Celebration of an Afrikaner icon belies Trump genocide claim

ON A warm spring day, more than 6 000 Afrikaners marked the 200th birthday of apartheid-nationalist icon Paul Kruger within sight of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the seat of South Africa’s Black-majority government.

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The authorities made no attempt to halt or interfere with the peaceful celebration where memorabilia commemorating Afrikaner rule was on open display, just one signal that belies claims the minority group is being persecuted.

Those include US President Donald Trump's assertion that White Afrikaner farmers are being subjected to genocide, a falsehood that’s sparked outrage among South Africans and soured relations between the two nations.

Afrikaans speakers — not all of whom are White — account for about 11% of the population of 63 million, hold top positions in business, academia and the judiciary, and rank among the country’s wealthiest individuals. Afrikaans — and English-speaking White families on average earn almost five times as much as their Black counterparts, government data shows. The September 24 gathering was staged at the Voortrekker Monument, a granite edifice that was opened a year after apartheid was officially instituted in 1948 to celebrate a 19th-century Afrikaner expedition to escape British rule. Couples dressed in traditional bonnets and waistcoats danced to folk music, while children joined treasure hunts and went on camel rides.

The crowd looked on as a flatbed truck bearing a four-metre-tall bronze statue of Kruger, who led one of South Africa’s early Afrikaner republics, departed on a week-long trip through nine towns. It culminated in Orania, a controversial separatist town that was founded in 1991 and encourages settlement by White, Christian Afrikaners.