This week, I have decided to cross the border to look at the unfolding impasse between South Africa and the United States of America over the land appropriated from the natives by the white settlers during four centuries of colonial rule.
I was shocked by the news that President Donald Trump impulsively froze aid to South Africa for planning to redistribute land to locals with the intention of correcting colonial land imbalances.
The US said SA’s Expropriation Act, signed into law on January 23, was designed to enable the seizure of “ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation”.
On February 10, Trump signed an executive order “to address serious human rights violations occurring in South Africa” in response to the Expropriation Act.
Describing the Expropriation Act as a “confiscating act to seize disfavoured citizens’ property without compensation,” Trump said as long as South Africa continues to allow “violent attacks on innocent disfavoured minority farmers, the United States will stop aid and assistance to the country.”
He also ordered the US Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop a plan for resettling Afrikaners in the US through the Refugee Admissions Programme, a federal initiative that identifies and resettles refugees who face persecution based on race, religion, nationality, and political opinion.
“South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people very badly.… I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed,” part of Trump’s order read.
What is intriguing is that the sanctions have been clothed under the veil of protection of human rights.
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Trump's decision about South Africa is rooted in a narrative that there is an impending threat to white citizens.
It ignores that the right of the majority of landless South Africans have a legitimate right to their ancestral land that was expropriated over four centuries by settlers that Washington is now describing as “disfavoured citizens.”
South African history is steeped in apartheid; a system that systematically oppressed the majority black population for centuries of colonial rule.
Thirty years after the collapse of apartheid, the country still suffers from a serious imbalance in land ownership between the natives and the former colonial masters. Despite strides toward racial reconciliation, significant inequalities persist.
Trump’s decision cannot escape scrutiny.
South Africa’s colonial history is like a journey littered with thorns.
The arrival of Jan van Riebeeck and his Dutch contingent in the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 marked the beginning of land appropriation.
Prior to the arrival of the Dutch, ethnic groups, such as the Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele, and San, among other tribes, had their own systems of land use and governance that were closely tied to their cultural practices and traditions.
The natives’ lives were greatly destabilised and their fertile land forcibly seized without compensation. Most of the conflicts between the settlers and natives were over land.
The indigenous population's woes were compounded by the arrival of the British in 1806. They experienced significant loss of territory and resources and were subjected to inhuman treatment with their basic freedoms curtailed in unprecedented fashion.
Several laws were enacted to subjugate the natives’ land rights soon after the Dutch arrival in South Africa in 1652. Laws such as the Natives Land Act formalised racial segregation over land, restricting black land ownership to native reserves, which made up a paltry 7% of the South African land.
Racial institutionalisation greatly limited the South African black population’s economic activities. The Group Areas Act enacted in the 1950s designated land along racial lines, forcing blacks out of the urban areas. The apartheid system created Bantustans, some nominally independent and uneconomically viable territories for blacks.
The suffering of blacks was untold.
This forced black South Africans to launch resistance mainly through the African National Congress (ANC) and its military wing uMkhontoWeSizwe as they advocated for their land rights and equality.
Throughout the colonial period, various indigenous groups resisted land dispossession.
South Africa attained independence over 30 years ago, but the land issue remains unresolved. The ruling ANC has been under pressure from South Africa citizens to correct this colonial legacy.
Black South Africans, constituting 80% of the population, only controls 20% of the land resources while the rest of is held by whites, who are 20% of the population.
It is with this background that Trump’s decision to impose sanctions on South Africa citing violations of rights of the white population can be debatable, particularly around the concept of human rights and how they intersect with race.
The land problem has a long and painful history on colonial subjects that can never be washed away and deliberately ignoring the historical context of the problem in South Africa can lead to devastating consequences on international relations.
Zimbabwe has walked a similar road before. The idea to correct land imbalances were a noble one but was blighted by the use of extreme violence.
