Refugees: the must-have identity of 2025

My grandparents were refugees way before it was cool. They arrived, as many did, from Europe with little in the way of material items but much in the way of baggage. They had no understanding of the shores on which they landed, no sense of what it would take to rebuild their lives, and yet they did. So much so, that in all the time I spent with them, never did they use that label as reference to their own experience.

Today, being a refugee is all the rage. More OR Tambo than a TikTok trend, refugee status is the must-have of 2025. It’s no longer about Prada bags or Porsche SUVs, it’s about the vintage UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) card, preferably laminated with a worn crease from decades of display.

And like every trend, South Africa is ready to lead the runway. Enter: the 49 Afrikaner refugees. A modest number, perhaps, but very on trend. These men and women have declared themselves refugees in fear of, among other things, affirmative action, potholes, and Woolworths running out of coconut yoghurt. Some sought asylum in the United States where the BELA (Basic Education Laws Amendment) Act has long been lived, while others plan to pitch their tents in Orania, where the only border they need to cross is the social one.

Meanwhile, Palestinian refugee status remains the longest-running residency permit in modern history. Passed down like a family heirloom, it’s the only identity in which the more generations removed from the actual event, the stronger the claim becomes. Imagine if my children tried to apply for German financial restitution because their great-grandmother once missed a tram in Frankfurt, and yet here we are.

In the 2025 refugee aesthetic, it’s not enough to have suffered. You must continue to suffer, in perpetuity, or at least keep the narrative intact. Integration? That’s for sell-outs. Self-reliance? Colonialist concept. Victimhood is the new black, and best accessorised with moral superiority and diplomatic immunity.

Of course, this isn’t to make light of real refugees – those fleeing war, famine, and actual persecution. But in a world where identity is as curated as a LinkedIn profile, the term “refugee” has been inflated, appropriated, and, dare I say, influencer-ified.

Snark aside, the plight of South African farmers is a serious one. And one that I’m particularly sympathetic towards. Isolated by geography, at risk of horrendous crime, and abandoned by the government, they have endured an often nightmarish reality without support and without recognition of the critical role they play. Instead of being valued and cared for, they have been abandoned and even demonised. Appalling as it is though, I remain unconvinced that this makes them refugees.

And yet it’s almost understandable. In a world where everything is “apartheid”, where every perceived injustice is “genocide”, and where sending a child to bed is the “ethnic cleansing” of the living room, it’s not unreasonable to resort to hyperbole just to be heard.

As for me? I’ll stick to being an uncool grandchild of uncool people who quietly built their lives, paid their taxes, and never once made a YouTube video about how hard it was to be them. Very off-brand, I know.

But maybe, just maybe, that’s the trend we need next.