(Graphic: John McCann)
South Africa welcomed delegates, leaders, and visitors to the Johannesburg G20 Summit with more confidence than in recent years. The country stepped into the spotlight as European leaders arrived at OR Tambo, Saudi Arabia expressed new strategic intentions, and the Leaders’ Declaration was secured despite objections from former US President Donald Trump.
This moment created a rare sense of triumph in the nation’s often challenging political atmosphere. Foreign policy analysts briefly discussed a potential “Global South awakening.” Yet, as is often the case in our national politics, the celebration concealed as much as it revealed.
While attention centred on those present, few paused to consider those who were not. The United States’ absence from the summit was widely read as either neglect or a sign of waning influence. Both readings are seductive, but both are flawed. Influence does not evaporate in the absence of a flag or a handshake. It often migrates to quieter, less regulated, and more dangerous channels. In those shadows, a different system of power already operates. This system now constitutes a present threat to South African sovereignty.
Over the last decade, a conservative ideological network in the United States has transformed the long-discredited myth of “white genocide in South Africa” from fringe conspiracy to organising principle. What once lurked in anonymous online forums now circulates in think tanks, congressional offices, evangelical churches, and veterans’ circles, carried by influencers and advocacy groups with direct lines to power in the Oval Office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. Le Monde recently called this network “an archipelago”: dispersed yet astonishingly coordinated.
This narrative, which began as a marginal idea on internet message boards, has gradually infiltrated mainstream American political discourse. It is not simply a matter of misinformation spreading unchecked; it is a calculated campaign, carefully nurtured by actors who understand the power of emotional storytelling. By framing South Africa as a cautionary tale, these groups tap into deep-seated anxieties about demographic change, social order, and cultural identity in the United States. The myth of “white genocide” is deployed as a rhetorical weapon, simultaneously stoking fear, resentment, and a sense of urgency among segments of the American populace.
The consequences of this campaign extend far beyond the borders of either nation. In South Africa, it distorts the reality of the country’s complex history and current challenges, reducing nuanced social and political struggles to a single, inflammatory narrative.
It undermines trust in domestic institutions and erodes the legitimacy of efforts to address real issues of violence, inequality, and reconciliation. In the United States, the narrative is repurposed to fuel existing political divides, providing a ready-made justification for hardline policies or reactionary movements.
This ideological export is made possible by a sophisticated media ecosystem. Cable news segments, viral social media posts, podcasts, and even best-selling books echo the same themes, reinforcing the myth’s staying power. Political figures amplify these messages, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly, knowing that such narratives resonate with their base and can be leveraged for electoral gain. The result is an environment in which misinformation is not merely tolerated but actively rewarded.
At the heart of this phenomenon lies a broader struggle over sovereignty and self determination. For South Africa, the challenge is not only to refute false narratives but also to strengthen the institutions and civic culture that can withstand foreign interference. For the United States, the ease with which these myths take root speaks to a deeper malaise … a political landscape increasingly shaped by spectacle, grievance, and the relentless pursuit of power. Both countries, in their own ways, are left grappling with the fallout of a story that was never really about South Africa at all, but about the anxieties and ambitions of those who wield it.
In this network’s eyes, South Africa is less a nation than a mirror of American anxieties. Our complex history, our lived struggle for justice, and our democratic experiment are reduced to a stage for foreign culture wars. Never mind that police statistics, academic research, and even the US Embassy have dismissed the “white genocide” claim as fiction. Myths persist not because they are true, but because they are useful. This one has become a moral pretext for a new kind of interventionism, one that does not need an embassy in the room to make itself felt.
The consequences are not hypothetical. South Africa now faces the threat of exclusion from the 2026 G20 Summit in the United States. There is no official explanation, but the timing is unmistakable. Next year, the US will mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of its Declaration of Independence, and the Trump administration is poised to turn the occasion into a nationalist spectacle. Against that backdrop, South Africa is at risk of being recast not as a partner, but as a prop. It becomes an easy target for rhetoric that pits civilization against chaos, loyalty against betrayal, “us” against “them.”
Exclusion from the Summit would not be a diplomatic gesture. It would be a performance, crafted for a domestic audience primed for grievance politics. Behind the spectacle is a deeper reality: twenty-first-century imperialism is not focused on regime change, but regime shaping. This is not the brash interference of the past, but a subtler, more insidious project. It reshapes institutions and incentives, exploits weaknesses, and aligns local power centres with foreign interests, all without firing a shot. South Africa, weakened by corruption and institutional decay, is now particularly vulnerable to this strategy.
It was into this landscape that Minister in the Presidency, Ms Khumbudzo Ntshavheni’s “meaningless” remark about the United States landed. This was a deliberate comment, not a misstep, and it bordered on strategic malpractice. Precision and restraint are vital from any senior official, but especially from one responsible for our nation’s state security. Grandstanding is not sovereignty. In this era, real sovereignty requires clarity and self-discipline.
Modern interference is rarely dramatic. It operates through private foundations brokering rural partnerships, “fact-finding” congressional visits, targeted policy briefings, and discreetly funded programs that empower specific political actors. Each act, taken alone, seems benign. Together, they form a system of influence designed not to overthrow, but to steer.
The African National Congress, once the standard-bearer of democratic renewal, now struggles with internal conflict and diminished capacity. Foreign actors need not destabilise South Africa directly; domestic dysfunction has already laid the groundwork. It is enough for outsiders to identify and elevate those whose ambitions match their own. These relationships give rise to a shadow ecosystem of decision-making, immune to the scrutiny of the electorate. There is no need for invasions. No coups. Instead, sovereignty erodes through a slow, relentless gravitational pull from outside.
The “white genocide” myth is the sharp edge of this campaign. For American political actors, it offers a veneer of humanitarian concern that masks deeper anxieties and resentments. For South Africa, it transforms our local struggles into the theatre for someone else’s narrative. It offers foreign operatives a ready-made platform to shape policy, cultivate allies, and intervene by proxy.
This is the anatomy of sovereignty’s erosion in the modern era: by story, not by force; by repetition, not by invasion; by shaping meaning, not by crossing borders. The danger is not theoretical. It is here, now, and urgent.
To defend itself, South Africa needs more than proud rhetoric. It requires robust intelligence agencies, savvy diplomacy, competent governance, and the courage to root out those who weaken the republic from within. Without this, the country risks being reduced to a stage for another nation’s drama.
Yet, history warns against fatalism. South Africa has withstood centuries of foreign interference and internal strife. But resilience is not a strategy. History punishes those who misread their own moment. Influence operations rarely seem dangerous until one realises how far they have already progressed.
South Africa must look this moment in the eye, unsparingly, without sentimentality, and without delay. The shadows gathering around our politics are real, as is the foreign interest shaping them. Our country is still capable of defending itself. But the first step is clarity, and clarity demands the courage to see what lies beneath the surface before it becomes irreversible.