The Western Cape High Court has described “white genocide” in SA as imaginary in a ruling that casts the spotlight on US President Donald Trump’s reliance on misinformation in his rebuke of SA.
This came as the court set aside the will of a wealthy benefactor of right-wing outfit Boerelegioen, the proceeds of which were to advance the cause of exterminating black South Africans in a bid to fend off alleged white genocide. The application was brought by the benefactor’s children.
The court found the will offended public policy and that Boerelegioen activities glorified apartheid.
“The only expression of the testator’s intention that is evident, is the intention for the funds to be used for ‘training’, as well as the testator’s own assertions that he wanted the funds used to benefit an organisation which he deemed to be one which will ‘exterminate every black person in SA’ and will be used to defend or ward off a white genocide, which is clearly imagined and not real,” the judgment by judge Rosheni Allie reads.
“The Boerelegioen attempts to glorify the apartheid government by adopting its motto, namely ex unitate vires, which is a further painful reminder to the majority of South Africans of the brutal and odious past regime that ruled them,” it says.
“Stripped of all its ostensible niceties, white nationalism is the belief that national identity should be built around white ethnicity and that white people should maintain a superior dominance over the country’s culture and ethos.”
According to Boerelegioen’s website, the entity is a civil defence movement that enables citizens to resist the promised slaughter of whites in SA as well as the theft of their property. It is managed by retired members of the SAP and SADF.
“The movement is focused on the establishment of civil safety groups that will overcome the onslaught of the EFF, Black First Land First and other hostile groups,” it says.
The court found that for white nationalism to gain traction, it fosters a false narrative of an imagined threat to its cultural identity that it contends is being erased.
“SA’s own oppression and exploitation of the majority was sold to the more privileged sectors of society as being based on the alleged need to suppress the so-called ‘swart gevaar’.
“While the words ‘swart gevaar’ are no longer prevalent, the fearmongering now takes the form of persuading white people that farm murders are the designed commencement of a white genocide, which genocide is, allegedly, imminent,” Allie said.
“The Boerelegioen’s use of these tactics to garner support for their organisation, which is an admitted white supremacist organisation, has at its core objective activity such as the training of paramilitary and/or vigilante groups, in violation of the law.”
The effect of Allie’s judgment is that it blocks about R40m from the Bray Family Trust from flowing to Boerelegioen. The inheritance was from Michael Bray, who died in 2022.
Boerelegioen is led by Izak van Zyl.
Trump earlier this month signed an executive order offering asylum to white Afrikaners and cutting aid to SA. Before the executive order, he had posted on Truth Social that “terrible things are happening in SA”.
SA-born Elon Musk — the world’s richest person and a key figure in Trump’s inner circle — has accused SA’s government of failing to stop what he has referred to as a “genocide” against white farmers.
Trump has appointed Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency — a project to curtail US government spending through funding cuts, among other measures.
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