Johannesburg and Pretoria, South Africa – On a rainy Saturday in South Africa’s capital Pretoria, several hundred white Afrikaners gathered outside the embassy of the United States.
“President Trump and Elon Musk, please help the farmers chase away the [African National Congress] ANC takeover of South Africa,” read a large banner hoisted above the crowd gathered to “thank” the US president for championing their cause against their government.
On February 7, Donald Trump signed an executive order offering asylum to white Afrikaners and cutting aid to South Africa. The US said it made the decision after Pretoria signed a law allowing the government to expropriate land in the public interest under exceptional circumstances and over the genocide case South Africa brought against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The minority Afrikaner community are descendants of mainly Dutch colonial settlers who formalised the segregationist system of apartheid in 1948. Under apartheid, whites were legally able to seize land and resources from the majority Black population, who were largely relegated to far-off “Bantustans” (segregated homelands) or overcrowded, ill-equipped townships.
Although apartheid ended in 1994 when the ANC won the first racially inclusive democratic elections in South Africa, experts said economic apartheid persists with many Black people still cut off from land, resources and opportunities.
Data show that 73 percent of privately owned land in South Africa is white-owned despite white people comprising about 7 percent of the population. In corporate South Africa, white individuals occupy 62 percent of top management positions while 17 percent of leadership roles are held by Black managers.
Despite this, experts said small groups of white South Africans, emboldened by right-wing lobbying groups, have been championing a narrative in the US in recent years that Afrikaners are the ones under threat.
At the rally outside the US embassy, speakers urged attendees to “make South Africa great again,” echoing Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) rhetoric.
Other participants spoke of being on an “anti-woke mission”, aligning with broader global narratives surrounding identity and nationalism.
Willem Petzer, a well-known Afrikaner commentator and organiser of the event, presented a 26-page memorandum to US officials. It alleged that South African transformation legislation aimed at rectifying the injustices of apartheid is, in fact, discriminatory against the Afrikaner community. The US embassy said it would send the document to Trump.
When Petzer took the podium, he was met with enthusiastic applause. He pointed to billionaire Musk’s Starlink satellite network, which provides internet service, alleging that it could not operate in South Africa because “Musk would have to allow the state to expropriate 30 percent of his company in order to do business here”.
The government has said that is not true and the conflict with Musk’s Starlink is because South African legislation requires companies operating in the country to be 30 percent Black owned to redress past inequalities. Musk has tried to get an exemption from the rule.
The South African-born tech billionaire and close Trump adviser is perceived by many as an ally of the Afrikaner cause. He has repeatedly posted his outrage on X against what he claims is unfair treatment of white South Africans – even going as far as claiming a “white genocide” was occurring.
President Cyril Ramaphosa cautioned Musk this month against spreading misinformation regarding South Africa in a telephone call.
‘I am quite privileged’
For many South Africans, the gathering outside the US embassy evoked memories of apartheid nostalgia as participants sang “Die Stem”, the national anthem used during the years of racist rule.
In the crowd, some supporters held placards that read, “Trump, we are coming,” responding to the offer of refugee status for Afrikaners. However, many would not say whether they would actually take Trump up on the offer.
Some experts said the threshold for someone to gain refugee status in the US is not met by Afrikaner landowners.
The US Immigration and Nationality Act defines a refugee as someone unable or unwilling to return to their home country due to a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.
Meanwhile, beyond the rally, most white South Africans seem uninterested in seeking asylum. Many acknowledge they experience privilege not persecution in a democratic South Africa.
About 2km (1.2 miles) from the US embassy, the University of Pretoria buzzed with students of all races, many born after apartheid ended 31 years ago. During apartheid, Black students were not allowed to study at the institution.
Marissa Jacobs, a 22-year-old student hailing from an Afrikaans community in Pretoria, said she has never personally felt threatened as an Afrikaner living in South Africa but she empathises with farmers who do.
“They feel like they are being attacked, and while it’s true that crime affects all races, farm murders are happening,” she remarked, referring to rural violence, which is a big problem in South Africa but which experts say affects people from all communities.
Jacobs praised South Africa’s fair and progressive constitution but criticised race-based transformation laws, expressing distrust towards the government.
“I know the government says it won’t take away people’s land, but didn’t President Ramaphosa sign the Expropriation Act? I don’t trust them,” she said.
As a final-year political science student, she has no plans to leave South Africa for the US and doesn’t personally know anyone who does.
Nicole du Plessis, who is studying supply chain management, said she has no idea why people would consider leaving South Africa for the US.
“I am quite privileged. I never felt any oppression against my culture,” she added as two of her friends nodded in agreement.
She also emphasised that crime is a universal issue that affects everyone equally.
Muimelele Metsiende, a Black student at the university, said she doesn’t know anyone who would leave South Africa for the US.
“I don’t think any Afrikaners would really move to the US. I don’t think this Trump thing is real.”
She acknowledged ongoing challenges regarding racial integration but emphasised growing acceptance among communities.
In the wake of the public furore over Trump’s actions, younger Afrikaners have also taken to social media to mock the asylum offer, posting parody videos that highlight the privileges they enjoy in South Africa today.
‘White supremacists in suits and ties’
Trump’s action against South Africa was a culmination of fierce lobbying by the right-wing Afrikaner pressure group AfriForum, which has sought an audience in the US for more than seven years.
Once regarded as a fringe organisation, AfriForum calls itself the largest civil rights body in the Southern Hemisphere. However, a US civil society group, the Southern Poverty Law Center, has called AfriForum’s leaders “white supremacists in suits and ties”.
