Opinion | No, Sirs. South Africa Is Not 'Killing' Its Whites

What was once a flood of unverified videos consumed on social media now appears to be making its way into the White House, gaining the legitimacy and official weight it often lacks. Last Wednesday, President Donald Trump brought this trend to a theatrical peak during South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's visit. Intended as a diplomatic reset after a rocky period in bilateral relations, the meeting quickly took an unexpected turn. In a live meeting, Trump caught Ramaphosa off guard by claiming that white farmers in South Africa were being "persecuted" and "killed." He even played a grainy video showing white crosses on a roadside - described solemnly and somewhat misleadingly, as the "graves" of murdered white farmers.

When questioned about the origins of the footage, Trump admitted he didn't know exactly where in South Africa it had been filmed. Elon Musk, a South Africa-born tech mogul, added momentum to the narrative by tweeting a video of politician Julius Malema singing "Dubul' ibhunu" ("Shoot the Boer") - a liberation-era song that some interpret as incendiary. Both men, neither known for deep engagement with South African political history, helped amplify a narrative that many experts see as alarmist and misleading.

Who Is A Refugee?

For the record, the video shown by Trump did not depict an actual cemetery but a 2020 protest installation in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, where demonstrators planted white crosses to symbolise farm-related killings over the years. It was a form of political expression, not forensic evidence.

Yet when unverified content is echoed by the leader of the United States and one of the world's most influential tech voices, it inevitably gains traction (that it amounted to interference in South Africa's internal affairs did not bother anyone). Their claims have resonated in right-wing circles across the US, South Africa and parts of Europe, fuelling the belief that a "white genocide" is unfolding in South Africa. President Trump appears convinced - to the point of offering refugee status to white Afrikaner families seeking to relocate. Around 60 such families have already arrived in the US, where they have been welcomed not as asylum seekers but with the courtesies more often reserved for state guests.

So, in the Trumpian world, if you are brown and fleeing war, you are a security threat. But if you are white and fleeing a social media rumour, you are a refugee of conscience. Interestingly, Trump's ambush of a visiting guest did not extend to the two recent visits by Benjamin Netanyahu - under whose watch Gaza has been bombed back to medieval times.

Does Trump Even Know Enough?

In 2012, former President Jacob Zuma was compelled to admit that the economic power structures of apartheid largely survived South Africa's democratic transition. The African National Congress (ANC), he'd said, made calculated compromises in the early 1990s to maintain investor confidence - and left much of the apartheid economy intact.

This uncomfortable truth was often buried beneath Western media's romanticisation of the "Mandela miracle" - a peaceful political transition, yes, but one that stopped short of dismantling the white monopoly on wealth. As seasoned journalist Martin Plaut put it, the post-apartheid deal handed political power to the Black majority but left economic power untouched.

Under Nelson Mandela's successor Thabo Mbeki, the ANC drifted even further from its redistributive promises. Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), intended as a tool for justice, morphed into a mechanism for co-opting a Black elite into a white-controlled economy. A few well-connected individuals grew fabulously wealthy. The majority stayed poor, and White capital smiled all the way to the bank.

Who Are The 'Persecuted'?

Today, white South Africans comprise just 7.7% of the population - about 4.7 million people - but continue to hold disproportionate control over land, wealth and industry. Over 70% of arable land remains in white hands. The finance and agricultural sectors are still dominated by families whose fortunes were built on apartheid-era privilege. So you cannot call them a persecuted minority. This is a historically privileged one that still largely owns the country's economic engine. Yes, there have been attacks on them, yes, a few murders have happened, yes, some of them live in fear, and yes, you see more Black South Africans representing their national cricket and rugby teams. But the official policy is not to displace them or seize their wealth and drive them out. 

And yet, Trump and Musk would have you believe that the oppressed have become the oppressors. The numbers betray them. Between October and December 2024, South Africa recorded 6,953 murders. Only 12 were linked to farm attacks. Just one victim was a white farmer. The country's judiciary has dismissed the idea of a white genocide, calling it "clearly imagined". Violent crime is tragically high in South Africa, but it affects all communities: Black, white, Indian and coloured. Indian shops and properties were looted freely in civil disturbances a few years ago, but they did not complain of discrimination or racism. They knew it was not the official policy. 

