The US head of state Wednesday directed his secretary of state Mike Pompey in a twitching tweet “to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and large scale killings of farmers. ‘South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.”
Tucker Carlson of Fox News was tagged in the tweet, making many to reach the conclusion that it was Carlson’s earlier TV broadcast in which he lambasted the American government for not weighing in on South Africa’s proposed land reforms earlier on same day.
One, there are no farm seizures at the moment in South Africa. Though, the government there has proposed land reforms to redistribute land to correct what it calls injustices of the past, in an emotionally charged situation where seventy percent of land owners are white South Africans.
Two, there is no white genocide going on in South Africa though the deranged tweet from the American president suggests that there are large scale killings of white farmers going on currently. In fact, crimes against whites in South Africa are at an all-time low.
This is another, not just misleading, not just merely false claim, but outright classless lie spewed from an American president, this time on an issue he knows practically nothing about. Did I say classless lie? That would be nothing but being soft. Because it is actually a devilish and roguish lie.
And, it is as vicious and vitriolic as it could be.
Not so surprising from a dishonest, ethically clueless man who cannot different truth from untruth, and who has been said to consistently run his affairs twisting and tarnishing the truth. The Washington Post has recorded over 4,229 false or misleading claims within his first 560 days in office.
This current and most recent adulterated and venomous conspiracy theory he is advocating couldn’t be timelier: he is in the centre of legal turbulence, with his former campaign manager convicted of eight federal financial criminal charges and his former lawyer and fixer who flipped on him facing imminent imprisonment while his presidency is under threat. It is just the right time to offer another distraction so as to be able to ride out of the storm of the raging political turmoil around him and speak again, to the baser instincts and ignoble impulses of his white supremacist and racist electoral base. Plus, those of the same inclination even outside his country, especially in Europe.
Mild succor nonetheless came from two senators, Jeff Flake (a Republican) and Christopher A. Coons (a Democrat), both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who said in a joint bipartisan statement that the current American president’s “unfortunate tweet in response to a Fox News broadcast should not distract the United States from improving relations with South Africa.” They also put their feet down by declaring, “We care deeply about the United States’ relationships with all African countries. Constructive relationships require measured dialogue as opposed to arbitrary tweets.”
The South African government wasted no time too in responding to his dangerous lie. David Mabuza, South Africa’s deputy president, issued his government’s thoughts without wasting time by saying, “We would like to discourage those who are using this sensitive and emotive issue of land to divide us as South Africans by distorting our land reform measures to the international community and spreading falsehoods that our ‘white farmers’ are facing the onslaught from their own government.”
Another South African, Julius Malema, head of South Africa’s far-left EFF party, said in a news briefing in Johannesburg: “We are more determined, after the Donald Trump tweet, to expropriate our land without compensation. . . . There’s no white genocide here. There is black genocide in the USA.” Mr. Malema’s point has been made: “There’s no white genocide here.” But I disagree with his poised stance on expropriating land from white farmers without compensation. You don’t use the weapon of injustice to heal injustice. You don’t use the medicine of unjustness to treat unjustness. When you attempt it, you create more woes for both parties in the long run.
White farmers, whatever the dingy history of their land ownership, has added economic and technological value not only to the land but also to South African society, through the hard work, intelligence and labour that they have put in over past years. As grueling as this may be for some of my black South African friends to accept, truth must be told.
And so the white farmers should be treated fairly. And they should be treated fairly well too. The government should pursue a win-win situation and let the principles of fairness and equity run through the land reforms. That means there has to be compensation for the white farmers.
Back to the American blabbermouth whose intent is to spread balderdash and poison Africa with his notorious untruth and symphony of lies, mostly in order to deflect attention away from his internal political and moral bugs, you won’t be in power forever.
