Hannes Wessels,

I’m certainly not looking for any sympathy, (cowboys don’t cry we were taught), but being of European descent, coming from a family that left Europe over 300 years ago, and having lived all my life in Africa, I think it is fair to say that our ever dwindling ‘white tribe’ has long felt forsaken. Most of us have simply had to shrug our shoulders and accept that events simply overtook us, while some of us tried to resist but were overwhelmed, and we probably, through some fault of our own, found ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

My generation has weathered war, mindless political hostility and anti-white racial invective and related persecution at home culminating in Robert Mugabe’s ethnic cleansing that commenced 45 years ago and wrecked our lives.

But here we have long known that in the eyes of the world ‘white cannot be right’ and therefore we have been constantly cast as the perpetual culprits that everyone loves to hate, no matter how overwhelming the evidence to the contrary. This, thanks in large part to a global media complex that has persisted in peddling a singly prejudicial narrative that mentions little other than slavery, the ‘scourge’ of colonialism and the alleged ‘avarice’ of ‘white settlers’.

These falsehoods have, for decades, been well and widely received, and amplified, by the left-leaning ruling class that has dominated the Western body politic since WWII. From Britain’s Harold Wilson to Sweden’s Olaf Palme, and America’s Jimmy Carter, the anti-white narrative was persistent and effective.

In their view we should never have been here in the first place and we have proved an ongoing embarrassment that has induced a wholly undeserved sense of guilt among the people of the Western world, which comes with consequences; and this has been addressed by the most massive financial assistance campaign in world history. Western ‘aid’ started to flow in the early 60’s and, no matter how incompetent and corrupt the recipient governments have performed, a total of US$2.6 trillion has flooded the continent since 1960, most of which has been squandered or stolen.

I have had to watch this catastrophic waste of money with an unusually jaundiced eye. I grew up in the most comprehensively sanctioned country in recent history, which was also at war with the  world; and yet somehow, we not only survived but to an extent prospered. This was simply because Rhodesia was well governed, corruption was almost unknown, laws were firmly and fairly enforced, and the citizenry, both black and white, were motivated, innovative and industrious, and nothing was wasted.

In 1980, when power was transferred to Robert Mugabe, the country, despite the turmoil, was fundamentally in excellent shape and ripe for success. The Zimbabwe dollar equalled one British pound!  Added to this, the international community lined up for the privilege of showering the new regime with excessive financial and political support. With a golden age for the taking, the new rulers ‘knew better’.

Local white expertise in the private and public sector was ruthlessly dispensed with, and an autocratic form of centralist socialism was introduced, but no matter how badly the new government behaved, aid money and international support kept coming. This ushered in what became notionally a failed state, riddled with serial hyperinflation, while millions, almost all blacks, were condemned to penury or abject poverty.

That is the Zimbabwe story but in some shape or form, a similar sequence of events has unfolded throughout post-colonial Africa from Ghana’s independence in 1957 where trillions of dollars were poured in to support governments and bureaucracies that have done little other than enrich themselves at the expense of the people they are empowered to uplift.

It has also been very clear to those of us who live here that the NGO’s (Non-Governmental Organisations) entrusted to distribute and manage these funds, being virtually unaccountable for a long time, have been a law unto themselves.  Aa result, very little of this largesse has actually gone to where it might do some good. In fact, without going into detail, there is little doubt in my mind that Western aid has done far more harm than good because much of it has been used to buttress bad governance, bureaucratic elites and create corrupt billionaires rather than alleviate poverty and stimulate growth. The result is that sub-Saharan Africa, more than 60 years after the advent of decolonisation, suffers widespread poverty and appalling governance.

Proof of this enormous failure can be seen in the boats that daily traverse the waters of the Mediterranean loaded with Africans desperately seeking the safety and stability that their former European colonial nations offer in contrast to the hellholes they’ve abandoned.

It is against this bleak backdrop that Donald Trump has burst back into political power to shatter the status quo, not only in his home country, but across the globe.

Trump is busy reshaping America and the world.  But in my humble opinion, his most important message to the community of nations is that, if a country, community, corporation or organisation, is to sustain itself and prosper, merit, and merit alone, must always be the measure of a man or a woman, while discrimination in any form based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion is simply unacceptable no matter who is discriminating against who.

In this vein Trump has taken time out of his busy schedule to finger South Africa’s ANC for discriminating against the white minority with particular emphasis on the recently promulgated Land Expropriation Act which, protestations of President Ramaphosa and other politicians notwithstanding, is clearly aimed at dispossessing white farmers and pursuing the same path to self-destruction as followed by Robert Mugabe.

Adding to the shock and awe, rippling through this continent, Trump, with the help of Elon Musk, has plans to smash the scamsters who have long abused the generosity of Americans and corrupted the administration of USAID to the detriment of Africa and the world.

For someone who loves Africa and yearns for a brighter future for this benighted sub-continent, for the first time in 60 years, I see a glimmer of light ahead in what has been a dark tunnel for far too long.

SOURCE:Trump and Africa – Africa Unauthorised