A Fever Dream

What Trump and Musk offer is not an analysis. It's a fever dream with a racist filter. And it spits on the graves of Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi - two men who gave their lives to dismantle the very system that today's "victims" once benefited from.

To understand how absurd Trump's narrative is, and which goes largely unchallenged by the American media, one must return to history. The Dutch arrived in 1652. The British followed. Apartheid formalised racial supremacy in 1948 and lasted nearly 50 years. Black South Africans were forcibly removed from land, denied education, and even stripped of citizenship. Mandela served 27 years in prison for resisting this regime. When he was released in 1990, he chose reconciliation, not revenge. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, led by Bishop Desmond Tutu, was not a witch-hunt; it was a moral compass. For Trump and Musk to now cry foul on behalf of white South Africans is like a colonial landlord demanding sympathy for a damaged crockery after evicting a village.

South Africa's constitution remains one of the most progressive in the world. Land reform is still painfully slow, but it's being pursued legally. There is no campaign to "kill the Boer"; there is a campaign to correct centuries of injustice. In my view, those who scream "genocide" every time someone mentions redistribution are not defenders of justice - they are defenders of apartheid in a 21st-century suit.

Compare that to Zimbabwe's path under Robert Mugabe. There's no doubt he lorded over land seizures, chaos, murders of white farmers and economic ruin. But even Zimbabwe is now inviting white farmers back - not out of nostalgia, but out of need. The reality is far more complex than Trump's selective paranoia.

'Indians Should Go Back to India' 

Back in South Africa, populists like Julius Malema do exist. His EFF party thrives on anger and his rhetoric can be reckless. This writer interviewed him in 2018, and he didn't hide his hostility - not just towards white South Africans, but also Indians, telling me they should "go back to India". It was as absurd as it was offensive, given that South Africa's Indian community dates back over 160 years.

He even made jabs at Ila Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's granddaughter, whom I met in Phoenix, just outside Durban. Born in 1940 in Phoenix, she rose to prominence in national politics and was a member of Parliament for years. She still values the settlement her great-grandfather built in 1904. With the humility of a true Gandhian, she told me, standing in the very room where she was born: "Bapu started the struggle here, and we continued it." At 85, she remains a torchbearer for nonviolence through the Gandhi Development Trust. But Malema's firebrand nationalism has no space for nuance - and clearly, neither do Trump or Musk.

To conflate Malema's slogans with South African policy is like confusing a Trump rally chant with American foreign policy. Malema may be loud, but he doesn't govern. And South Africa's direction is still shaped by those who believe in its democratic and inclusive promise, however inadequate they might be - not its opportunistic hijackers.

Trump And Musk's Noise

The deeper tragedy is that Trump and Musk's megaphones drown out the quieter, nobler voices. South Africa's story is not one of genocide. It is one of struggle, compromise, and continued resilience. It is the land where Gandhi found his political voice and Mandela forged a path of forgiveness. It's a place where nonviolence, justice and reconciliation were not just ideals - they were survival strategies.

The "white genocide" myth serves no one. It stokes fear among white South Africans, most of whom have known no other home. It trivialises the pain of Black South Africans, who endured centuries of oppression. And it hands a loaded weapon to racists in America and Europe, eager to paint diversity as a threat and majority rule as a failure.

It also sabotages diplomacy. Relations between Washington and Pretoria are already frayed. Trump's asylum stunt and Musk's digital dog whistles further alienate a key African partner. But then this isn't about helping South Africans of any colour. It's about scoring culture war points back home.

Mandela once warned, "Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemies." What Trump and Musk are offering isn't just poison. It is a paranoia bottled in Silicon Valley gloss and MAGA (Make America Great Again) flair, poured liberally across timelines and TV screens. And while they guzzle it gleefully, the rest of us are left wondering what to do.

I am confident South Africa will endure. Its main problems are rampant corruption in government and bureaucracy, and soaring crime rates. The country has, however, survived worse than a Trump tantrum or a Musk tweet. But history won't be kind to those who tried to rewrite its pain into propaganda. For, if you are hunting for white genocide in a country built on Black suffering - and able to find none - maybe the problem isn't the country. Maybe it is you, sirs. 

(Syed Zubair Ahmed is a London-based senior Indian journalist with three decades of experience with the Western media)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author