[FRIAM] Trump and Afrikaner Refugees

[steve smith]

Pieter -
> I'm an Afrikaner living on a farm in South Africa. I recently came 
> across some of the claims circulating—especially from the Trump 
> camp—about how dire things supposedly are for white Afrikaner farmers 
> here.

Do you actually refute Trump's characterizations?

Like his statements effectively painting all Mexicans (immigrant or 
not?) as "criminals and rapists", his statements suggest that there is 
widespread personal violence against white South African farmers leading 
to their death and then to confiscation of their land.  Is there any 
evidence that this *ever* happens?  Or are there isolated incidents of 
criminal violence (people are murdered everywhere in the world from time 
to time) juxtaposed with culture/government-wide movements to provide 
some level of restitution for the manner in which land was transferred 
from indigenous peoples to colonists (of all stripes... e.g. wealthy and 
powerful as well as those drawn along by them to do the dirty work of 
breaking and working new land including possibly displacing the current 
residents)?

> Just to set the record straight: I don't identify with that narrative. 
> Personally, I live very happily on the farm. I don’t farm — I'm here 
> for the lifestyle, not agriculture — and to me, it honestly feels like 
> paradise. I don’t feel threatened at all.
> Of course, not all white farmers in South Africa have the same 
> experience. Some do face real challenges, and discrimination does 
> exist. But the situation is complex, and like in every society, there 
> are both positives and negatives. No country is perfect.
I also live on a plot of rural land which is nominally "farmland" though 
the only farming that has occurred here is a homestead garden (60' 
diameter circle), a handful of fruit trees and a small flock of 
chickens, all established by myself through my 25 years present. My 1.5 
acres is roughly 1/5 of 6 acres that were carved out of the middle of a 
sovereign "pueblo" that was "granted" by the King of Spain in 1623 to 
the Tewa speaking people living here, very likely direct descendents of 
the "ancestral puebloans" (formerly termed "Anasazi").   The grant 
stated "1 league in each cardinal direction from the entrance to the 
cemetary of the Catholic church).   this measure (nearly) abuts another 
4-league-square granted at the same time by the same time with the same 
"stride" (vara) which defined what a league was (5000 varas - 2.6 
miles)...    Mine was *taken* from the pueblo in the early 60s by the 
private electric company serving much of NM (PNM) to build a transformer 
station which was in fact never built.  I couldn't find records but 
standard practice (and law) at the time would have involved a (forced) 
payment to the Pueblo.   In the 70s the  first private title to the 
whole plot showed up under the name of a couple and a single man who 
apparently were contriving to build a modest mobile home (aka trailer) 
park on the property.  My well and the electric power feed (a co=op not 
PNM) were sized for this purpose (for better and worse).   Ultimately 
the mobile home park failed to materialize and the property was 
subdivided into my 1.5 acres and 4 other plots just over 1 acre each.  3 
of those plots now have modern construction/styled commuter homes owned 
by folks who were commuting to LANL (as I was when I bought in 2001) 15 
miles up the hill.  I believe that the Pueblo had the opportunity to 
reclaim the land at the point it was sold into private hands and missed 
it (likely for the price they were paid).
> I just wanted to say: yes, I’m a white Afrikaner living on a farm in 
> South Africa—but I’m not one of those Trump talks about. For me, this 
> is the best place on earth.

I can imagine that it is similar but quite different from my own 
experience here.   Another Pieter from South Africa (Mathematician at 
LANL) declares that the only place he finds more beautiful than his 
homeland of SA is right here.   I think he is at least partly 
referencing the distance from the Apartheid context he grew up in (but 
left for college at 18) and the *opportunities* he found a US national 
laboratory with (historically) good funding and broad areas of 
application for a pure mathematician (working in the T/Theoretical 
Division).

My main purpose in opening this response to your statements about 
Trump's characterization of Afrikaner "refugees" is to reflect on the 
implications of European, exploration, colonization, the ensuing 
displacements and genocide of indigenous populations followed by 
variations on "Apartheid" as well as the importation of literal 
*enslaved peoples* and the related "indentured servitude" and "company 
store" tactics that the capitalist/ruling class often uses to establish 
and maintain a virtually free workforce.

