South Africa: From Reconciliation to Revanchism
On 21 May, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa traveled to Washington, in the hopes of resetting his trade relationship with the United States after President Donald Trump levied thirty percent tariffs and claimed that the South African government was complicit in a genocide of South Africa’s white farmers. On the face of it, this claim is risible. The United Nations defines genocide as the ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group’. Over thirty years after the end of Apartheid, the minority white population still owns the majority of the land. The ministers in charge of agriculture and prisons are both white Afrikaners. The white population is stable. The Afrikaners, in short, are not facing genocide. But South Africa is complicated. Its idiosyncrasies make it hard to compare it with other countries, even if one has a strong understanding of African or colonial history. It is easy to get bogged down in the wars and the organised...