No amount of misinformation, race-baiting, scaremongering, or openly criticising South Africa's redress policies can ever make sense, as the trade union, Solidarity, and AfriForum have learnt.
At best it emboldens those who believe in white supremacy and those who are against diversity and racial harmony. The lies that AfriForum has been spreading about the Bela Act and Expropriation of Land Act are unpatriotic and reckless. They did a lot to get the attention of American president Donald Trump and his new friend, Elon Musk.
Chickens are coming home to roost now that they have the attention of the pair who are fabricating stories about white genocide and portraying the Expropriation of Land Act as an attempt to confiscate land from white people. Trump has responded to the land expropriation by threatening to cut aid funding as a result of the lies.
White South Africans have never had it so good since apartheid ended. To level the playing field for those who were previously disadvantaged, a few policies were introduced. The privileges that were formerly reserved for white people are not in any way diminished by those policies.
For many years now, AfriForum has been repeating the lie that white farmers are being targeted and murdered, ignoring the findings by University of South Africa's criminologist Professor Rudolph Zinn, who specialises in policing and forensic investigation.
According to Zinn, violent crime is a major issue in South Africa, and the thefts and attacks on farms were committed by criminals primarily seeking money and other valuables rather than for political reasons.
The kind of attacks that befall farmers happen across all races, whether the robbers want a cellphone, a car or cash, which underscores the point of how ubiquitous violent crime is across all kinds of robberies or home invasions.
It is embarrassing and dishonest to use lies to disparage a policy, regardless of how much you abhor it, even for a group like AfriForum.