FACT CHECK: South African President Claims Afrikaners Don’t Face Discrimination

CLAIM: White South Africans — members of the Afrikaner, or Boer, minority group — do not face racial discrimination or persecution by the South African government.

VERDICT: FALSE. Major political leaders in the country have called for the murder of Boers to thousands of supporters, and the government recently passed a law that could lead to the expropriation of land without compensation, South Africa-born Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Joel Pollak told Fox News this week.

Speaking with anchor Will Cain, Pollak touched on President Donald Trump’s recent use of the terms “land confiscation,” “discrimination,” and “genocide” to describe the Afrikaners’ plight after a small group arrived in the United States as refugees on Monday:

“Of those three terms, genocide might be a bit premature,” he said. “But, when you look at the statements of leading South African politicians, notably Julius Malema, who held a rally on South Africa’s Human Rights Day in March and proclaimed ‘Kill the farmer, shoot the farmer, kill the Boer’… That ought to have been taken up by South Africa’s judicial system, but the courts decided not to intervene.”

Malema, the leader of South Africa’s far-left Economic Freedom Fighters party and a member of the National Assembly, regularly leads supporters in chants calling to “kill the Boer”:

Just this March, South Africa’s highest court refused to allow an appeal of a lower court’s decision that the phrase “Kill the Boer” was not hate speech or incitement under the law,” Breitbart News reported.

Pollak went on to explain, “Even in this country, that would be outlawed. It’s not protected speech under the First Amendment if it’s incitement to immediate harm or violence. That is what that is. So, members of that group certainly have good reason to fear the government.”

On real discriminatory legislation that has been passed, the conservative radio host also brought up how South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Act earlier this year, allowing the seizure of property without compensation.

Pollak said, “The South African government passed a law called the Expropriation Act, which allows property, not just farms, to be taken without compensation. And it is circulating regulations that restrict the percentage of white employees that can work in various industries.”

“So the president is accurate that members of that group are facing racial discrimination and the threat of expropriation,” he added.

Since the U.S. accepted a mere 59 Afrikaner refugees, Ramaphosa called them “cowardly” and claimed that they do not face discrimination, Breitbart News reported.

Cain went on to draw a connection between American diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology to what is going on in South Africa, to which Pollak concurred:

That is exactly right. I do think there’s a strong interest in the United States in this story because of the rollback of DEI. This is the logical consequence of DEI that people are expropriated and denied job opportunities and that they have to seek their opportunities elsewhere. 

There’s also a broader strategic element in all of this. South Africa is an important ally of the United States in Africa, and these racist policies inside South Africa actually make South Africa weaker. We need South Africa to be strong. Racial discrimination weakens a society, any society. We don’t want to see South Africa become another Rwanda. We need South Africa to be strong, and hopefully this gets the message across that South Africa needs to reform. 

By the way, not just a planeload of 59 refugees — 70,000 Afrikaners have applied for refugee status. And if nothing else, the American rugby team is about to get a lot better. 

In a final remark before the Fox News segment ended, Pollak commented on an Episcopal charity group for quitting a taxpayer-funded refugee program because of Trump’s welcome of the Afrikaners.

“There is a reluctance to help members of so-called privileged groups, but how easily we forget that it is often privileged groups who are the targets of these kinds of threats,” he said. “The Tutsi in Rwanda, for example, were seen as more highly educated and professional — and a million were murdered in the Rwandan genocide.” 

“So I’m afraid the church’s stance there falls short of a moral standard,” he added.

Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.