For South Africa, imposing sanctions on the country over threats of violence against the white farmers is premature and betrays naked bias by the Trump administration.
Human rights are universal, not racial
The question of human rights has been a contentious one - whose rights?.
George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm, shows that other animals are more important than others and their rights matter more than those of others. Justice is reserved for a certain class of people.
When Trump slaps South Africa with sanctions in the context of protecting the rights of white South Africans; there is a temptation to perceive human rights as a privilege of a single racial or ethnic group.
South Africans’ right to land had been violated for the past four centuries, and Trump in his statements never acknowledged that.
Whites who colonised South Africa never shipped land, the occupied land belonging to others.
The concept of property rights was introduced, but did not look into historical perspective to determine who initially owned the land. This has created problems in most former colonies.
The world is awash with cases where property is appropriated, followed by establishment of legal frameworks to protect the new owners while punishing those who want to reclaim their rights.
Zimbabwe is also an example. After a series of laws take land from the landless blacks from 1897 to 1980, laws on property rights do not consider the historical context of land ownership.
The late former president Robert Mugabe’s land reform prgramme was marked by violence and gross human rights abuses that created social tension that persists up to today.
This highlights the complexities and injustices of land ownership and rights.
Indigenous South Africans have a right to their land; they lost their land without compensation and according to Julius Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, the colonial masters should pay reparations first to claim the proper right to the land.
Trump’s advisor, Elon Musk, who is also a South African–born entrepreneur, described Malema as an international criminal for advocating for South Africans to reclaim their land from the whites without compensation.
I think it is important for Trump and Musk to know that human rights are universal by nature.
Human rights are inherent to all individuals, regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, or any other status. They are grounded in the fundamental principles of dignity, equality, and respect.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the United Nations in 1948, asserts that all human beings are entitled to the same rights without discrimination.
This foundational document emphasises that human rights are not contingent upon one's race or the political circumstances of a given country.
For Trump to frame the conversation solely around the rights of white individuals in South Africa risks oversimplifying complex social dynamics and undermines the historical context of the struggle for equality and justice faced by black South Africans.
It also distracts from the ongoing issues of poverty, land reform, and systemic inequality that affect many non-white citizens.
There is always a danger in racialising human rights.
When human rights are articulated as "whites’ rights," it threatens to create a dangerous precedent where the struggles of one group are elevated above others.
This perspective can lead to a divisive and exclusionary rhetoric that ignores the fundamental tenets of human rights which call for the protection of all individuals.
The world and mostly in western countries, we have seen several cases in which even the law, including policing is applied along racial lines. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaign was premised on the unfair treatment of blacks, meaning their rights are seen as secondary.
The BLM movement expanded in 2014 after the police killings of two unarmed Black men, Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
Garner died in New York, after a white police officer held him in a prolonged illegal choke hold, which was captured in a video taken by a bystander.
This led to massive protests in the US, exposing how the policing have been biased against the blacks.
From this, we can learn that one group of people is uniquely entitled to rights can foster resentment and conflict rather than promote understanding and solidarity.
Mr Trump should be reminded that a commitment to human rights in their universality necessitates acknowledging past wrongs and working toward a future that ensures dignity and respect for all people.
I think Mr Trump's actions against South Africa's alleged subjugation of whites highlight a critical misunderstanding of human rights.
These rights are not the exclusive domain of any racial or ethnic group; they belong to everyone.
It is imperative to cultivate a discourse that recognises this universal truth and advocates for equality in a manner that is inclusive and respectful of the complexities of social justice.
Racism has been rampant in the world, even in the field of entertainment where black players have been treated with ridicule because of the black skin. This has not helped the world despite efforts towards globalisation.
The sanctioning of South Africa ignoring the historical context, without even prior engagement, will not help the world, but intensify stereotypes that human rights are Whites’ rights.
Everson Mushava is a Zimbabwean journalist and communication strategist. He writes in his personal capacity, he can be contacted on mushavae@gmail.com
