South Africa was supposed to be a powerful example to the world of how a country could move past racial divisions and become a "rainbow nation."

But with Nelson Mandela long dead and a worsening economy, it looks more likely South Africa is on the way to becoming another Zimbabwe.

One author says it's time for the United States to start admitting white South Africans as refugees to the United States – before things escalate to genocide.

International journalist Alex Newman, a onetime resident of South Africa and the author of "Crimes of the Educators," says South Africa has reached a critical turning point in recent weeks.

TRENDING: Americans against unconstitutional mask mandates

"The situation has deteriorated significantly," he told WND. "The lunatic president has announced a scheme to steal land owned by whites without compensation, for instance. This will be terrible not just for the owners of the farms, but for the entire country. We don't even have to speculate about what will happen, we can just look north to Zimbabwe. This will be a disaster for all South Africans, not just the direct victims of the state-backed thievery."

Under pressure from anti-white radical Julius Malema's "Economic Freedom Fighters," scandal-plagued South African president Jacob Zuma recently called for the unity of black parties to allow the expropriation, literally theft, of white-owned land without compensation.

Such a policy has led to famine and economic ruin in neighboring Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia.

South Africa is already facing an economic crisis, with slower-than-expected economic growth, drastic declines in critical economic sectors such as mining and a jobless rate of over 25 percent.

Racial tensions are increasing, with black students recently rioting over paintings and statues of white people at South African universities, and persistent rates of high crime, especially against white farmers.

Tensions within the black community are also high, as South Africa has been plagued by xenophobic attacks by South African blacks against other black Africans attempting to immigrate into the country from nations where conditions are even worse.

Malema, Zuma and other South African political leaders are comfortable openly engaging in hate speech against white South Africans, especially renditions of the African National Congress song "Shoot The Boer."

White South Africans also suffer from dozens of race-based laws restricting their economic activity and are prohibited from legally and effectively defending themselves because of stringent gun control and the government's abolition of the self-defense organizations.

"Violence is absolutely intensifying against Afrikaners," said Newman. "It seems clear at this point that February set a new record for farm murders and farm attacks, and the situation was already desperately terrible. With President Zuma and racist Marxist nut job Julius Malema of the absurdly named Economic Freedom Fighters party running around whipping up hate and genocidal sentiments, I don't see this improving anytime soon."

For that reason, Newman says it is time for President Trump and the U.S. to allow white South Africans, especially the 3 million Afrikaners descended from Dutch Calvinists, French Huguenots and German and Scandinavian Lutherans, to be allowed into the U.S. as refugees fleeing violence and state persecution.

"I believe the United States should have opened its borders to Afrikaners years ago, once it became clear that the regime was run by racist communists sympathetic to genocide," said Newman. "If President Zuma going on national TV singing genocide songs coupled with thousands of horrific farm murders wasn't enough to make clear how bad the situation was, I don't know what would be.

"With that said, though, I think many Afrikaners are determined to stay. But I do think Trump and other Western leaders should at least allow those Afrikaners who wish to come to do so peacefully. These people would generally make wonderful Americans – they're hard-working, God-fearing Christian people with valuable skills who are facing an intolerable situation in their homeland."

America's education system is being destroyed by design. Find out how to save your children from the deliberate plot to mentally destroy them in the government schools. Alex Newman exposes "The Crimes Of The Educators,” available now in the WND Superstore.

Afrikaners seem to be a specific target for violence, especially farmers who often suffer nightmarish torture meted out against entire families in murderous home invasions.

"It's true that all South Africans face incredible crime rates, and soaring levels of violence, but Afrikaners and [black] illegal immigrants from other African nations appear to be bearing most of the brunt right now," Newman said.

Charl Van Wyk, the author of "Shooting Back: The Right and Duty of Self-Defense," who famously defended a church congregation during a 1993 terrorist attack, says being a white farmer in South Africa is "the most dangerous job in the world."

"The attacks on the farmers are just absolutely unprecedented, and the most barbaric acts are taking place, with farmers having cow dung shoved down their throat until they suffocate to death, people being disemboweled, and all these terrible things that are happening," Van Wyk said in an interview with WND.

"And sometimes after that attack, very little is actually stolen from the home on the farm. In other words, this seems to be a real political attack that's taking place. If people just wanted to just get firearms or money or cell phones, then they would have taken what they wanted and maybe shot the farmer dead. But to torture them before death, that really seems to be a politically motivated crime."

Given such circumstances, why haven't white South Africans already fled? The ties of white South Africans to their native land and a stubborn refusal to give up are important factors, says Newman, but the largest may simply be an inability to do so.

"Many of those who were able to leave – financially, and in terms of acquiring visas – have already done so,' Newman observed. "But for hundreds of thousands of Afrikaners in squatter camps due to racist laws and discrimination, they don't even know where their next meal is going to come from, much less how they might afford a plane ticket and what country might be willing to take them in."

Allowing white South Africans to be designated "refugees" would obviously remove a major obstacle for those seeking to flee the country. However, America may not be the only option. There have been some suggestions white South Africans should have the "right of return" to the European nation of their ancestors, in most cases, the Netherlands.

In 2015, a Brazilian man submitted a petition on Change.org calling on European governments to extend the "right of return" to white South Africans, sparking international media coverage. Over 59,000 people have since signed the petition.

And political changes in the Netherlands suggest it may not be far-fetched. Martin Bosma, an influential member of the Dutch House of Representatives from Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom (PVV), authored a book titled "Minority In Their Own Land." The book is a critical examination of modern South Africa and uses the Afrikaners' current state of oppression as an example for the native Dutch to avoid in their own country. If the PVV is able to win next week's elections, Newman suggests Afrikaners may have a new reason for hope in their ancestral homeland.

"So far Holland seems reluctant to take the Afrikaners in, which is incredibly sad, especially considering how they are willing to import Muslims from Africa and the Middle East by the busload," Newman told WND. "But the political climate in the Netherlands seems to be changing, so I don't think it's out of the question that Holland may someday be willing to take persecuted Afrikaners in."

Terrorists burst into a house of worship. The lives of your family and friends are at stake. What will you do? How will you react? Will you have the courage to shoot back? A survivor of one of the worst terrorist attacks in history shares his incredible story in "Shooting Back," now available in the WND Superstore.