US Restricts Visas Over South Africa Land Seizures
Is South Africa's empowerment policy sovereign redress or state-enforced racial discrimination?
Above: The South African flag flying near the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 6, 2013. Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The Spin
Establishment-critical narrative
Washington has no standing to lecture South Africa about race while running a phony refugee program built to destabilize a sovereign nation. Visa restrictions change nothing, because empowerment policy comes from a multiracial, multiparty government that answers to South Africans, not to the White House.
Pro-establishment narrative
South Africa has become the most race-regulated country on earth, where racial classification, employment quotas and threats of land seizure without compensation treat minorities as problems to be managed instead of equal citizens. Pretoria was warned and did nothing, so barring the officials who write and enforce these laws is an overdue consequence. Ordinary South Africans lose nothing; only the architects of racial discrimination pay.
