Lore Stories: South African Realities
South Africa has one of the most complex histories imaginable, and it is almost impossible to grasp its history, present, and future without spending many years there. Here are some starting points.
In the wake of last week’s Oval Office meeting between President Trump and a delegation from South Africa, we have received several questions about how much of what was shown on video and from the printed screenshots was “true”.
There seems to be widespread skepticism for five main reasons:
Global media coverage of South Africa has avoided negative stories for decades, causing many people to doubt that they could have only recently become aware of the problem.
The media found a gotcha moment when one screenshot shown by Trump was actually from the D.R. Congo. The media has used that to attempt to invalidate the point of the meeting and all the other evidence.
Some factions have presented South African crime, especially the farm attacks, as a purely racial phenomenon. The reality is incredibly complex with multiple layers that include racial components, but none of them are exclusively racial in any direction.
There are no videos or photos of bodies stacked to the heavens like the Rwandan genocide.
SA politicians and judges, abetted by the media, have massaged the popular chant of “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer” into a cultural anthem that has to be respected. A simple way to understand how the world shrugs its shoulders at SA’s promised race death campaign is to contrast it with reactions to Palestinian sympathizers chanting “From the river to the sea…” on American college campuses.
The videos below help anyone better understand what is happening in South Africa. History is ultra complex, despite our tendency to frame everything in the simplest ways that make sense to us and our contexts. South Africa has one of the most complex histories imaginable, and it is almost impossible to grasp its history, present, and future without spending many years there.
The first video is excellent and highly recommended as a starting point.