Lex Libertas

I mean, isn't that evident? I went on that terrible trip to America and mourned the 3,000 farmers who were murdered and tortured to death and gave a speech at the National Press Club where I bemoaned the situation South Africa finds itself in.

So, yes, Supra accused Lex Libertas and a range of other organizations like AfriForum and Solidarity and the Freedom Front Plus of committing acts of high treason and said their citizenship should be taken from them because they were spreading misinformation.

Now, the Free Speech Union put out a strong statement basically saying, unless you have a reading problem, the Constitution gives you a guarantee to free speech, makes no mention of this term misinformation.

It guarantees you a right to citizenship.

Free speech still works in this country, and we will ensure that they back off.

And I'll tell you what, this stance worked out pretty damn well, because that's exactly what they did.

So, Lex Libertas also put out a statement saying, first thing you should do is identify the misinformation.

If you'd like to have an open discussion with us, we are all ears.

Do you think Orania provides a model or is it more the enclave model of France, Kronia, Côte d'Ivoire, Milan, etc.? ?

So our approach as a think tank is to, if you could summarize it to one problem and one solution, we believe the problem in South Africa is that the system has become too centralized.

And we believe the solution is decentralization.

And decentralization could take many forms.

And we...

Our position is not that this particular outcome is the solution, but our position as a think tank is to evaluate the various forms of decentralization, which could include federalism.

It could include some form of cultural autonomy or territorial autonomy.

It could include special economic zones.

The rural commanders were closed down.

And I think what Lex Libertas says is arguing is just for an appropriate recognition of this problem and for there to be concomitant action to be taken by the authorities to try and deal with rural violence.

And in that sense, I think what they're simply asking for is equal treatment.

And a special task team on rural crime, I think, could be fairly straightforward to establish.

I mean, we have kind of special task teams for rhino poaching and cash-in-transit robberies.

You know, I don't think that that's too much to ask.

And yeah, so I think the white genocide label is being used to smear and discredit what I think are otherwise legitimate concerns that are being raised by Lex Libertas and other civil society organizations.

And is it just not so frustrating, though, to have to face this kind of active what might be considered an active measures attempt, an attempt by the South African media to take what was a good faith exercise, uh, in order to try and make a positive contribution to South Africa, you know, to then get that thrown in your face and to be treated as if you were somehow, you know, this Uber racist, uh, How does that feel?

Uh, it is available online.

They can go to the Lex Libertas YouTube channel.

That's L-E-X, the Latin, L-E-X, and then Libertas.

Um, or they can just search for Crossed Out: Confronting Persecution in South Africa, and they would find it.

[laughs]

[laughs] Talking about dicks in public spaces, [clears throat] Lex Libertas, the right-wing advocacy group and think tank, there's news on that front.

More like think sick dick tank.

[laughs]

I work here, so I'm not gonna tell you what I actually think because I'm gonna get fired, and I need the money.

Do you know what it's about?

But Chris, Chris Badenhorst is a me- me- member of Lex Libertas.

[laughs]

They're all lying to you.

Ernest Roats of Lex Libertas walked Border Hawk through the memorial and shared chilling details of some of the torture and the murders.

Okay, so I'm going to let him talk here.

And this is showing, if you watch the video, it's showing these, was it 3,000 crosses? Yeah, 3,000 crosses at the Washington Memorial.

You know, and I also think there's something somewhat incongruous here about, you know, invoking this, you know, unless we have double down BEE and more employment equity and whatever, we're going to have a bloodbath.

Well, you know, isn't that, it sounds a lot more like the sort of Lex Libertas narrative than the one that the South African government has been punting about.

Oh, everything's great in South Africa.

We all love each other.

Mbeki did understand diplomacy, and he built real credibility in Washington.

His heirs in the ANC have burnt through that credibility, lost the moral high ground with America entirely, and now the foundation is lashing out at the nearest available target, rather than confronting the party that destroyed the relationship and handed it on a silver platter to AfriForum, Solidarity, and Lex Libertas.

Finally, Peter Thiel, who is a huge financier in Silicon Valley and a billionaire, has had a recent complaint that society moralizes way too much, and it's worth thinking about this without having an overreaction of some emotional kind.

In some clips that have gone viral, he makes a distinction, distinction between moral judgment, good versus evil, and functional judgment.

She was telling me about this unusual sight at the foot of the Washington Monument here in DC last weekend.

All these white crosses had a, had a name on them, and the group that was organizing this event, which is called Lex Libertas, is a, essentially a right-wing lobby group for the Afrikaner white minority in South Africa.

A- and they were arguing that all of these crosses were symbolizing a victim of farm attacks, i- in their words, uh, against specifically white farmers.

To be clear, there are many victims of violence in South Africa, many Black victims, but allegations of race-based attacks have become a rallying cry on the right, and the plight of white Afrikaners has caught the attention of President Trump.

A very good afternoon to you, Mr. Matham.

And I have been looking online for coverage and wanting to see what kind of coverage, sympathetic or critical, there has been of the Lex Libertas 3,000 white crosses displayed in Washington story, and it's kind of like a void, Becca.

You mean in America? Yes.

Very much le- very much less coverage than in South Africa, where there has been a fair amount of buzz, but it doesn't seem to have attracted that much attention from too many media sites in America or elsewhere.

I've been looking and thinking about this a lot this week, John.

I've just written a big piece about it for DM168, the Saturday newspaper we produce, and, uh, here's the thing.

These, what, what Ernst Roets and Le- Lex Libertas did, which was to specifically foreground the issue of farm murders in South Africa to Washington, is not unique, and it's not the first time this has happened.

It's not the first time Washington has seen protests devoted specifically to this issue, South African farm murders.