White farmers in South Africa may lose all their land without any compensation, but Newsweek thinks they have nothing to worry about.
Their property loss is all going to the noble cause of “poverty reduction.”
That’s the argument made in an article published by Newsweek last week. The article, written by white South African professor Ben Cousins, aims to obfuscate the property confiscation proposed by the South African government as merely “land reform.”
Cousins dismisses the concerns of white South Africans as paranoia driven by demagoguery. The professor sees the “land reform” as uncontroversial because it is supported by the majority of black people and white-owned land is “stolen land” anyway.
“Given the bitter history of large-scale land dispossession, refusing to pay for stolen land is seen by many black South Africans as essential to restoring their dignity,” the South African professor writes.
Cousins argues that the government-approved proposal to confiscate white-owned land without compensation would do wonders to alleviate poverty in the African country — even though neighboring Zimbabwe did the same thing nearly 20 years ago and it led to famine and economic devastation. (RELATED: Will South Africa’s Plans To Expropriate White-Owned Land Turn It Into Zimbabwe?)
The author blames white resistance for Zimbabwe’s failure and urges South African whites to get with the program — or suffer the consequences.
“[W]hite South Africans should be offering their energies (and for farmers, some of their land) to help find solutions,” Cousins writes in his conclusion. “This will help secure their future in the country. Whereas attempts to defend their privilege could well lead to the loss of everything they own—an important lesson from Zimbabwe in the early 2000s.”
The Newsweek article is a possible omen of how the establishment media will excuse the expropriation of white-owned land. Even though private property is one of the cornerstones of a free society and every example of massive land confiscation resulted in devastation, liberal journalists will try to excuse South Africa’s dumb idea as a great way to combat racism and poverty.
If it fails, only whites will be at fault. They need to cooperate if they want a “future in the country.”
The question is though: why would these whites want to cooperate if they are set to lose their property? Why would they trust a government that forces them to give up their livelihood and doesn’t protect them? Why stay in a country that violates your basic rights?
Citizens have to feel a government cares about them in order to want to remain there. South Africa offers nothing to white farmers besides poverty and humiliation. It seems the only reason for these folks to stay around is to accept the blame when the land confiscations prove disastrous.
No wonder they don’t want to give up their land for the cause of “poverty reduction.”
Alas, caring about the plight of white South Africans makes one a racist, according to the establishment media. When Australian Minister of Home Affairs Peter Dutton suggested last month that his country do something to help white South Africans, he was pilloried as a racist by critics all over the globe.
A Guardian column published Tuesday claimed that Dutton’s offer of help solidifies “white privilege.” HuffPost editor-in-chief Lydia Polgreen dismissed the brutal farm murders against whites as just a part of South Africa’s violent crime and insisted “Whites are much less likely to be victims of it.”
In fact, farmers are more likely to be murdered than police officers, and the attacks on them usually include horrific torture and extreme mutilation. The South African government prefers to sweep these crimes under the rug and refuses to track statistics on these crimes.
Imagine what will happen to these farmers when the government encourages black South Africans to take their land…
We all know the land confiscation will be a massive failure and whites will flee from South Africa when it takes effect. But Western liberals are still committed to the idea that the “Rainbow Nation” is a thriving multicultural utopia and all of its problems are due to white racism. So when the land confiscation fails, most media outlets will likely follow Ben Cousins in blaming the whites who lost their land.
They just weren’t nice enough about handing over their life’s work.
No matter what hardships white South Africans will face in the wake of land confiscation, liberal media will still feel the real problem in the country is white racism. You won’t find many reports on grotesque farm murders, but you will see laudatory reports on how the government is cracking down on robbery victims who utter racial slurs.
For instance, “The Daily Show” audience recently broke into wild cheers at the news a South African woman was sentenced to three years in jail for being a racist. Daily Show host Trevor Noah, a South African, himself also lectured that whites should just stop being racist if they don’t want to go jail. I wonder what they would think of how the government does little to punish the perpetrators of brutal farm murders.
Trevor explains why a South African woman got locked up for being racist. #BetweenTheScenes pic.twitter.com/NXBg1KOs9X
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) April 4, 2018
In a perfect world, we would see no justifications for idiotic, racist ideas like land confiscation in respectable outlets. Private property is one of the key factors in a prosperous democracy. A government that no longer protects property is one that no longer upholds freedom. Just look at the Soviet Union and Maoist China for examples of the wondrous effects of land redistribution.
But the myth of the happy Rainbow Nation is more powerful than actual history, and it will needs its defenders as the real South Africa embarks on a path of gleeful self-destruction.
Expect more boneheaded rationalizations for land confiscation from the establishment media in the months to come.
Follow Scott on Twitter and buy his book, “No Campus for White Men.”