As U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last Friday granting Afrikaners refugee status amid accusations of racial discrimination in South Africa, tensions between the two countries reached an all-time high.
Ahead of that executive order, Trump announced last week that South Africa is "confiscating land" in relation to the newly enacted Expropriation Act, which the likes of Elon Musk have characterized as "openly racist." Misinformation surrounding the new law has led to a resurgence of the narrative that white South Africans—especially farmers—are facing an orchestrated campaign of genocide through arbitrary land grabs.
This claim has been debunked repeatedly, yet it persists, fueled by an extensive network of far-right provocateurs both within South Africa's borders and across the Western world. And now it has even reached the White House.
Since the democratic elections of 1994, South Africa has struggled to address its systematic racial and economic inequalities. Land reform, in particular, has been an extremely contentious issue, with the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and other parties championing policies to redistribute land from white landowners to black South Africans whose ancestors were displaced from that land under colonial rule and Apartheid.
Such a mandate is extremely popular within the country, as according to a 2017 state audit, white landowners control 72 percent of agricultural land, while black landowners only hold 4 percent. This disparity is extremely stark, considering that black people make up 80 percent of the country's population whereas white people account for around 8 percent. However, conservative Afrikaners—descendants of mostly Dutch settlers—have portrayed land reform policies as a form of "reverse apartheid," spreading misinformation that land is arbitrarily taken from them and using selective reports of farm murders to bolster claims of a "white genocide" taking place.
According to academic Nicky Falkof, the resurgence of this "swart gevaar"—an Afrikaans term used during Apartheid to refer to the fear among white South Africans towards a black majority—is a result of far-right figures positioning farm murders as an act of ethnic cleansing. Some conservative groups in South Africa have misrepresented facts about farm murders, sensationalizing them by fixating on exceptionally violent cases and promoting the idea that all farm murders are politically and racially motivated. Falkoff and others have identified AfriForum, a lobby group that claims to "fight for the rights of Afrikaners," as a key source of such misinformation. Though the claims of uniquely brutal violence are mostly anecdotal, their shocking nature has become the cornerstone of such groups' outreach to Western leaders.
Ernst Roets, deputy CEO of AfriForum, went on Fox News in 2018. He talked about farm murders and, more pointedly, the talks by the ANC to allow for expropriation of land without compensation. In the interview, Roets made it seem as if the government facilitated the mass murder of farmers through anti-private property policies, and that white farmers are being persecuted at an alarmingly high rate. However, Africa Check, a nonprofit fact-checking institution, estimated the rate of murder among people involved in farming activities in 2015-16 to be 5.6 murders per 100,000, significantly lower than the country's general murder rate of 33.9 murders per 100,000.
This misinformation nonetheless led many on the American Right to incorrectly believe that the majority of farm-related crimes were not due to poor material conditions affecting black communities but rather racial grievances. The misinformation spread rapidly through social media platforms like Twitter, where supporters of the "white genocide" narrative cited sources such as Roets and AfriForum to validate their claims. By portraying white South Africans as victims of state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing at the hands of black and brown people, far-right groups in the U.S. and Europe validate their racial anxieties and justify anti-immigration policies.
At the center of this land reform controversy is the passage of last year's Expropriation Act, which repealed the apartheid-era Expropriation Act of 1975. The new law aims to align expropriation with South Africa's constitutional mandate to ensure equitable access to land. In a country marred with unequal land distribution based on race, the government uses expropriation as a tool to address systemic land inequality and dispossession. However, so far the ANC has failed in its mandate. After the 1994 democratic elections it had initially set a target to transfer 30 percent of farmland to black ownership. However, by 2018, a government survey of title deeds showed that only an estimated 8 percent had been transferred, prompting a push for a more direct approach.
Much debate has followed the passage of the act. Its opponents claim it is a vehement attack upon private property, with figures such as Trump stating that it allows the government to arbitrarily confiscate land. This claim is incorrect, however. The act explicitly states that "an expropriating authority may not expropriate property...arbitrarily or for a purpose other than a public purpose or in the public interest." It also states that land cannot be expropriated without compensation if it is currently being used. This means that residential property, commercial property, farms, and mines are exempt from expropriation without compensation.
Additionally, the act stipulates that an expropriating authority must first try and reach a deal with the owner of the property—a provision critics say gives owners undue leverage which will delay expropriation.
Possibly the most controversial part of the act is section 12, which governs compensation for expropriation. Conservatives claim it to be unconstitutional as it permits expropriation without compensation in some cases, but legal scholars argue that it complies with section 25 of the South African constitution's requirement for just and equitable compensation. Furthermore, the provisions for expropriation without compensation are very limited and will typically be applied to state-owned land that is not currently in use, or abandoned inner-city buildings that pose a public health risk.
The Expropriation Act has become more than just a domestic policy issue for South Africa—it is now a flashpoint in the country's relationship with the United States. Mischaracterized in right-wing media circles, the law has faced backlash indicative of a broader, more insidious narrative: the myth that white South Africans are being systematically targeted for land dispossession and genocide.
This narrative, amplified by figures like Trump, Musk, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has not only distorted the reality of land reform in South Africa but has also fueled the far-right's broader agenda in many Western countries. By portraying white South Africans as victims of an alleged racial purge in a black-majority country, far-right groups justify their own ethno-nationalist ideologies.
In reality, the Expropriation Act does not mark a radical shift in policy. It will likely continue South Africa's slow and largely bureaucratic approach to land reform—far from the sweeping land grabs feared by critics. Yet the international uproar surrounding it demonstrates how racial anxieties and political opportunism can overshadow facts.
Riley Singh is a freelance journalist focusing on social justice, economic, and political issues.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
