If Donald Trump performs another spectacular turnaround and agrees to attend South Africa's G20 summit in November, his host, Cyril Ramaphosa, should quickly stick to entertain him in Cape Town.
Not only is the cloak featuring amazing golf courses to delight the U.S. president, but it is one of the most attractive destinations in the world in spring in the Southern Hemisphere. There, Ramaphosa could also give Trump a subtle lesson in the true mentality of the white Africa minority without risking anger by formally refuting the lurid claims of the U.S. president - he was repeated at the White House on Wednesday - Africa farmers face "genocide."
All Ramaphosa has to do is let Trump stroll through the huge statue of Louis Botha, which overlooks the National Assembly and gives the history of the leader of the Doughty Boer "Commando". He sat in the horse codes of multiracial parliament debating the country's laws, a fact that reflects all the mistakes of apartheid nation, but all its mistakes did not eliminate the history of Africans, but still did not oversee genocide.
Arguably, Bota is the ultimate symbol of how most Afrikaans responded to the apartheid era after the 1994 election, ending 46 years of Afrikaan rule in 1994 - by adaptation. On the base of the statue are: peasants, soldiers, and politicians. Botha Bitter personbecause irreconcilable people are known.
The same phlegm spirit has been widely injected into most Afrikaans over the past three decades as they have to become a minority life after dominating the bureaucracy and state of segregation. It's not direct.
In recent years, dozens of white farmers have been killed in cruel ways. But it is criminal, not a consistent plan implied by the term “genocide”. South Africa’s shocking high crime rates affect all races. Not only the Afrikaans fall into private security companies, but any South Africans who can afford it. The police's shortcomings are just a reflection of the hollowing out of the State University under the ANC, a key factor in its majority in last year's election.
Afrikaners definitely have reasonable concerns, as one weekend reminded me in the Free State that it is a rural country fortress in the heart of the country. Like minorities around the world, they are bothered by the future of their language and fear that their children may no longer be taught in Afrikaans.
Understandably, they were shocked by the populists’ inflammatory language. The ancient anti-apartheid ode to “Kill Boole, Kill the Peasants” resurrected by the radical Economic Freedom Fighting Party was ruled by the court in 2010 as hate speech, but was subsequently overturned. ANC is too casual about this.
The Afrikaners are also concerned about the implications of the new land law, ultimately allowing land to be expropriated as a last resort for public use without compensation. The ANC countered that the fact that no farm has been requisitioned, but that most of the farmland is owned by white minorities may cause future trouble.
The Afrikaans also listed the impact of the affirmative action plan on the child’s work prospects. When the ANC tried to correct past injustices, the wheel did turn: Afrikaans were beneficiaries of their own affirmative action plans in the case of apartheid. But that forces many of them to be more entrepreneurial today.
Johann Rupert, the billionaire founder of luxury goods group Richemont, helped establish the White House meeting between Ramaphosa and Trump, while media giant Koos Bekker is just the most prominent of many Afrikaans businessmen, thriving in a new order.
As part of the controversial Trump administration’s refugee program, 59 Afrikaans who travelled South Africa to the United States may feel they have no prospects in South Africa. But these did not embark on a new great trek. Instead, they are modern Bitter person - Or guys who just eagerly seized the opportunity of a US green card. The Liberal Front and the conservative Afrikaans' party are, after all, national unity governments.
The hope of many Afrikaans who would South Africa and all South Africans is that the fragile White House meeting must do two things: it ended the slander of “white genocide” once and for all; and reminded Ramaphosa that needs to improve his game.
Alec.russell@ft.com