Gideon Jacobs has lived a life of the land. Farm-to-table was never a long sojourn for the barrel-chested Afrikaner, whose accent carries the history of his people. A base of Dutch, dashes of English, Malay, and a dozen more tongues built a language as uniquely native to South African soil as the people who claimed it as their own.
Less than 100 Dutch pioneers began the saga of Afrikanderdom in 1652, a century before Zulu expansionism brought that nation to fame. Former South African President Jacob Zuma, whose rule was a turning point in the post-apartheid era from rainbow nation to black nationalism, called the landing “the start of the trouble for this country.” Yet, even Zuma, for all his diatribes, had to begrudgingly dub the Afrikaners “truly African.”
The nation is at its nadir. Thirty-three years after the 43-year tragedy of Apartheid, South Africa now has over a hundred pieces of racial legislation. This time, the aim is squarely on the Afrikaners. Brutal attacks hit Afrikaner farms in wave after wave, even as the state threatens to seize those farms without compensation. (RELATED: The Plight of the Afrikaners Is a Clarifying Moment for Western Civilization)
In the face of crisis, Afrikaners have turned away from the state in ways unseen for a century. For an increasing number, this has meant immigration to the United States. Under the Trump administration, channels were opened to welcome Afrikaners as refugees for the first time, despite a vitriolic reaction from many progressives. (RELATED: Refugee Agency Forced to Fire Worker Who Disparaged Afrikaners)
Gideon Jacobs has been a part-time American since 2016. A proud Afrikaner born in 1982 amidst the death throes of Apartheid, he and his son, Nico, traveled to D.C., the capital of the republic that might become a new home. They were joined by Corné Mulder, leader of the Afrikaner political party Freedom Front, and other Afrikaner leaders to plead their case inside the beltway.
Gideon sat down with The American Spectator to discuss the designation of Afrikaners as refugees and the struggle for survival in their African homeland. Gideon’s great insight was into the internal struggle many Afrikaners face over whether to abandon the fields on which their ancestors worked to build a secure future for their children.
Gideon and Nico have come to the United States for part of the year to work under the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program. They have found themselves in Alabama, also the point of relocation for many of the newly arriving Afrikaner refugees, whom they count as friends.
Gideon is well read and Nico, still in high school, inherited his father’s intelligence. It is a talent he is dedicated to putting toward the farming life his forebears have led in Africa for centuries. As things go, though, he may have no choice but to live that life in Alabama. Gideon proudly declares that “he’s still in school,” but “we’re working.”
They were gratified to see Trump confront South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House with videos of Julius Malema, leader of the Marxist party Economic Freedom Fighters, singing “Kill the Boer” alongside tens of thousands of supporters. (RELATED: Mr. Trump Ambushes the South African Genocide Apologist)
Gideon wishes more understood how complicit Ramaphosa has been in Afrikaner oppression. Although “the real change started with Zuma, Ramaphosa was his deputy,” Jacobs said. His pronunciation of Ramaphosa’s name in the cadence of the Venda language flashes his Africanness. One wonders how any could question his roots.
Trump’s interaction with Ramaphosa “had to be shown,” he said. Contrary to reports of it being an ambush, Jacobs says, “that wasn’t really humiliation like the left media made it out to…Trump could have really humiliated him.” Showing only the chanting of the song advocating violence meant that “Trump showed a tenth of what people are living through back home.” (RELATED: A Bonfire of the Vanities at the White House)
Gideon pointed out that “Ramaphosa and [coalition partner] Steenhuisen, they lied to Trump in his face” when they claimed Malema was not in government. Despite not being part of the national government, “Julius Malema is in coalition with the [ruling] African National Congress in provincial government and in municipalities.”
The popularity of the anti-Afrikaner song, which courts denied was hate speech, has been at the center of South Africa’s turmoil. Gideon told The American Spectator that he still has hope, regardless, citing a poll showing that even most of those who vote for Malema “do not agree with the singing of [kill the Boer].”