My acutely "Conservative" friends would call my self reflection on such 
topics "Liberal Self-Loathing" when in fact I experience it as an 
attempt to reflect on my place and part in history (including 
future-history) and looking for opportunities *within my jurisdiction* 
to act differently than I might if I bought into one of the outstanding 
narratives. My 3 modestly MAGA neighbors hold that  "this was an 
original Spanish Homestead passed down generationally" ,in spite of all 
of our Title histories when purchased showing the PNM (first) title.    
It is also the case that our area was entirely unbuildable (or farmable) 
before the US highway right next to us was built, redirecting 
floodwaters.   Our properties were essentially a (mild) floodplain which 
are now protected by the roadbed which directs the water through everal 
culverts, collecting the runoff into one large and two small arroyos.   
The pueblo acequias end about 200 meters uphill from us in a field 
intermittently planted with (ritual) corn.  We have an acutely high 
water table because of our topography and proximity to the Rio Grande so 
pumped well irrigation is reasonable in spite of the landscape being 
acutely dry high-desert in a growing drought context.

Reviews of the maps of the Pueblo reflect the incremental addition of 3 
acequias (irrigation ditches) over the 17,18,19c opening up 
significantly more land for irrigation farming.   Many argue that the 
land was "useless" until the Spanish Colonists (aka Conquistadors) built 
these acequias (designed after the Moorish tradition/style) and 
therefore should "belong" to the Spanish Colonists who directed the 
natives themselves in the construction of the acequias.   Of course, the 
conquistadors brought no women with them in the early waves of conquest 
so all descendants of proud Spanish noblemen are very much indigenous 
genetically.  For the most part the "land grants" held through the 
Mexican revolution and then the Mexican-American war and US 
Territoriality in 1848.  There are very few Tewa surnames remaining in 
the pueblos, most are Spanish, and there are a very few distinctly 
European Spanish descendants among the local populations.  The 
boundaries of the pueblos have expanded a little through various US 
grants and trades to include their traditional range... to include some 
of their hunting grounds in the mountains *outside* the 2 leagues 
square.  Many pueblo members live off pueblo, unrecognizeably different 
than many of the Hispanic and even Anglo populations.

My "liberal self-loathing" instinct is to repatriate the land I bought 
25 years ago to the Pueblo in some way.  Their own governance is 
dysfunctional enough as are their attempts to *buy* back inholdings such 
as mine that I am not clear on how to do that without making a bigger 
mess.   There is a Tewa Womens Alliance which formed 40 years ago 
originally to respond to domestic violence within the native families 
which has expanded their charter to do quite a few progressive things 
including re-establishing traditional farming and craft techniques and 
preserve the Tewa language (there are 4 distantly related puebloan 
language groups in the region).   I believe they might be able to parlay 
my little "homestead" into something which vaguely supports the people 
that it nominally belonged to when De Vargas and Onate (later) came 
charging in with "guns, germs, steel" 500 years ago.

I was fascinated, BTW to discover that your own (Capetown) European 
history predates even Columbus' journey with a visit in 1488 by 
Dias...   the complexity of Portuquese, Dutch, French Huguenaut, English 
exploration/colonization is quite fascinating and at least as hard to 
untangle as any.

The bigger question is how to embrace the complexity and diversity that 
comes with these overlays of overlays without compounding the errors of 
the past.  If Trump's framing of the Afrikaner "plight" is accurate then 
someone has been perpetuating the original problem in a (tiny) way 
similar to what the victims of the Jewish Holocaust are perpetrating on 
the Palestinians (particularly Gaza at this moment).   The only "open" 
hostilities amongst the folks in this region express themselves moslty 
in struggles over water rights and roadway and utility right-of-ways 
with the Spanish land-grant descendants mostly antagonistic with the 
Pueblos.   Most Anglos recognize they are latecomers and that for the 
most part the legal system supports them (us) well.

Our (Euro-American colonists) genocide and slavery history does not 
leave us much room for criticizing others...   most of the ugliness is 
well hidden but non-trivial.

- Steve

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