South Africa is FURIOUS Australia Is Allowing White Farmers to Move into Their Country As Genocide Occurs

Sisonke Msimang is the author of “Always Another Country.” She is a South African who divides her time between Johannesburg and Perth.



Three years ago, when my friends and family in South Africa heard of my decision to move to Australia, many of them were apprehensive. They were worried about how I, an outspoken black woman, would cope. The stereotype of white South Africans who go to Australia because they are skeptical of black people running the country runs so deep that, in South Africa, telling a white person to “go to Australia” is shorthand for telling them they are racist.



Over the last three decades, Australia has become a symbol of racism to many South Africans. The country has come to be known as a site of racist fantasy — a place where black people have an insignificant physical and political presence. As I have learned over the last few years, race matters in Australia just as much as it does in the United States, or in South Africa where I come from. Indigenous Australians are the most incarcerated people in the world. Though the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, data from the World Prison Brief and the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggest the proportion of Indigenous Australians behind bars is the highest in the world — higher than that of African Americans.



So it was no surprise to me this week when Peter Dutton, the Australian minister for home affairs, weighed in on the plight of white South African farmers. Dutton suggested that Australia might look into supporting white farmers in South Africa whom he believes to be under threat and persecuted. He proposed offering them emergency visas, and that they needed protection in a “civilized country.” Dutton has been asked to retract his comments, but he is unlikely to do so. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has refused to condemn Dutton’s statements, though he hasn’t exactly supported him either.



Anyone with even a passing knowledge of South Africa will understand that white farmers are not an oppressed group. In the decades since apartheid ended, wealth has continued to be concentrated in the hands of the country’s tiny white minority. Whites represent less than 10 percent of the South African population, but they own more than 73 percent of agricultural land. To address this, South Africa’s parliament has voted in favor of a motion that will begin the process of amending Section 25 of the country’s Constitution, allowing the state to expropriate land without compensation where it may be necessary.