Pieter -
I'm an Afrikaner living on a farm in South Africa. I recently came across some of the claims circulating—especially from the Trump camp—about how dire things supposedly are for white Afrikaner farmers here.
Do you actually refute Trump's characterizations?Like his statements effectively painting all Mexicans (immigrant or not?) as "criminals and rapists", his statements suggest that there is widespread personal violence against white South African farmers leading to their death and then to confiscation of their land. Is there any evidence that this *ever* happens? Or are there isolated incidents of criminal violence (people are murdered everywhere in the world from time to time) juxtaposed with culture/government-wide movements to provide some level of restitution for the manner in which land was transferred from indigenous peoples to colonists (of all stripes... e.g. wealthy and powerful as well as those drawn along by them to do the dirty work of breaking and working new land including possibly displacing the current residents)?
Just to set the record straight: I don't identify with that narrative. Personally, I live very happily on the farm. I don’t farm — I'm here for the lifestyle, not agriculture — and to me, it honestly feels like paradise. I don’t feel threatened at all. Of course, not all white farmers in South Africa have the same experience. Some do face real challenges, and discrimination does exist. But the situation is complex, and like in every society, there are both positives and negatives. No country is perfect.I also live on a plot of rural land which is nominally "farmland" though the only farming that has occurred here is a homestead garden (60' diameter circle), a handful of fruit trees and a small flock of chickens, all established by myself through my 25 years present. My 1.5 acres is roughly 1/5 of 6 acres that were carved out of the middle of a sovereign "pueblo" that was "granted" by the King of Spain in 1623 to the Tewa speaking people living here, very likely direct descendents of the "ancestral puebloans" (formerly termed "Anasazi"). The grant stated "1 league in each cardinal direction from the entrance to the cemetary of the Catholic church). this measure (nearly) abuts another 4-league-square granted at the same time by the same time with the same "stride" (vara) which defined what a league was (5000 varas - 2.6 miles)... Mine was *taken* from the pueblo in the early 60s by the private electric company serving much of NM (PNM) to build a transformer station which was in fact never built. I couldn't find records but standard practice (and law) at the time would have involved a (forced) payment to the Pueblo. In the 70s the first private title to the whole plot showed up under the name of a couple and a single man who apparently were contriving to build a modest mobile home (aka trailer) park on the property. My well and the electric power feed (a co=op not PNM) were sized for this purpose (for better and worse). Ultimately the mobile home park failed to materialize and the property was subdivided into my 1.5 acres and 4 other plots just over 1 acre each. 3 of those plots now have modern construction/styled commuter homes owned by folks who were commuting to LANL (as I was when I bought in 2001) 15 miles up the hill. I believe that the Pueblo had the opportunity to reclaim the land at the point it was sold into private hands and missed it (likely for the price they were paid).
I just wanted to say: yes, I’m a white Afrikaner living on a farm in South Africa—but I’m not one of those Trump talks about. For me, this is the best place on earth.
I can imagine that it is similar but quite different from my own experience here. Another Pieter from South Africa (Mathematician at LANL) declares that the only place he finds more beautiful than his homeland of SA is right here. I think he is at least partly referencing the distance from the Apartheid context he grew up in (but left for college at 18) and the *opportunities* he found a US national laboratory with (historically) good funding and broad areas of application for a pure mathematician (working in the T/Theoretical Division).
My main purpose in opening this response to your statements about Trump's characterization of Afrikaner "refugees" is to reflect on the implications of European, exploration, colonization, the ensuing displacements and genocide of indigenous populations followed by variations on "Apartheid" as well as the importation of literal *enslaved peoples* and the related "indentured servitude" and "company store" tactics that the capitalist/ruling class often uses to establish and maintain a virtually free workforce.
My acutely "Conservative" friends would call my self reflection on such topics "Liberal Self-Loathing" when in fact I experience it as an attempt to reflect on my place and part in history (including future-history) and looking for opportunities *within my jurisdiction* to act differently than I might if I bought into one of the outstanding narratives. My 3 modestly MAGA neighbors hold that "this was an original Spanish Homestead passed down generationally" ,in spite of all of our Title histories when purchased showing the PNM (first) title. It is also the case that our area was entirely unbuildable (or farmable) before the US highway right next to us was built, redirecting floodwaters. Our properties were essentially a (mild) floodplain which are now protected by the roadbed which directs the water through everal culverts, collecting the runoff into one large and two small arroyos. The pueblo acequias end about 200 meters uphill from us in a field intermittently planted with (ritual) corn. We have an acutely high water table because of our topography and proximity to the Rio Grande so pumped well irrigation is reasonable in spite of the landscape being acutely dry high-desert in a growing drought context.
Reviews of the maps of the Pueblo reflect the incremental addition of 3 acequias (irrigation ditches) over the 17,18,19c opening up significantly more land for irrigation farming. Many argue that the land was "useless" until the Spanish Colonists (aka Conquistadors) built these acequias (designed after the Moorish tradition/style) and therefore should "belong" to the Spanish Colonists who directed the natives themselves in the construction of the acequias. Of course, the conquistadors brought no women with them in the early waves of conquest so all descendants of proud Spanish noblemen are very much indigenous genetically. For the most part the "land grants" held through the Mexican revolution and then the Mexican-American war and US Territoriality in 1848. There are very few Tewa surnames remaining in the pueblos, most are Spanish, and there are a very few distinctly European Spanish descendants among the local populations. The boundaries of the pueblos have expanded a little through various US grants and trades to include their traditional range... to include some of their hunting grounds in the mountains *outside* the 2 leagues square. Many pueblo members live off pueblo, unrecognizeably different than many of the Hispanic and even Anglo populations.
My "liberal self-loathing" instinct is to repatriate the land I bought 25 years ago to the Pueblo in some way. Their own governance is dysfunctional enough as are their attempts to *buy* back inholdings such as mine that I am not clear on how to do that without making a bigger mess. There is a Tewa Womens Alliance which formed 40 years ago originally to respond to domestic violence within the native families which has expanded their charter to do quite a few progressive things including re-establishing traditional farming and craft techniques and preserve the Tewa language (there are 4 distantly related puebloan language groups in the region). I believe they might be able to parlay my little "homestead" into something which vaguely supports the people that it nominally belonged to when De Vargas and Onate (later) came charging in with "guns, germs, steel" 500 years ago.
I was fascinated, BTW to discover that your own (Capetown) European history predates even Columbus' journey with a visit in 1488 by Dias... the complexity of Portuquese, Dutch, French Huguenaut, English exploration/colonization is quite fascinating and at least as hard to untangle as any.
The bigger question is how to embrace the complexity and diversity that comes with these overlays of overlays without compounding the errors of the past. If Trump's framing of the Afrikaner "plight" is accurate then someone has been perpetuating the original problem in a (tiny) way similar to what the victims of the Jewish Holocaust are perpetrating on the Palestinians (particularly Gaza at this moment). The only "open" hostilities amongst the folks in this region express themselves moslty in struggles over water rights and roadway and utility right-of-ways with the Spanish land-grant descendants mostly antagonistic with the Pueblos. Most Anglos recognize they are latecomers and that for the most part the legal system supports them (us) well.
Our (Euro-American colonists) genocide and slavery history does not leave us much room for criticizing others... most of the ugliness is well hidden but non-trivial.
- Steve
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