In Gideon’s view, Malema’s bellicose persona has been “losing power” after a decade in the public square. At this point, Gideon thinks “incitement is the only way [Malema] can keep hanging on to it,” especially when his voters are “destroying themselves.”
Heritage Lost
“Apartheid had to end. Period.” Gideon has fond memories of the days when democracy came to South Africa. The nation was united, “70 percent of the [Whites] voted to get rid of apartheid.” International sanctions were lifted, and the economy prospered. With Nelson Mandela at the helm, “everybody was looking forward to the future.”
Jacobs doesn’t think the structure of the new government was perfect, saying that “they could have run it more like a federal system to protect the rights of every group.” Mandela led the success of abolishing Apartheid, but to Jacobs, “he kind of created a system in his party where it allowed it for the destruction of the country as well.”
Nonetheless, South Africa was on the path to success in his view until a program deceptively labeled “Black Economic Empowerment” was enacted at the forefront of a vast system of new racial laws that Gideon sees as taking “from Peter to give to Paul.”
At an event at the Hudson Institute on Monday, Corné Mulder noted that the program has circulated wealth while leaving the average black South African as poor as ever. Gideon said to The American Spectator that it was obvious the program was failing early on, but the African National Congress government “doubled down on it when they saw it’s not working.”
Gideon was 10 when Apartheid fell. His son never saw the system. Yet, both are considered accountable for it by the South African government. Gideon spoke with bewilderment when he asked The American Spectator, “What does a guy that was born in the 2000s have to do with anything Apartheid?”
Despite the litany of racial laws justified on that basis, “the majority of citizens in South Africa have been born after Apartheid,” so “are we going to blame everybody for the rest of our lives for anything that happened 30, 40, 50 years ago? How far is it going to go?”
Nonetheless, Gideon laments, “I don’t think the mentality is going to change on that at all.”
Nor was Nico taught their history in school. Gideon notes that after their defeat in the Anglo-Boer War, “Boers built up the country” through the Helpmekaar Movement of economic self-sufficiency.
Nico had to be taught this at home, as school curricula focused on Apartheid. Afrikaners preserved their culture through “self-sufficiency … parents are teaching their children … trying to destroy one history to create a new history.” To Gideon, “that’s the saddest part.”
Hanging On
He has tried to remain. A group of farmers he was a part of made several appeals to John Steenhuisen, leader of the Democratic Alliance. In theory, South Africa’s premier centrist opposition party has since joined a government led by the African National Congress. Steenhuisen was not helpful. Publicly, “he made promises, but nothing happened.” As progress in dealing with farm attacks stalled, he refused to meet with them.
Afrikaners were being murdered, events covered even across the media, and Gideon told The American Spectator that he felt that “the world stood by noticing it but not doing anything.” The whole situation “caused a feeling of loss.”
In contrast, Freedom Front offered a listening ear. A conservative party, it is focused on South Africa’s minority groups, although Corné Mulder told The American Spectator that an increasing portion of its membership is drawn from the country’s black majority. While Steenuisen stonewalled them, Mulder was “willing and eager to listen.”
When asked how Americans could stand with Afrikaner refugees, Gideon told The American Spectator that his first suggestion would be to support the AFRIKANER Act recently introduced in the House of Representatives. The act would legislatively cement the protections given to Afrikaner refugees by the Trump administration.
In general, however, he thought Americans’ priority ought to be “listening to everybody,” and he believes “that’s what Trump basically achieved.” Carrying his people’s self-sufficient pride, he adds, “I don’t think anybody is asking for finances, just a little bit of recognition. If you recognize a group and give your support to it, that’s a lot.”
Gideon has no interest in proposals for an Afrikaner separatist community. If South Africa is lost, it will be America for him.
Orange or Red, White, and Blue
Gideon loves the stars and stripes. “Originally,” he admits, “I was just supposed to come for a few years.” It was an opportunity to make some extra money when his own nation experienced water shortages and rolling blackouts.
