Dark clouds are hovering over South Africa.

In February 2018 the South African Parliament passed a motion calling for a constitutional amendment that allows for land expropriation without compensation. The motion came from the openly Marxist and racist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of Julius Malema. Currently, Section 25 of the South African Constitution states that land may only be expropriated for “just and equitable compensation” and only “in the interest of the South African people” and “for their benefit”.

Whoever the “people” are remains of open to debate, and whatever will “benefit” them is not so easily determined either. For even legal land reforms in South Africa over the past two decades have seldom led to productive farming and prosperity. The beautiful farms turned into a barren wasteland in the Richtersveld of the Northern Cape serve as a somber reminder. Another example is a lush citrus farm I often visited as a child near the Kruger Park. It exported oranges far into the world and provided work for hundreds of black farmworkers. Today it is in total disarray. In fact, Prof. Albert Modi, head of the School of Agriculture at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said that a mere 1% of his black students completing their studies in agriculture indicated any interest in taking up farming as a career (Rapport, March 18, 2018).

Land reform has always been a sensitive priority on the government’s agenda since South Africa finally emerged out of Apartheid in 1994. Very few would disagree that much remains to be put right with regards to the issue.  The EFF feels however that the process is going too slow, and that whites should own no land at all. They are European settlers. Their leader Julius Malema (an ardent supporter of Robert Mugabe) brought a similar motion to parliament a year ago. It was then soundly defeated. This time around an overwhelming majority adopted it. It happened just as South Africans were celebrating the long-awaited ousting of its most corrupt leader ever, Jacob Zuma, and the arrival of his successor Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa.

Why now?

But why now? To answer the question one must realize who voted in favour of the motion: The ruling African National Congress (ANC), the Pan Africanist Congress and the EFF of Malema. The official opposition and some smaller parties opposed the motion. So what caused the ANC to make such a sharp turn to the left, merely twelve months after opposing the exact same motion? The answer is simple: Politics. The fear to lose power! Renowned Political Scientist Hans Morgenthau said it years ago already: “Politics is a struggle for power”! That’s why it can be so cunning, brutal and dirty.

Khulekani Magubane of News24 summed it up well: “Economic observers have for years raised concerns that the fear of losing an election would prompt the ANC to push populist laws in an attempt to woo disgruntled voters”. Frans Cronje, CEO and researcher of the South African Institute for Race Relations predicted in 2015 that the ANC will be forced to move further left in its frantic bid to hold on to power, since its own ideology would prevent it from seeking a coalition with the pro-Western opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA). That is now happening. In fact, Ramaphosa and his deputy went so far in March as to extend an invitation to Malema to return to the ANC, since that is where they said, he truly belonged! Malema rejected the invitation unceremoniously. In the end, Ramaphosa’s Machiavellian move only served to raise Malema’s stature and to lower his own.

How serious is it really?

Americans and Canadians may not see the full significance of what is happening here. In an effort to shore up support, South Africa’s new president reaches out to a man (representing less than 10% of the electorate) who openly yells that “the throat of whiteness must be cut” and who calls for all white land to be confiscated and be given to the state. He is a man who calls all whites “criminals” and everything they own as having been “stolen”. He likes to chant before his cheering supporters clad in red: “Kill the Boer, Kill the farmer!” He inherited this genocidal chant from the ANC’s struggle years, having broken away from the ANC some years ago.

The term “Boer” traditionally refers to white South Africans of European extraction (mostly Dutch, German, French, and British), a significant portion of whom have traditionally earned their living as farmers of crops and livestock, forming the backbone of sub-Saharan food security. Thus, caught up in the eye of the storm are the Afrikaners whose ancestors set foot at the Cape of Good Hope in the 1600’s and who started farming there long before the United States of America or Canada became a nation!

ANC leaders have occasionally sung the “Kill the Boer” chant during and since the struggle years, at its mass rallies and in their native tongues. Those chants are now becoming louder than ever among the far left. This, in fact, makes the ANC the only governing party in the world allowing for songs and chants calling for the violent elimination of a section of its population. And yet they still receive $350 000 annually from the US government in aid, not to mention the European Union’s support.

