Under the baobab: Trump, Musk painting false picture of South Africa

The 2025 African American Music Festival, hosted by the Penn State School of Music, concluded this past week with two amazing performances. On Friday at The State Theatre, the Cyrus Chestnut Jazz Trio and the D.K. Harrell Blues Band performed to a packed house. SOM professor Dan Isbell played trumpet at the jam session. On Saturday, SOM presented a choral music concert which featured the Concert Choir, University Choir and Glee Club directed by Chistopher Kiver; Oriana Singers directed by Emily Wertz, Vocal Dimensions directed by Eva George. Austin Norrid directed Essence of Joy accompanied by Bryan O’Lone, Darrin Thorton and Neal Holter.

The late Dr. Anthony Leach founded the festival years ago and this year’s program was dedicated to his memory.

Elsewhere on campus, the Sustainable Food Systems Network held a Food Justice Summit at Heritage Hall. A panel of PSU staff and faculty spoke: Andrea Dowhower, VP of Student Affairs; Lara Fowler, director, PSU Sustainability; Jim Meinecke, director, residential dining; and Meg Bruening, department head, nutritional sciences. The student organizers as spoke: Adeline Peat, Isabel Rivera, and Juan-Rodrigo Solares, as food backpacks for children were assembled.

Lonnie Graham opened his photographic exhibit, “A Conversation with the World,” at the Woskob Gallery. He was interviewed by Savita Iyer about his “multimedia exploration of human commonality” with portraits of ordinary people on five continents.

Around the globe

President Donald Trump ordered that all aid to the democratically elected government of South Africa be suspended, over $400 million. Most of it is used to fight HIV/AIDS, instituted by the Bush administration.

Trump wrote, “Afrikaners, (who are white), are being victimized by unjust racial discrimination ... South Africa is confiscating land and treating certain classes of people very badly.”

I respectfully disagree with the President. Whites in South Africa are not subjected to systematic discrimination.

I was a human rights observer in South Africa in 1978 during the apartheid years. I worked in the UN and as a lawyer for a major U.S. Corporation. In 2002 I went back to South Africa as a Fulbright Fellow at Stellenbosch University. Later I taught at the University of the Free State for three years. I produced several plays for the Grahamstown International Theatre Festival.

From 1948 to 1994 Blacks were not allowed to own any land in South Africa proper. They were exiled to arid and desolate regions called homelands and townships. When the country went through its peaceful revolution to democratic rule, small parcels of workable land were re-distributed. As a result, today Afrikaners make up about 7% of the population and control nearly 70% of the privately held land. Blacks are 82% of the population and own about 4% of that land.

In ’78 though they disagreed as to the outcome, everyone I talked to, except Desmond Tutu, said there was going to be a shooting war. Through deliberations and love of their country and interactions like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, they avoided it.

The President’s billionaire crony, Elon Musk, was born and raised in South Africa. He falsely wrote, “They are openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa.” In response to the “crisis” Trump offered to re-settle the Afrikaners as refugees in the United States.

The Solidarity Movement, which represents about 600,000 Afrikaner families and 2 million individuals, expressing commitment to South Africa wrote:

“We may disagree with the ANC, but we love our country. As in any community, there are individuals who wish to emigrate, but repatriation of Afrikaners as refugees is not a solution for us.”

Representatives of Orania, an Afrikaner-only enclave in the heart of the country, also rejected Trump’s offer. “Afrikaners do not want to be refugees. We love and are committed to our homeland,” Orania said.

Before he articulates an African policy perhaps President Trump should visit Africa, something he has never done.