I once maintained that it would be impossible to write and produce a good satirical show in today’s South Africa. Now I am sure I was right: even before any writing is complete, reality will make the subject matter redundant.
Mind you, this week’s Amerikan refugee saga took matters to an even more ludicrous level since the humour, irony and exaggeration so necessary for satire was quickly buried under a deluge of realty.
Yet, even several weeks ago, the events that have now unfurled would have seemed outrageous: perfect material for satire. Who then imagined the US president, despite his erratic behaviour, granting refugee status and a chartered aircraft to bring 49 self-proclaimed white Afrikaner refugees to Texas?
Donald Trump and his aides claim these “refugees” (who are among the once self-proclaimed master race of southern Africa) are suffering racial discrimination. Yet there is no evidence of this. But then, we seem to be living in a time when myth, bolstered by bigotry, all too often takes the place of evidence and fact.
So who are the Afrikaners? If it is a matter of genealogy I suppose I qualify. On the maternal side, my ancestry goes back to the arrival in the Cape of Pierre Joubert, a Protestant refugee from Catholic persecution in France. Over the decades and centuries, the Joubert name became linked through marriage and various liaisons, with du Toit, de Villiers and others of various ethnic identities: we are, indeed, a diverse people.
Imperialist and nationalist politics affected all of us to varying degrees and saw families divided on “racial”, and even linguistic lines. My own grandfather, Andre du Toit Joubert became a devout supporter of British imperialism, and, in 1899, headed a “loyalist” platoon against the “Boers”. His brother supported the Afrikaner rebellion while many of their cousins fought on the other side
After the peace of 1902, grandfather Andre, who spoke Dutch and despised the emerging “patois”of Afrikaans, sent his children to schools where they learned English and French..So it was, in the South African context, our immediate branch of the family became “English” as opposed “Afrikaner”.
This division within the white, governing caste continued, with the classic example being that of Abraham — “Braam” — Fischer, grandson of a prime minister of the Free State. He dedicated himself to opposition to the Afrikaner nationalist ideology of white supremacy and headed the underground Communist Party. His Afrikaner credentials could not be denied, so nationalists referred to him as a “volks veraaier” (traitor to the people). That was even worse than being “English”.
Cape Town, South Africa-based journalist commentator and author specialising in political and economic analysis and labour matters. 
Terry Bell Writes 
Mandi S
May 14, 2025
Your family history illustrates what one see so often: white Afrikaner history is much more complicated than the rather monolithic narrative that underlies so much of South Africans’ understanding of each other. My father fought in WW2’s North Africa theatre alongside some fine Afrikaans soldiers, while at the same time resenting the hell out of the Ossewa Brandwag back home.
And as you demonstrate, the Engelse also have more nuances than the “1820 Settlers to trust-fund babies” trajectory so often used as shorthand for us.