Today happens to be Africa day and my friend Professor Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni reminds us in a social media post that Africa’s is still a liberation struggle, for “strategic natural resources (minerals. oil, and others) are on the soil of Africa but not yet in our hands.” Something of how Africa is still sought to be kept in subjugation was evident in Trump’s meeting with the South African President in the White House recently.

What happened in the White House meeting between POTUS Donald Trump and the South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa three days ago was quite appalling even for a non-South African to watch. The whole thing was a repeat performance, but far more humiliating, of what Trump and JD Vance had done with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukranian President. This meeting is being described as Trumps’ “ambush” of Ramaphosa. What is more, timed with this ambush was a staged “arrival” of some 49 families – men, women and children – claiming to be “farmers” fleeing the “white genocide” in South Africa. They were welcomed by US officials at the airport saying things like “Welcome to the United States, the land of freedom. It is such a pleasure to welcome you here” and so on.

So here was Cyril Ramaphosa with his entourage, which also included three South African Whites. Ramaphosa and Trump sitting facing the gathering of media-persons and others who had already been briefed about the intent of the meeting. They shoot their questions about the so called “ongoing white genocide” in South Africa – they who still can’t pronounce the G-word when it comes to Gaza were now questioning Ramaphosa. In my reckoning, Ramaphosa cut a sorry figure. He did not appear to be the leader of the South Africa that had dragged Israel to the International Court of Justice for genocide. Quite the contrary, he appeared to be groveling before Trump, trying to explain that had there been a white genocide going on in South Africa, these three gentlemen -golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and billionaire Johann Rupert, all white – would not be accompanying him.

Not one to be satisfied, Trump then pulled out printouts of photographs that he claimed was photographic evidence of the “genocide”. One of the more damning photographs, Reuters clarified later, was from its video that was of BLACK women who were raped and buried in Congo; it had NOTHING to do with South Africa! Other photographs showed things like rows of cars queued up – which could have been anything.

Ramaphosa may not have been prepared for this “ambush”. Fair enough. So his responses were not pat and before he (and we) knew, Trump announced: Okay turn off the lights and turn on the video. The video showed Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) supporters singing an apartheid era song that is sung in Zulu and Xhosa languages and its refrain, translated into English went “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer”. Perhaps the video also contained a clip of a speech by Malema. The singing of this song in today’s post-apartheid context could be legitimately objected to but the mere singing of a song is not the sign of any genocide. In fact, this song has been discussed in the Supreme Court which has rejected the attempts to get it banned. At this point Ramaphosa’s response was something to the effect that “we are a multi party system,” they [EFF] have their freedom of speech and they are not part of the government. Trump continued firing his salvoes: “But you allow them to carry on their genocide, you allow them to kill white farmers”!

At this point, we had a revealing intervention by South Africa’s richest man Johann Rupert. He addressed Trump directly, saying that he himself had been the Number 1 target of “that rabble rouser” (pointing to Julius Malema’s face on the screen). He continued, “In fact when I first met him (pointing to Ramaphosa), he was in the Youth League with that gentleman, and look how he has changed.” He speaks at length, citing crime by the unemployed and illegal immigrants as the biggest cause of murders “across the board, not only of White people.” He seeks Trump’s help in getting technology, specifically, Starlink across police stations in the country to control crime. Ramaphosa then turns to Trump and says what we need your help in is investment. He later talks about the reason for the visit to the USA being to foster trade and investment, both of American companies in South Africa and of South African companies in the USA.

According to a BBC report, the agriculture minister,

“[John] Steenhuisen told Trump that the DA, a centre-right party which stands for a free market economy, joined the government to keep the EFF out, and to help tackle South Africa’s problems.

“‘This government, working together, needs the support of our allies around the world so that we can strengthen our hand, grow our economy and shut the door forever on that rebel [Malema] getting through the doors of Union Buildings [the seat of government],’ he said.”

It needs to be remembered that the Democratic Alliance is a morphed form of the apartheid era racist Democratic Party and Steenhuisen comes from that party – though it is now a part of the “government of national unity.”

Ramaphosa’s response was appalling because NOT ONCE did he defend the land expropriation law that his own government had passed in the beginning of this year – since it is this law that is under attack by the White landowners, euphemistically called “farmers” in South Africa. According to a Reuters report on February 10 2025,

“The mostly white-owned farms around here are among the nearly 26 million hectares – about three quarters of privately-owned land – still in the hands of whites, who make up 8% of the population. Only 4% of privately-held land is owned by Blacks who are nearly 80% of South Africa’s 60-million population.”

Eight percent of the population [Whites] owns three quarters of the land even three decades after the end of apartheid! And it is just the bringing in of this law that is being now propagated as a sign of “White genocide” by White Supremacists in the White House and in their larger ecosystem. Let us remember that the two big billionaires in Trump’s coterie – Elon Musk and Peter Thiel – are both White South Africans.

I am not sure how my South African friends would view this but to my mind, the stance and the political alignment of Cyril Ramaphosa cannot be unconnected to the fact that not only was he a shareholder of Lonmin Platinum that was the company in the eye of the storm in the 2012 Marikana killing but also seen as centrally responsible for the firing on hundreds of mining workers who were demanding better wages. According to an Al Jazeera report,

“On August 16, 2012, police in Marikana, in the North West province of South Africa, opened fire on hundreds of mine workers from Lonmin Platinum who were protesting for a basic wage of $800 per month, resulting in 44 deaths, more than 70 injuries and 250 arrests.”

The same report also went on to underline that,

“The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), South Africa’s left-leaning and third-largest political party, rallied with the families and survivors of the Marikana mass shooting on Thursday at the South Gauteng High Court where a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit against President Cyril Ramaphosa was being heard.”

Returning to Ramaphosa’s White House visit – back home, Julius Malema responded with ferocity. He emphasized that there was no threat to the lives of White farmers or any other whites in general in South Africa. These White property owners live lavish lives they would not be able to live elsewhere. But, said Malema, lashing back, what they feared was equality. That was the real problem. And as long as you try to prioritize “peace” (I think aimed at both Trump and Ramaphosa) over equality and justice, things can only get further aggravated. This point about equality and justice is really important to underline here because, if three decades after the end of Apartheid Whites still control all the land and property then this is really more a question of class privilege that is sought to be defended by raising the bogey of race.

And here is a warning. Regardless of what one might think of Malema and his politics, if this vicious structural inequality is not addressed through existing institutional channels, it can well lead to violent conflict in future. Ramaphosa appears to be statesmanly in not rising to Trump’s bait but his alignment with DA and Rupert is in keeping with his history as a shareholder of the company that was responsible for the Marikana massacre.

Cyril Ramaphosa’s response, as well as that of the Democratic Alliance representative and of the White S. African billionaire may have been very good in terms of the optics for the US and European audience but at what cost? When it leaves the question of highly unequal property relations in South Africa untouched, does it really give confidence to the poor and the powerless? Does it not also, in a fundamental way concede that matters of deep inequality with South Africa cannot be addressed by the South African state but is open to intervention of White supremacists in the USA?