Stepping away from the dimming of the lights, Julius Malema chanting “kill the Boer” before packed stadiums and the carefully crafted theatrics in the Oval Office on Wednesday night, US President Donald Trump’s false narrative around white genocide in SA exposed the dark underbelly of SA society, which is a key deterrent to investment and growth.
The SA delegation led by President Cyril Ramaphosa was successful in getting SA back in the room with the country’s second-largest trading partner, back to the negotiating table on trade and the country’s continued participation in the African Growth & Opportunity Act. Team SA accomplished their goal of “resetting” the relationship with the US.
This was clear given that Trump had, over lunch behind closed doors, asked Ramaphosa how the US could help in addressing the crisis of violent crime in SA, and he is now reconsidering his stance on potentially boycotting the Group of 20 in November.
But the key takeaway for the SA government should be the unconventional, yet brutal reminder, that creating an environment conducive to investment is the logical first step towards investment — why would companies want to put their money in a country beset by violence and instability?
Growing the economy and addressing the primary societal ills SA is facing — poverty and unemployment — require investment, but investment requires stability and safety. The hard work towards attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) starts with the environment at home — it’s not rocket science or a grand conspiracy.
Both business tycoon Johann Rupert and Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi, who played a key role in tempering Trump’s misinformation as part of the SA delegation, were frank about the crisis of crime, which does not discriminate and has a profound effect on all races in the country. Both their remarks shifted the tone in the room from the falsity of a white genocide to the bitter truth.
Rupert stressed violent crime affected both black and white South Africans, emphasising gang-related murders on the Cape Flats) after Trump’s flighting of a video depicting what he claimed was evidence of genocide perpetrated against white farmers.
Losi doubled down with the painful reality black women and the elderly, particularly in rural areas, are the real faces of violent crime in SA — recent crime stats indicated that 22,000 people were murdered over a 12-month period.
From October 2024 to December 2024, 76 people were killed per day and 128 raped daily.
The problem is rooted in high levels of unemployment and inequality, but crucially, the political capture of the criminal justice system by successive ANC governments is to blame, culminating in the erosion of its will and capacity to tackle criminality in all its forms, including murder and illegal immigration, also highlighted by both Rupert and Losi.
Another problem exposed by the white genocide narrative is the government’s failure due to its own incompetence to address the concerns of citizens. Ramaphosa was clear to Trump that SA adhered to the Freedom Charter commitment that “SA belongs to all who live in it”. But for three decades, the ANC-led government has been so self-consumed it ignored the plight of its citizens, from white farmers to women of all races.
While AfriForum has been at the centre of allegations of white farmers under siege in SA, the question Ramaphosa and his team should return home with is why these matters are being raised abroad with foreign governments — and SA’s crucial trade partner — instead of here at home, where it can be dealt with head on.
The reality is AfriForum has been pushing the narrative of targeted killings of farmers since its formation in 2006. In a 2014 report, titled “The Reality of Farm Tortures in SA”, AfriForum wrote that attempts to address farm killings were met with denial and dismissal by the government from as far back as 2007. AfriForum then took a decision to “internationalise” its campaign to protect farmers in 2013, after its concerns fell on deaf ears for six years. It has also largely been ignored by the international community — but in Trump and the Maga movement, AfriForum found an audience amenable to its narrative.
AfriForum’s experience is no different from many other groups under siege in SA — the crisis of gender-based violence in SA, for instance, has been mainstreamed by the government, yet its attempts to eliminate it have been weak, incompetent and ineffective.
Last month Women for Change marched to the Union Buildings carrying a coffin lined with pictures of victims of femicide representing a 35% increase in femicide. It was seeking to make its voice heard about the poor implementation of the government’s strategic plan to address gender-based violence.
The SA government has the plan in place, but as with the multiple other crises that SA faces, it hasn’t the will or the capacity to implement it. This is the message Ramaphosa should bring home — that his government can’t talk its way out of actual governing.
All else is as theatrical as Trump’s genocide video in the Oval Office.
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