The Episcopal Church, which has a long history of resettling refugees in the US, took a bold decision by rejecting a directive from the Donald Trump administration to resettle Afrikaner “refugees” from SA. These “refugees”, men and women who have benefited from the historical and systematic disenfranchisement of black people that has spanned for more than 342 years, have become part of an insidious racist and white supremacist agenda by Trump that is aimed at not only mobilising the global right-wing white racist element, but also at punishing SA for its decisive and morally just stance against the terror of the apartheid state of Israel.
SA has hauled the Zionist government of Benjamin Netanyahu to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to answer for the genocide that it is waging against Palestinians. As I write this, the apartheid state of Israel has blocked humanitarian aid from entering the battered Gaza and other parts of Palestine.
Netanyahu and his administration are determined to bomb and starve Palestinians to death. The death toll since the October 2023 war in Palestine started has surpassed 40,000. Many of the murdered are children, a majority of them below the age of 10. This is what SA wants accountability for – and it is what Trump has decided he will punish the country for. This, and our country’s affirmative action policies that have hurt the business interests of his trusted lieutenant Elon Musk, is documented.
In his quest for vengeance, Trump has decided, against all scientific and empirical evidence, and concluded that there is a genocide against white people in SA, and that he, the king of the white world, will be the saviour of the racist elements in our country and beyond. And so, he has signed an executive order to offer fast-tracked asylum to white South Africans who are fleeing “persecution”.
Anyone with half a brain knows that no white people are being persecuted in SA. South African white people also know they are not being persecuted. On the contrary, 31 years into the democratic dispensation, they continue to enjoy privileges inherited from the country’s colonial and apartheid past.
But to Trump, these are people in desperate need of protection – more so than the thousands of Afghans who are in genuine distress and whose applications for asylum in the US have been in limbo for years. This is despite the US having played a huge role in the creation and maintenance of the crisis, leading many to flee Afghanistan – as it has in many other parts of the world, from Nicaragua to Cuba, Palestine to Libya.
While many Americans have questioned this narrative of Afrikaner “persecution”, the Episcopal Church in the US has gone beyond questioning to confrontation. The church rejected a directive from the Trump administration to resettle the 49 “refugees” that have since arrived in the country and has even decided to shut down its decades-long refugee resettlement programme.
In a statement, the church explained its decision as follows: “In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historical ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step” (referring to Trump’s directive to the church).
The church went further to say: “Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the US federal government.”
The Episcopal Church has emerged as a voice of reason in the insanity of Trump. Just a few months ago, Bishop Mariann Budde of Washington DC drew Trump’s anger at an inaugural prayer service in which she urged “mercy” on those fearing his actions, including migrants and the LGBTQ+ community. This latest incident will no doubt draw his anger. It doesn’t make it any less progressive and just.
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