This week, President Cyril Ramaphosa meets with US President Donald Trump in Washington, a high-level engagement unfolding under unusually charged conditions.
The meeting carries the weight of geopolitics and the intensity of narrative warfare, with South Africa entering it in a defensive position.
On Monday, 59 white Afrikaners landed in the US, having been granted asylum under claims of racial persecution.
Their arrival is more than an immigration outcome. It sends a message that reinforces a broader storyline being amplified by conservative media ecosystems in the US that South Africa is hostile to its white citizens, that its transformation project has collapsed, and that racial victimhood has reversed sides.
This is the new face of soft power — weaponised storytelling — to which South Africa is dangerously exposed. Weaponised storytelling deploys emotionally charged, strategically framed messages to recast national identities, erode institutional credibility and realign global sympathies without formal diplomacy ever taking place.
Since Trump’s return to the White House in January, the US has undermined the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) trade pact, re-evaluated civil society funding and seen high-profile voices like Elon Musk challenge South Africa’s equity frameworks, particularly BEE.
In each case, complex national policies are flattened into moral soundbites that allude to transformation becoming exclusion, regulation becoming dysfunction and democracy becoming decay.
These are not isolated incidents but signals of a broader, systematic shift — the normalisation of disinformation as a strategic instrument for political gain, ideological positioning and economic leverage.
Fringe rhetoric has moved into mainstream discourse, shaping immigration policy, investor sentiment and global perception. This shift is acutely visible in how South Africa is narrated, shaped less by its institutions and more by external actors who recognise that narrative control is power. In this environment, shaping the story means shaping the stakes.
The rise of AfriForum in this context is no accident. It has become one of the most effective narrative exporters in the country, repackaging local grievances for international political consumption. The organisation has strategically briefed US lawmakers, engaged far-right media and leveraged high-stakes cultural flashpoints to position itself as a communications proxy, not in service of democracy but in pursuit of disruption.
This should feel familiar, because we have been here before.
South Africa remains one of the most sobering case studies in global narrative manipulation, thanks to the Bell Pottinger scandal of 2017. That campaign, designed to deflect attention from state capture through racially charged messaging and algorithmic amplification, exposed the terrifying ease with which public sentiment can be inflamed and redirected.
We are still living in the aftermath.
Bell Pottinger pioneered a blend of emotional engineering, online distortion and message repetition that has since become a global blueprint. What was once a scandal is now strategy. The fact that those same techniques are being used today, in different hands and on different platforms, is proof that South Africa remains vulnerable to narrative exploitation.
At last month’s Davos Communications Summit, where I engaged with global public relations leaders on the future of trust, misinformation dominated every conversation.
Mary Beth West, a leading voice on ethical strategy, put it starkly by stating that in the absence of a credible centre, outrage becomes the central algorithm. Her warning wasn’t theoretical; it was diagnostic and confirmed by South Africa’s current reality.
The stakes involve both international reputation and national coherence. Unchecked misinformation undermines democratic processes, deepens social fractures and stalls progress on critical priorities, including energy reform, food security, economic recovery and social stability. This communication issue affects national development and weakens our ability to move forward.
Reputation is a form of national infrastructure essential to stability, influence and long-term resilience. It is far more than a by-product of diplomacy. Protecting it requires investment in narrative intelligence, the people, systems and platforms equipped to hold the line against distortion.
It also calls for a more discerning public culture that values media literacy, recognises the architecture of manipulation and questions the intent behind what is amplified. In an age where misinformation moves faster than fact, passive consumption is no longer neutral. South Africans are not simply recipients of narrative; we are active participants in its construction. Every post, vote, comment and silence feeds into the perception ecosystem, shaping how we see ourselves and how the world comes to see us.
The upcoming meeting between Ramaphosa and Trump is more than a diplomatic engagement; it is a mirror, one that will reflect how South Africa shows up in moments of global scrutiny. Trump’s recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky highlighted just how performative high-level engagements can become, where leaders are placed on display and diplomacy gives way to political theatre. In this environment, messaging matters.
How South Africa presents itself — with coherence, credibility, or uncertainty — will shape perception and influence.
• Madiba is MD of PRPowerhouse, an integrated marketing and communications agency
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