False claims made by US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday that SA’s black majority is trying to wipe out white Afrikaners have roiled the country, forcing race to the forefront of a national conversation in a way rarely seen since the end of apartheid.
The “born frees”, young people who came of age after the country’s first free elections in 1994 and were promised a bright future in a new SA, described uncomfortable conversations with friends and colleagues that navigated racial tensions largely unfamiliar to their generation.
White South Africans, Afrikaners or not, have given voice to long-suppressed anger about the perceived failure of the ANC to deliver on its promises of an equal, nonracial society.
Heralded three decades ago by Nobel Peace Prize winners Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu as the “rainbow nation”, SA is the most unequal society in the world, according to the World Bank. It is marred by massive economic disparities and unequal access to jobs and education for black citizens. Many neighbourhoods continue to be segregated by race and violent crime remains a scourge.
This genocide debate is awkward
— Relebogile Thekiso, graphic design intern
A day after the meeting at the White House between Trump and President Cyril Ramaphosa, the US president’s explosive and unfounded claims of a “genocide” against white farmers dominated headlines, social media and chatter across SA. Some outlets applauded Ramaphosa for remaining calm when Trump went on the offensive.
“This genocide debate is awkward,” said Relebogile Thekiso, 27, a black graphic design intern in Johannesburg.
“Today at work, everyone was talking about it, even making jokes. But some white colleagues didn’t participate. It got me wondering if they are quiet because they agree with Trump,” she said.
“This week I will maintain a social distance from my [white] friend until the situation blows over.”
Ramaphosa hoped his visit to Washington would reset relations at a time when SA has cut spending and is weighed down by debt. Finance minister Enoch Godongwana said Wednesday the economy was expected to grow at a rate of 1.4%this year, down half a point from projections in March.
A trade deal with the US would help. But it wasn’t Trump’s main priority on Wednesday, as he steered the conversation to the cause of white Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch colonisers. “Thousands” were applying for refugee status in the US, the president said, a claim that has been difficult to verify.
The first group of about 50 white South Africans arrived in the US this month under a humanitarian designation the administration has suspended for other groups fleeing war and persecution.
Trump’s focus on killings of white farmers has dredged up long-buried tensions over race, an issue that has haunted SA since its earliest days of colonial subjugation. In the run-up to the 1994 election, which ultimately marked the end of white minority rule, fears of a full-on race war were widespread in some communities.
“Farm murders are a brutality of a special kind,” said John Endres, chief executive of the SA Institute of Race Relations (IRR).
“These crimes are characterised by senseless violence, directed at vulnerable people such as elderly farmers and their families”, with the motive usually robbery.
But, he said, “it is inaccurate to identify white farmers as the only victims of these crimes”.
In 2023, according to IRR data, there were 49 people killed on farms, some of them black. Nationwide, there were 27,621 killings that year, and about 80% victims were “poor, under- or unemployed young black males”, Endres said.
Ernst van Zyl, head of public relations for AfriForum, a rights group for Afrikaners, said many had become disillusioned with party politics, but denied large numbers wanted to leave the country.
“It’s not to the point where they’ve stopped voting, but it’s not their only avenue to bring about change,” van Zyl said, saying Afrikaner activists were increasingly involved with civil society organisations tackling problems on the local level,” he said.
“People feel more comfortable talking about the issue of farm murders since the president of the US is talking about it. People on the outside looking in are seeing something incredibly disturbing and unacceptable.”
In a population of more than 60-million people, about 4.6-million are white, SA’s latest census found in 2022. About 2.7-million spoke Afrikaans as their first language.
Tshepo Madlingozi, an official at the SA Human Rights Commission, said the country remains fractured along racial lines and has yet to fully confront its painful history.
“This shows we have a long way to go in building a nation,” Madlingozi said.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established 30 years ago to unearth apartheid-era atrocities, was widely praised. But critics said it prioritised national reconciliation at the expense of justice for victims.
“We were not honest with one another about what happened and who did what to whom, and how do we fix it,” Madlingozi said. “That was a big mistake.”
He said Trump’s false claims about genocide were “very painful and a bit of a betrayal” to black South Africans, many of whom are dealing with deep-rooted institutional racism.
“I am talking about universities and schools that uphold whiteness, where whiteness is the norm, where white privilege is upported,” Madlingozi said.
Thekiso said she used to laugh with white and black co-workers about “social media videos of white people dancing or speaking vernacular”, but at the moment "things feel weird". With her white friend, she would get lunch from street vendors near taxi stands mainly used by back commuters.
“She is not that kind of [racist] person. She is cool,” Thekiso said.
“I’ll probably ask her if she wants to leave SA or what her thoughts are about what Trump said at some point.”
But she said she doesn’t feel ready for that conversation.
Palesa Nxumalo, 21, was studying for exams during the Trump-Ramaphosa meeting but saw videos of their exchanges on TikTok.
“Do white people, when they look at me, think I am going to kill them?” she wondered.
“I will be cautious around them. I don’t want any drama.”
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