SOUTH Africa’s entire history has been one of dispossession; and now repossession. Violence is hardwired into the nation’s social fabric and psyche. But its dynamics are by no means straightforward; nor can they be explained by simplistic descriptions such as Donald Trump’s alleged white genocide.

Land ‒ its strategic value, surface productivity and latterly what lies in and beneath it ‒ has been key. White invaders from 1652 onwards were ruthless in their acquisition of it. But this masked violence between black groups as they adapted to a variety of pressures; the difaqane of the early nineteenth century being one example.

The discovery of diamonds and gold led to the emergence of racial capitalism on the mines; while the Land Act of 1913 restricted black occupation to an eventual maximum of one eighth of the country. Africans were forced into overcrowded, poverty-stricken reserves and labour migration; or into farm labour where conditions were often brutal. Farmers also used and abused convict labour. In the mid-twentieth century South Africa’s manufacturing sector expanded leading to growth in poorly provided and serviced urban townships afflicted by gang conflict.

The introduction of apartheid from 1948 set a legal and bureaucratic seal upon this system. It began to unravel from the early seventies onwards with the Durban strikes and Soweto uprisings. Throughout the eighties the South African government abandoned the rule of law and unleashed a reign of terror on the nation.

Since 1990 a great deal of progress has been made via the growth of a black middle class and extensive service provision. But the fundamentals of poverty and marginalisation have arguably worsened, together with violent crime. Of particular note is gang warfare and the abuse of women and children. The vast majority of victims are black.

To suggest, as Donald Trump and the MAGA liars have done, that there is white genocide in South Africa is total delusion and racist cynicism. The number of white murders is low, even on farms. Genocide, the most abused word in the world at present, requires organised purpose of which there is none. What was portrayed in the White House is right-wing populist fantasy conjured up by a formerly privileged group bitter about its deserved loss of power, which it abused so egregiously. Only the truly demented would accept a tale of white genocide. America needs to regain its sanity.