SA 'refugees': truth matters and all power needs opposing

We live in a world in which powerful people declare untruths to be true.

- Judith February

These lies gain currency among those who believe that complex problems have easy solutions.

Much has been made of the Afrikaner “refugees” who boarded an aeroplane chartered to provide safe passage for Afrikaners who claimed “refugee” status and are having their US citizenship expedited.

The entire exercise is quite obviously absurd (not to mention a waste of US taxpayer money, but let that not be our problem). But it is entirely in keeping with the lies, drama and illogic of the Donald Trump administration. For Trump, the show is the point. And it’s quite a show having people virtually airlifted from South Africa, so great is their suffering.

One can almost guarantee that once these so-called refugees are deposited in Texas, Wyoming, Nebraska, (insert flyover state name here), the Trump administration will forget them. Trump’s whole presidency has been an exercise in grift, racism, revenge and ignorance.

This little group will also come to learn that the US is no land of milk and honey. The white utopia they believe will greet them is in fact a country at odds with itself as it deals with its own racial tensions and inequality. And one in which they will have neither special protection nor special voice.

The lesson will be a hard one.