White supremacist ideology and unfounded assertions that South Africa’s Afrikaner minority is being racially persecuted undermine the country’s sovereignty and national security, President Cyril Ramaphosa warned at an African National Congress conference.
Ramaphosa said some groups still cling to racial superiority and resist transformation and redress, feeding narratives of white victimhood that align with white supremacist ideas. He warned the propaganda around alleged persecution of Afrikaners has “real implications for our sovereignty, international relations and national security,” and urged a global campaign to counter the narrative.
The claims of a “white genocide” in South Africa have been amplified by high-profile figures, bringing a fringe far-right conspiracy to a much wider audience. Without naming individuals, Ramaphosa said it was essential to defeat this agenda both domestically and internationally.
Tensions have affected South Africa’s role on the world stage. The United States boycotted last month’s G20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg, saying a consensus could not be reached in its absence. The summit, chaired by South Africa, produced a communique stressing issues such as gender equality and climate action. The 2026 G20 summit will be hosted at the Trump National Doral in Miami. The US has invited Poland instead of South Africa to early meetings of its upcoming G20 presidency; US officials have publicly accused South Africa of tolerating racism and violence against Afrikaners.
The US also plans to admit 7,500 refugees this year, most reportedly white South Africans, while tightening its refugee programme for others.
Afrikaners make up about 4% of South Africa’s population—roughly 2.5 million people—and descend from Dutch settlers and French Huguenots. They led the apartheid regime from 1948, which violently repressed the black majority and concentrated wealth and safety among white people. White South Africans remain significantly wealthier than black citizens; a 2017 government land audit found white people owned 72% of private agricultural land.
Although there have been high-profile, brutal murders of some white farmers, available evidence does not show that farmers are being systematically targeted because of race or that they suffer disproportionately within South Africa’s high violent-crime rates.
