South Africa finds hope amid global narratives

A couple of decades ago, it was quite difficult to develop a conspiracy theory and have it gain traction in mainstream media. The cornerstone of any self-respecting media house was triangulation of information.

Every piece of information would be checked and tested against multiple sources of evidence before it was accepted as fact that could be disseminated to the public. And then entered the age of social media.

Every individual with a smartphone is now a news source. Even worse, those who own social media platforms can control whole narratives and determine destinies of entire nations.

Ditto Elon Musk.

The South African-born dollar billionaire has not only helped reinstall Donald Trump to what is called the most powerful position on earth as president of the United States, but he is using his ownership of social media giant X to shape the world to his liking, multiple posts at a time.

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This past week, Musk put South Africa in Trump’s crosshairs by simply putting out a post that asked: “Why is South Africa pursuing openly racist policies?”

In the past era of traditional media, that post would not have made it past editorial scrutiny because questions would have been asked: What are these racist policies? Who are the victims of these policies? What tangible evidence exists that these racist policies are real?

In the age of Musk and his platform formerly known as Twitter, the truth is secondary to getting likes.

And people will suffer because of it.

But it is important to note that South Africa did not just come into Trump’s crosshairs by chance.

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As far back as 2018, during Trump’s first stint in the White House, lobby groups like AfriForum went out of their way to play “special” victims of crimes in South Africa.

They screamed for all the world to know that white farmers in South Africa were targets of a genocide and that land was being seized from white farmers.

This was seven years ago, before the Expropriation Act was signed into law.

Back then, AfriForum was happy to have brought the plight of white farmers to the attention of the White House.

Even the Australians offered the “persecuted” farmers refuge in their country.

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The biggest casualty back then?

The truth.

The British Broadcasting Corporation did a Reality Check investigation into AfriForum and Trump’s claims and came to the conclusion that no land was being seized from farmers and that they were not particularly vulnerable to murder more than the average South African.

Up to 20 000, South African are murdered annually and there is no use in downplaying that, it is an abhorring statistic.

But black, coloured, Indian, Chinese and every race of people in South Africa is equally affected by murder.

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South Africa is most probably paying for its sins of declaring Israel’s war against Palestinians a genocide.

Add to that, that the country has chosen to be allies with America’s Cold War rivals in the Russians and Iranians, then the country had this coming. No-one stands up to Trump and his sidekick Musk without consequences.

Sadly, there seems to be a delayed realisation the US is punishing South Africa for its constitutionally aligned attempts at redressing its past which affects everyone, including AfriForum.

The glimmer of hope for South Africa in the Musk-led onslaught was black and white South Africans declaring their love for their country.

It should not take doomsday conspiracy theories about government land seizures to unite this country, every citizen must always be Team South Africa.

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