The ‘Executive Order’ of February 7, and the Afrikaners of South Africa

‘By the authority vested in me as President…’ says the Executive Order of February 7, 2025, ‘it is hereby ordered as follows…’

The Order is titled ‘Addressing the egregious actions of the Republic of South Africa’.

“The South African government owns the sole responsibility to provide care and succour for its sick citizens.”

Section 1 refers to South Africa’s Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 which enables the government of South Africa ‘to seize ethnic minority Afrikaner’s agricultural property without compensation…’

Section 2 declares that ‘as long as South Africa continues these unjust and immoral practices…’, the United States would not provide aid to South Africa, and it would ‘promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.’

That the Afrikaners, the copyrighted owners and creators of systematic racial discrimination, otherwise known as Apartheid, are ‘victims of unjust racial discrimination’ is either a cynical statement or a joke, surely. But there it is, in black and white.

Following the Executive Order from the White House, South Africa released its media riposte.

‘The government of South Africa has taken note of the latest Executive Order issued by President Trump. …the foundational premise of this order lacks factual accuracy and fails to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid…campaign of misinformation and propaganda aimed at misrepresenting our great nation…It is ironic that the executive order makes provision for refugee status in the US for a group in South Africa that remains amongst the most economically privileged…’

The Afrikaners are an ethnic group in Southern Africa who are descended predominantly from Dutch settlers who first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1662. Until 1994, when there was the first ‘free and fair’ election in the country and black majority rule was instituted, with the coming into power of President Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress, Afrikaners dominated South African politics and national life, often with intentional and effective brutal force. The purpose was to repress the majority black indigenes, and to harness the natural and human resources of the land for themselves.

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The population of Afrikaners is currently put at 2.8 million. Their language is Afrikaans, a language descended from Dutch. They have thrived in agriculture, controlling much of the choicest land in the country, and are generally among the wealthiest bracket on the African continent. The black African indigenes, under the Apartheid system, which was crafted intentionally by Hendrik Verwoerd and the National Party, were to be sequestered in tribal homelands known as ‘Bantustans’, while the whites owned the choicest areas of the country. White South Africa built a mighty army that fought against the African liberation movements. It is rumoured that, aided by Israelis, they acquired nuclear weapons to intimidate African countries such as Nigeria that might be tempted to come to the aid of their local blacks. Up till a few years before Mandela’s freedom and Presidency, Henry Kissinger, master of Realpolitik, was predicting that the ‘rabble armies’ of Black Liberation were no match for the most modern army in Africa controlled by Afrikaners, and that whites would rule South Africa for the foreseeable future.

He was wrong!

The population of South Africa is 62 million. Black people make up 81 percent of that figure; mixed-race ‘coloured’ people make up 9 percent; whites – including Afrikaners, make up 8 percent, and Indians are 3 percent. Much of ‘white’ wealth is based on 72 percent of the country’s farmland which was forcibly taken from the indigenous black population by their ancestors. The blacks today own only 4 percent of the agricultural land.

Land has always been a major emotional and economic issue in South Africa. Many black people were upset at Mandela for his accommodating stance in embracing erstwhile white oppressors in his ‘Rainbow Nation.’ Some had dreamed that Black Liberation would not come through negotiation, but that it would follow a devastating scorched earth war in which the whites would be ‘thrown into the sea.’

Land reform was always inevitable, and the tardiness of the ANC in addressing it has been one of the major reasons the party lost support among the local people. The ANC is currently in a shaky coalition. Facing heat from its long-suffering constituency, it recently enacted the Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 which allows the compulsory acquisition of private property by the government for public use or in the public interest in exceptional cases. Whites, including Ramaphosa’s coalition partners have been howling in outrage, while black activists and the generality of the black population complain it doesn’t go far enough.

President Trump has ordered a stop to US Aid to South Africa. Virtually all American ‘aid’ to SA heretofore has been in the form of assistance with commodities and facilities for control and treatment of HIV/AIDS under PEPFAR, USAID and other schemes. The South African government owns the sole responsibility to provide care and succour for its sick citizens. Like other African countries, it has irresponsibly delegated that responsibility to foreign governments and NGOs. Beyond that, South Africans are not beholden to America for ‘three square meals a day.’

Why is Trump so interested in South Africa, anyway?

The answer is billionaire white South African émigré Trumpians. There is Elon Musk, Trump’s campaign sponsor and attack dog, who is leading DOGE – a department set up to excoriate and disembowel the ‘Deep State’. There is Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, and founder of Defence Tech company Palantir. Both Musk and Thiel have been consistent thinkers for the MAGA revolution, drawing on the model of the power structure and logic of Apartheid South Africa. That they have found a ready listening ear in the most powerful man in the world who believes he can discountenance History and remake the world by ‘buying’ Gaza, ‘taking over’ Greenland, ‘swallowing’ Canada, threatening and sanctioning everybody in sight, and generally bullying friends and foes alike is evident from the Executive Order of February 7. The drama is just unfolding.