He pauses, considering his words, and adds:“[Y]ou kind of get addicted to … going about your life [without being bothered].” It is a profound statement. In South Africa, being left alone was a luxury.
As many as 10,000 South Africans come to the U.S. for work annually. Gideon thinks that although the initial refugee program for Afrikaners has been small, many of these refugees could eventually want to apply for the refugee program.
The foreign policy debate of the Middle East raging today found its way into the conversation, as it seems to in most conversations today. Gideon experienced the first decade of his life under Apartheid. It did not take him long to conclude that “I don’t think Israel is an apartheid state.” He thinks that the American handling of the situation is a demonstration of our morality.
In contrast, the African National Congress has ties to communist and terrorist groups across the world. Gideon was shocked that “no media outlet reported that people in the ANC phoned Hamas members to congratulate them.” “Wherever you see smoke, there’s usually a fire,” said Gideon, but he told The American Spectator that he believes the media are intentionally “ignoring it.”
Internal Struggle
Among Afrikaners, Gideon told The American Spectator that there are two main groups. These are “the one group that don’t see any hope and the group that says we’re going to stay until the end and try to build the country.” Gideon is in the second group, but not without worry. He says he “can’t judge anybody currently that wants to leave permanently.”
He knows many in that group, including many refugees now joining him full-time as Americans in Alabama.
Gideon told The American Spectator that he thinks “most of them have lost either hope,” but “maybe they’re seeing something I’m not able to see.” He understands their point of view, adding, “I know for a fact that some of them were attacked on farms. If you’ve lived through it, it’s something different.”
All Afrikaners treasure their past, but for those taking the leap to be refugees, it’s about the future. Gideon tells us that “my friends that apply for the refugee system, mostly, they’re doing it for a future for their kids.” Some of them “made up their minds a while ago that if they ever have the chance to move permanently somewhere, they’re going to move.”
The two great factors for Afrikaners seeking refugee status that Gideon tells us of are “fear of crime and fear of no future for their children.” The latter eclipses the former by far; he holds strongly that “the biggest contributing factor is the kids.”
Gideon says his refugee friends were not discouraged by the reaction from the left. Some farmers in Alabama are “interested in hiring some of the refugees.” In that area, he says, “I haven’t really met anybody that’s negative.”
Nonetheless, he knows it’s there. On X, he often engages with critics. The wall of melancholy broke as mirth came forth, as, with a laugh, Gideon recounted to us that “I’ve made the offer to a whole bunch of people on the left to take them to a farm in South Africa and let them experience what everyday people have to experience there.”
Out of all of them, “no one has taken me up on the offer.” “Not,” he adds, “even the senator that went to drink margaritas with that guy in El Salvador … I wanted to take him on a nice holiday.”
He recognizes, nonetheless, that most leftist critics are simply ignorant rather than malicious. Gideon told The American Spectator that he believes “the hatred toward the South Africans is more based on the hatred that the left has for Trump.” After all, “none of them actually experienced what some of the guys that’s coming on the refugee program experienced” and “you can’t judge people when you haven’t walked in their shoes.”
Hope
Gideon longs for his home. His first priority remains to “build our country and put it back on track.” He maintains that “I still have hope for South Africa … I don’t think it’s totally destroyed yet.” Although the “politicians [keep] inflaming the division” and “want to live in the past,” he thinks that “on the ground, most of the guys are happy-go-lucky.”
This ability to put people before politics keeps Gideon going.
The American Spectator asked Gideon if he sees himself joining his friends permanently in the United States as refugees. With a sad pause, he admitted that “if anything changes in the next three or four years, yes.” The red line would be “if they start taking the farms, then it’s done.”
He thinks thousands of Afrikaners feel similarly that “everybody still hopes,” but “if they carry on with the destruction,” then many will “definitely” flee to America. Looking forward to the next South African election, he says to give it “another three years” before we see the level of Afrikaner emigration.
If the days of Afrikaners are numbered, however, he and thousands of others know American arms are open.
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