Expanding the Trump Afrikaner Policy By Supporting Self Determination In South Africa

By Alejandro C.

The Trump administration took a monumental step when it issued the “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa” which withdrew support for the ANC led government of that country and offered asylum to Afrikaners seeking to escape the deteriorating situation.

An outpouring of thanks, commendations, and tears followed on social media as countless Afrikaners, and other South Africans of all races, thanked the Trump administration for its recognition of the deteriorating situation in that woefully corrupt country. However, many Afrikaners made it clear that they are intrinsically connected to the African continent and do not wish to leave their homeland. This position has since been expanded on by South African Ernst Roets [Tweet him] in his recent interview with Tucker Carlson on the matter (retweeted by Elon Musk).

The Afrikaners became a people in Africa. Their history, their language, their faith, and their worldview are rooted in the land they secured for themselves during the Great Trek.

Something Mr. Roets repeated several times struck a chord with the politics we advocate here at White Papers: a call for self-determination and decentralized institutions. He suggested that South Africans abandon the politics of monolithic racial groups and instead decentralize government according to cultural and ethnic communities. This is a fantastic suggestion and if the Trump administration is serious about curtailing the worst abuses of the corrupt South African state it is something worth supporting.

It is certainly a better option that the failed neoliberal regime of the post-Mandela era and leagues superior to returning to the failed, unsustainable, and morally irreconcilable Apartheid system. Cultural decentralization is also supported by several other political parties and groups in South Africa, namely the Inkatha Freedom Party which advocates greater decentralization of power so the Zulu people will have more freedom to determine their destiny as a nation. The party also advocates autonomy for traditional African communities and increased authority of those traditional communities over local government.

So, what could a pro-self-determination policy by the United States look like?

The United States must first define what style of community self-determination it will support. The model should be that of groups who legally purchase land for the purposes of creating a cultural community along the lines of Orania, the white South African community in which whites do all their own work, with no “cheap labor”.

This support would extend to any community whether they be Afrikaners, Zulus, or Xhosa (to name but a few).

Funding would come from the current $500-plus million US government agencies spend in South Africa each year. Specifically, the 150 million or so dollars that are not spent on HIV/AIDS related projects could be redirected to the project to support self-determination in South Africa. HIV/AIDS funding would remain untouched and continue funding that crucial care and research. The funding should be limited to very specific areas of development assistance: roads, bridges, power and electrical infrastructure, water for drinking and agriculture, and the construction of buildings. The grants would be one-off grants for specific infrastructure-related projects and would not serve as the basis for continued contractual work. In short, the US would pay to help build the solar panels but not be responsible for their annual maintenance.

No funding would be directed toward or available for political parties, social groups, educational initiatives, or other ‘social’ services the American people have decidedly elected to stop funding across the world and which DOGE is currently winding down. In short, America would help fund the solar panels and batteries needed to generate electricity but there will be no support for cultural initiatives.

My suggestion is also not one of revolutionary nature. Our government in the US is already funding the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq, we (extremely imperfectly) fund self-determination services for American Indians, and we have a long history of fighting for ethnically defined states and regions such as Kosovo, the State of Israel, and Kuwait.

This policy proposal has the advantage of not funding conflict but rather trying to prevent it in a rapidly deteriorating South Africa. By working with groups who seek self-determination and doing it through legal channels rather than by say expropriating land from people, it may just serve to stabilize a country with a corrupt government and failing public services.

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