[Breitbart] CLAIM: Tucker Carlson’s claim that white South African farmers are being singled out is a "far-right" conspiracy theory.VERDICT: MOSTLY FALSE. While Carlson exaggerated, the New York Times’ attempted debunking is simply wrong.
In 2018, Tucker Carlson devoted a segment of his show on Fox News to reporting on the murders of white farmers in South Africa. Some of his reporting was alarmist, but the underlying problem is a real one, as many South Africans acknowledge.
Carlson’s report provoked then-President Donald Trump to tweet in response, creating one of his customary news cycles, with establishment media outlets accusing Carlson of fanning the flames of racial outrage. But as Breitbart News reported at the time, Julius Malema, the head of South Africa’s radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), responded that Trump was right about his intention, and that of others in South Africa, to expropriate land without compensation from white farmers.
There are essentially two land issues in South Africa. One concerns the restitution of land seized from black South Africans under apartheid. The other concerns the unequal racial distribution of land overall, including land owned by white farmers.
These two issues have been handled separately. While few black South Africans have shown an active interest in becoming commercial farmers, the unequal distribution of land remains a political flashpoint and a reminder of lingering inequalities.