ apartheid rule.

Prof Croucamp said the possibility of the creation of a separate state is highly unlikely in South Africa, even in the face of the reluctance by most Afrikaners to leave.

“I think there is a group of conservative Afrikaners who have links with right-wing groups in Europe and they (also) have the ear of Donald Trump and they seek minority protection in South Africa within the larger state,” Croucamp said.

“I know that they are in favour of any form of self-governance, but I am not sure that they necessarily would want to create a separate state within… like ‘Israel’, for instance… the small group of 49 people that could be associated with this have now left for the USA and they have got the ear and support of Trump… they have special dispensation in terms of refugee status.”

Professor Loren Landau, a migration expert at South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand, who has been critical of Trump’s offer, told Al Mayadeen English that post-apartheid South Africa no longer has any room for ideas proposed by these right-wing groups.

“South Africa is a diverse country and there continues to be a wide range of views about its social and political future,” said Prof. Landau. "During Apartheid, the idea of race-based ‘separate development’ was official policy. Post-apartheid, most South Africans rejected this mode of being as offensive and ill-suited to a modern democracy.”

Prof. Landau, who is also a professor of Migration and Development at the University of Oxford, said calls for separation by some minority groups have always been there.

“However, there have always been a small group of people who have called for an independent white republic and others who have indeed established a whites-only community (i.e. Orania). However, even Afrikaans organisations now see this as counterproductive, as it makes them the object of opprobrium and scorn. Instead, they have read the political ‘room’ and are seeking other mechanisms to promote their interests and culture.”