Recently the U.S. chartered a flight for 59 Afrikaner refugees from South Africa even as nearly all other refugees from around the world are now blocked. Two senior U.S. officials greeted the Afrikaners at the airport. According to the U.S. President, there is a “genocide” against the white Afrikaners. The Episcopal Church’s relief agency in protest is refusing any further cooperation with U.S. refugee resettlement. U.S. policy now recognizes Afrikaners as victims of persecution in majority black South Africa but not other whites there. About 55 percent of South African whites are Afrikaner or at least make it their main language. The remainder are predominantly English speaking.
Afrikaners descend mostly from Dutch settlers of several centuries ago, with the English arriving later. The British Empire conquered the Afrikaner or Boer settlers early in the 20th century. But, after WWII, the Afrikaner National Party won elections and stayed in power until the early 1990s instituting harsh racial segregation known as apartheid. Whites were only about 15 percent of the population but owned nearly all land, controlled nearly all business, and of course controlled the government. Blacks could not vote. Later, mixed race and those of Indian ancestry had limited voting rights.
The apartheid regime imposed censorship and restricted opposition. Afrikaners mostly aligned with the Reformed Church, while the English mostly aligned with Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian churches, among others. The legal white political opposition was mostly English.
Demonstrations against South African apartheid became popular in America in the 1980s, and Mainline Protestant churches, like the Episcopal Church, were outspoken in advocating U.S. sanctions. Many clerics and other religious activists sought arrest through civil disobedience outside the South African embassy in Washington, DC. In 1989 I joined a delegation of Virginia United Methodists meeting with our General Board of Global Ministries in New York to protest its political activism, which had included funding for the African National Congress in South Africa during its violent phase. The missions board’s treasurer told us he had been arrested outside the South African embassy, provoking audible groans from some in our group.
The IRD in the 1980s opposed apartheid while also chiding the Mainline churches for double standards. They were silent about repressive regimes elsewhere in Africa, such as the murderous Marxist regimes in Ethiopia, Angola, and Mozambique, among others, not to mention brutal dictators like Uganda’s Idi Amin and Central Africa’s Emperor Bokassa, both of whom cannibalistically literally ate their opponents, among other depravities. IRD also expressed alarm about support for the African National Congress, which was violent, Soviet supported and aligned with the South African Communist Party. The Marxist regimes in neighboring Angola and Mozambique that replaced Portuguese colonialism, along with Robert Muzorewa’s Zimbabwean dictatorship that replaced white Rhodesia, were warnings about what could happen in South Africa. IRD urged support for anti-Apartheid forces that were clearly democratic.
ANC leader Nelson Mandela was released from prison after 27 years in 1990, no longer a pro-Marxist radical, but a force for moderation and national reconciliation. White South Africans voted to end apartheid in 1992, after the Soviet Union’s collapse, when the specter of Marxism no longer loomed. Mandela was elected president in 1994. He thanked and visited unsavory regimes that had supported the ANC during its struggle, including Libya’s Muammar Kaddafi and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. But otherwise, Mandela mostly ruled wisely, affirming lawful multiracial democracy. The ANC has remained the governing party for 31 years, far too long for any party. But earlier this year the ANC’s share of the vote dropped to 40 percent, forcing it to rule in coalition with the white-led, multiracial, center-right Democratic Alliance and the far-right Afrikaner Freedom Front Party, plus eight other smaller parties.
Whites in South Africa are now about seven percent of the population, numbering about 4.5 million, down from 5.2 million during Apartheid but remaining largely stable across the last 20 years, although having a fertility rate below replacement level. South African whites still own most land, control much of South African business and are far wealthier than South African non-whites. The average South African white household has five times the wealth of a black household. Whites are also less likely to be victims of crime than blacks.
The U.S. had deemed Afrikaners victims of persecution because of a new South African law in which abandoned or unused property can potentially, through the courts, be seized by the government. There’s been no action to take property yet. The letter of explanation for ending refugee resettlement cooperation with the U.S. government from the Episcopal Church’s presiding bishop says:
It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years. I am saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service to our country. I also grieve that victims of religious persecution, including Christians, have not been granted refuge in recent months.
The Anglican Archbishop of Southern Africa responded supportively to the Episcopal Church stance:
While U.S. supporters of the South African group will no doubt highlight individual cases of suffering some members might have undergone, and criticise TEC for its action, we cannot agree that South Africans who have lost the privileges they enjoyed under apartheid should qualify for refugee status ahead of people fleeing war and persecution from countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Afghanistan.
U.S. Episcopal Church political pronouncements often have been far-left and often insensible for many decades. Some on social media have complained the Episcopal Church apparently does not care about white people. But this point about other refugees, including persecuted Christians who fear for their lives, refused entrance while dozens of South African Afrikaners receive a chartered flight, seems important.
The biographies of the 59 Afrikaner refugees are not reported although one tweeted anti-Jewish comments. Hopefully the other 58 refugees can affirm American principles about equality for and good will towards all under our U.S. Constitution. And hopefully other refugees around the world, who face genuine dangers, and who yearn to be Americans living under the blessing of our democracy, also will eventually regain the option of coming to America. America’s democracy is renewed by refugees who have suffered from tyranny and subsequently cherish America’s unique freedoms. Their example of gratitude instructs us all.