AfriForum has persistently lobbied US politicians for support against what it called threats against the Afrikaner minority by the majority Black government.
The group’s narrative of white persecution first received extensive airtime during a US tour seven years ago when its members met with lawmakers and appeared on platforms like Fox News. Then-Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson expressed sympathy for AfriForum’s cause, amplifying the group’s message that the government could seize white land and white farmers were mass-murdered because of their race.
Analysts and the South African government said both assertions are not valid.
However, in August 2018, Trump tweeted his concerns regarding land seizures and farmer murders in South Africa, reinforcing AfriForum’s alarmist claims.
Trump’s new unfounded claims that white South Africans are under siege – together with accusations of impending land seizures – have once again brought AfriForum’s struggles to the forefront of international dialogue.
However, research conducted by analysts like Nechama Brodie reveals that while violence – including attacks on farm owners who are often white, generally motivated by opportunistic crime like home burglaries – does occur, these incidents account for a very small percentage of the country’s total murder rate.
“The reality is that what people describe as ‘farm murders’ count for usually less than 1 percent of all murders in the entire country every year,” noted the author and senior lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Brodie said the statistics show how fear is often rooted in misinformation and that most attacks are criminally motivated rather than racially charged.
“This doesn’t mean these incidents should be accepted, but the scope should be contextualised.” Brodie argued that rhetoric from lobby groups like AfriForum exacerbates societal tensions rather than contributes to solutions, emphasising the need for community cohesion rather than suspicion among groups.
Fearmongering
As the political landscape shifts, experts said the longstanding influence of AfriForum has enabled it to in effect weaponise fears surrounding government actions, creating a narrative of imminent threats against white Afrikaners.
South African author Max du Preez, who is the founding editor of the Afrikaans newspaper Vrye Weekblad (Free Weekly), said AfriForum frequently employs scare tactics to incite fear among Afrikaners regarding potential land seizures.
He believes its strategy exploits vulnerable populations rather than addressing broader societal issues.
“They scare themselves to death when [Black politicians] talk about whites, and AfriForum pounces on this,” he observed, noting that it serves to bolster their membership and influence.
He said Trump’s offer of refugee status to Afrikaners would appeal only to a tiny minority of poor Afrikaners because most of the racial group has enjoyed enormous benefits in the country.
South Africa grapples with staggering unemployment – 36.9 percent among Black South Africans vs 7.9 percent among whites. Additionally, according to a 2017 land audit, Black people, who make up more than 80 percent of the country’s population, own only 4 percent of the land.
Against this backdrop, Ramaphosa has defended the Expropriation Act, insisting that it does not amount to land confiscation but creates a framework for fair and lawful redistribution. It allows authorities to take land in the public interest without compensation in only exceptional circumstances, such as when the area is uninhabited.
AfriForum, however, has argued that its claims regarding whites being targeted are justified, pointing to comments made by far-left politicians, such as the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters party, Julius Malema, who once famously sang an old anti-apartheid song called Kill the Boer. Veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle said the words are not a call to kill white people because the “boer” (meaning farmer) in the lyrics represents the oppressor in general. The song has been ruled to not be hate speech by South Africa’s courts.
In 2018, Malema also made comments in a social media post about “cutting the throat of whiteness”.
This month, Musk called for sanctions against Malema after a video of him saying those words at the time resurfaced on X.
Malema dismissed fears of international sanctions, saying he had never threatened white South Africans.
But Musk’s calls were welcomed by AfriForum, which insisted Malema’s comments were examples of how seriously under threat Afrikaners are in South Africa.
Such rhetoric continues to fuel tensions in the country, du Preez cautioned.
Making ‘right-wing ideas mainstream’
AfriForum has transitioned from a fringe movement to a more mainstream group, framing itself as a protector of Afrikaner rights and interests, noted Piet Croucamp, an associate professor of political science at South Africa’s North West University.
This, he said, has “made right-wing ideas mainstream”, such as a false narrative of the perceived persecution of Afrikaners.
“It is obviously without any substance and basis. I do blame AfriForum for that,” Croucamp said.
AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel insisted that the group is not responsible for Trump’s actions against South Africa, arguing: “We did not say there was a white genocide.”
The organisation seems to be back-pedalling, saying Afrikaners could not leave South Africa for the US because their culture would be under threat.
It instead blamed Trump’s sanctions on South Africa’s government, saying it refused to protect white Afrikaners and further antagonised the US through its foreign policy positions.
“We should not be involved in conflicts elsewhere in the world,” he said in reference to South Africa accusing Israel at the ICJ of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
At the pro-Trump rally in Pretoria, one member of the crowd shouted, “We support Israel,” to some applause.
Trump’s executive order against South Africa went beyond sanctioning the country for its Expropriation Act and included lambasting South Africa’s position against Israel.
“We know that comments following the executive order, [the US] did mention the ICJ case against Israel and South Africa’s relations with Iran,” said Thembisa Fakude, a senior fellow at the think tank Africa-Asia Dialogues.
In response to the escalating geopolitical tensions, Ramaphosa announced plans to send a team of envoys to clarify South Africa’s transformation policies, stating that the country would not be bullied.
He said South Africa remains committed to its support of Palestine and is unwavering in its bid to implement the Expropriation Act.
However, as diplomatic relations between South Africa and the US become strained, the potential for aid reductions will impact programmes essential for national priorities, such as HIV/AIDS treatment.
