The guy who took a shot at Trump last summer wasn't the first person to shoot a presidential candidate without a clear political motive. In 1972, Arthur Bremer failed to assassinate Richard Nixon and settled on one of Nixon's opponents instead.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Molly answers questions submitted by listeners.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2002, a terrorist group failed to assassinate Nelson Mandela. In 2012, a plot to assassinate Jacob Zuma was foiled. Both plots were attempts to fulfill a prophecy and renew a bloody covenant with God.

Sources:

Thompson, Leonard L. The Political Mythology of Apartheid. Yale University Press, 1986.
FA Mouton (1995) F A van Jaarsveld (1922–1995) — a flawed genius?, , 27:1,
5-11, DOI: 10.1080/00232089585310011
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00232089585310011

Stephney, Inez Mary. “Race, History and the Internet: The use of the Internet in White Supremacist Propaganda in the late 1990’s, with particular reference to South Africa”
https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/server/api/core/bitstreams/b04bdabb-ecd9-4f99-a3ae-fff55b88f483/content

Schönteich, Martin, and Henri Boshoff. “Volk”, Faith and Fatherland: The Security Threat Posed by the White Right. Institute for Security Studies, 2003.

Ndlovu, Sifiso Mxolisi. “Johannes Nkosi and the Communist Party of South Africa: Images of ‘Blood River’ and King Dingane in the Late 1920s-1930.” History and Theory, vol. 39, no. 4, 2000, pp. 111–32. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2678052.

http://www.anc.org.za/content/formation-umkhonto-we-sizwe

https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/johannes-nkosi

https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/december-16-reflection-changing-south-african-heritage

https://scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-94222024000200001

https://www.iol.co.za/news/rightwing-coup-plot-case-postponed-1491552

https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/battle-blood-river-1838

https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/origins-battle-blood-river-1838

https://web.archive.org/web/20071220164018/http://www2.univ-reunion.fr/~ageof/text/74c21e88-617.html#_ftn13

https://web.archive.org/web/20081217042554/http://history.humsci.ukzn.ac.za/files/sempapers/Adutoit2005.pdf

https://www.litnet.co.za/adriaan-snyman-1938/

https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/items/a64ddcfc-49eb-4680-b59d-b342d8bc358c

https://www.news24.com/news24/five-boeremag-members-found-guilty-of-conspiring-to-murder-madiba-20150430

https://mg.co.za/article/2004-08-03-boeremag-relied-on-rottweiler-and-kgb/

Snyman, Adriaan. Voice of a Prophet. Vaandel Publishers, 1999.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the final days of apartheid, white extremists were getting desperate. That desperation contributed to one of the strangest political crises of the late 20th century:

Sources:
https://dcist.com/story/12/09/24/aryan-nations/

https://archive.idavox.com/index.php/2012/09/24/the-aryan-nations-show-of-farce-in-dc/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naRGivc7Ong

Guelke, Adrian. “Political Violence and the South African Transition.” Irish Studies in International Affairs, vol. 4, 1993, pp. 59–68. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30001810

https://antifainfoblatt.de/aib24/suedafrika-machtkampf-krieg-auf-kleiner-flamme

https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/white-supremacist-arthur-kemp-steps-leader-neo-nazi-group-national-alliance/

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/26/world/white-separatists-storm-south-african-negotiations.html?fbclid=IwAR2oDpPTYh0q173RdYwv5cox59uhpyHBrQdGfC65L22gY7pZAcwbArH8BkI

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/how-the-volk-myth-died-it-took-just-a-few-minutes-to-change-the-course-of-south-african-history-john-carlin-reports-from-mafikeng-1428703.html

https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/amntrans/1998/98092123_mma_mmabath3.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20140503185912/

http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/newsticker/rechte-in-suedafrika-rekrutieren-internationale-soeldner---politikermord-lautet-ein-auftrag-die-killer-kamen-von-der-reeperbahn,10917074,8820188.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/13/world/a-homeland-s-agony.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2

https://mg.co.za/article/1994-06-17-foreign-hooligans-embarrass-awb/

https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media%5C1997%5C9708/s970821c.htm

https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/amntrans%5Cpta/2derby1.htm

Death of Apartheid: The Whites’ Last Stand. (1995, May 28). Brian Lapping Associates.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1994, a second group of mercenaries arrived at the airport in Johannesburg... but no one was there to pick them up. Their host had been arrested days earlier, after the last group of mercenaries she'd hosted got into a deadly shootout with the South African police. But how did all these Germans end up in South Africa in the first place?

https://www.propublica.org/article/vasilios-pistolis-imprisoned-marine-hate-groups

Sources:
Simonelli, F. J. (1999). American Führer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. University of Illinois Press.

Krott, R. (2008). Save the last bullet for yourself: A soldier of fortune in the Balkans and Somalia. Casemate.

Eisenberg, D. (1967). The Reemergence of Fascism. Barnes.

https://balkans.aljazeera.net/news/balkan/2017/11/29/slobodan-praljak-umro-u-bolnici

Bartholomäus Grill: German right-wing radicals shoot in South Africa: License plate D. In: Die Zeit . No. 13 , 25 March 1994

Antifaschistisches Autorenkollektiv: Drahtzieher im braunen Netz : Ein aktueller Überblick über den Neonazi-Untergrund in Deutschland und Österreich. Konkret Literatur Verlag, 1996,

https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/jm214q33q?locale=it

https://js.emory.edu/news/news-stories-container/Using%20South%20African%20Archives%20to%20Study%20PostWorld%20War%20Two%20Antisemitism%20and%20White%20Supremacist%20Networks.html

https://scholar.ufs.ac.za/server/api/core/bitstreams/c7f1b03d-343d-4abf-bcb3-e508f43dbc90/content

https://antifainfoblatt.de/aib99/dressed-kill

Searchlight Magazine, issues July, August, September 1996

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1989, four Afrikaner nationalists and one German mercenary killed a security guard at a United Nations outpost in Namibia. After escaping from custody, they fled home to South Africa. A possibly non-existent group called The White Wolves took credit for the wave of bombings that followed.

Sources:

Du Preez, M. (2010). Pale native: Memories of a Renegade reporter. Zebra Press.

Rotberg, Robert (1988). The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Enigma of Power. Oxford University Press.

Falkof, Nicky. The End of Whiteness: Satanism and Family Murder in Late Apartheid South Africa. Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2016.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-09-09-bruce-and-leonard-a-sad-african-immigrant-tale-of-injustice/

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/19/world/outjo-journal-un-namibia-team-makes-some-unlikely-friends.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20010429091808/http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/spec/aress14-1.htm

https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZASCA/1999/72.html

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/08/11/Gunmen-attacked-a-UN-peace-keeping-force-adminstrative-headquarters-and/6550618811200/

https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-nexus-between-far-right-extremists-in-the-united-states-and-ukraine/

https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=ncitereportsresearch

https://web.archive.org/web/20181118212149/

https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/the-day-wit-wolf-turned-pretoria-red-with-blood-18125595

https://www.jordanharbinger.com/bradley-steyn-undercover-with-mandelas-spies-part-one/

https://theafricancriminologyjournal.wordpress.com/2022/02/04/south-africa-the-strijdom-square-massacre/

https://www.iol.co.za/news/world/us-wit-wolf-slaughter-1873433

https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/what-became-of-the-big-wit-wolf-424408

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.