It is not hard to notice the gloomy clouds gathering all over South Africa. Neither is it hard to believe Dr. Gregory Stanton of Genocide Watch’s dire warnings that something very ominous is in the making. Fact is, the throats of whiteness are being cut for two decades already, on the farms in particular. Being a white farmer in South Africa is more dangerous than being a US marine in Afghanistan. By early April 2018, Afriforum has recorded 110 farm attacks for the year to date, with fifteen fatalities. The latest fatality was a 40-year-old farmer of Ladybrand in the Free State. His wife was raped. Conservative estimates have the number of farm murders since 1994 well over two thousand. Yet since 2007, the South African Police Force is forbidden by the government to report the stats of farm murders. It must be hidden under general crime statistics and be viewed as robberies gone bad, providing the convenient excuse the liberal Western media is looking for to ignore the issue.

President Ramaphosa sought to allay all these fears by saying that a change to the constitution should be carried out without “destabilizing the agricultural sector, endangering the food sector or undermining economic growth”. The question is: Will wild mobs care for the fine print of parliamentary motions? They are driven by blind passions and inflammatory speeches, not by the fine print of parliamentary motions.  Mr. Ramaphosa may yet come to rue the day when he dared to allow tampering with private property rights for a little political gain. The genie is now truly out of the bottle. A few days after the motion was passed land was already being illegally seized at a number of places, including near the city of Centurion.  If this serves as an indication of what may be coming, not even President Ramaphosa will be able to force the genie back into the bottle.

Why is the world ignoring a crisis of such proportions?

Slowly the world is waking to the grim South African reality it has ignored for so long. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson called it a “racist land grab” and “almost too depressing” to report on in an interview with Mark Stein. He expressed fears that the final demise of South Africa may very well accelerate the mass exodus of African immigrants into Europe in the near future. And in Canberra, the Australian minister of Interior Affairs spoke in favour of fast-tracking the emigration applications of white South African farmers, recognizing how dire the situation is. He stuck to his guns despite a hostile response from the South African government and the far left Guardian newspaper in Britain. Russia of all countries offered 15 0000 Afrikaner farmers to resettle in its most fertile land north of the Caucuses, while many are already farming in neighboring Georgia. The liberal Western media prefer however to kill the entire story and to sacrifice these farmers, their families and workers – and ultimately South Africa – on the altar of their pride that would never allow them to admit how their own ideology has failed.   That is mainly why the corporate media in the West has chosen to ignore this story for so long. It is simply too hard for us fallen creatures to face the facts, overcome our pride and admit that we got it so wrong.

So what can we as North American Christians do?

• Pray for President Cyril Ramaphosa to be a just leader seeking his wisdom and strength from God’s Word (Prov. 28:2). He knows the Christian faith very well
• Pray that the ANC would heed the calls of some of its great leaders of the past. Mr. Albert Luthuli warned the black majority years ago never to “elbow anyone out of the country” and Mr. Nelson Mandela said: “To deny people their human rights, is to deny them their human dignity altogether”. He also said, “Never, never, and never again…”. It is barely twenty years later!
• Pray that the poor will realize how empty the promises of Communism are and how dangerous Malema is (Prov. 28:15).
• Raise awareness among all that international pressure must be brought to bear upon the South African government to consider where it is taking the country. Just as our countries and citizens took a stand against the injustice of Apartheid, so we should now rise as one against the racist and communist ideology that threatens to destroy South Africa and its people.
• Read Psalm 70 and pray for our brothers and sisters of all races in South Africa. They are every moment now like the disciples anxiously watching the mighty waves in the darkest hour of their existence, crying out “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38)
• Pray also that all Christians in SA may seek “to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with their God” (Micah 6:8) and never reach their hands out to iniquity (Psalm 125).
• Pray for farmers, their families, and workers evicted from their lands. They will be instantly rendered without a source of income, without a roof over their heads, without a pension, and largely unprotected by law enforcement.