White Lies About White Genocide

 

   JEFFREY ST CLAIR

 + Why lie, when you know the lie will be exposed as soon as you tell it? Because the lie is the point. The more blatant the lie, the more likely it will be repeated every time it is refuted. Repeat it enough times and the libel, no matter how vile, will stick with the audience you want to appease. 

+ This explains the spectacle that unfolded in the White House this week, when Trump ambushed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with a barrage of fake news stories and a manufactured video meant to advance the outrageous lie that black South African’s, with the connivance of the Republic of South Africa’s government, is engaged in a “white genocide” of Afrikaner farmers. 

+ White genocide? There were 27,621 murders in South Africa in 2023, more than 80 percent of them young, black males, who were poor or unemployed. During that same year, there were a total of 49 people (both white and black) killed on farms. For context, Israeli forces have killed more than 50 Palestinians every DAY in Gaza for the last 19 months. The population of South Africa is 63.1 million. Population of Gaza (pre-October 2023): 2.1 million.

+ In his effort to humiliate South Africa’s president and portray himself as the champion of allegedly oppressed whites around the world, Trump went so far as to show photos of the burial site of black women who were raped and burned alive in the Congo and claimed it depicted the “burial site” of white farmers in South Africa.

+ Ramaphosa is not South Africa’s most dexterous politician, but he did keep his cool as he realized the Trump White House had set him up. He was affable, solicitous, deferential and professional, as he was treated with abuse by Trump. The message won’t be lost on other African leaders, who are already finding a more receptive audience with the government of China.