As a white South African man now residing in the USA, I’m aware of the outsized function performed by Elon Musk and some different white males with robust South African ties within the US’s lurch towards authoritarianism. These embody far-right tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who spent adolescence of his childhood in apartheid South Africa; US President Donald Trump’s Cape City-born “AI and crypto tsar” David Sacks; and Joel Pollak, the South African-American conservative political commentator presently serving because the senior editor-at-large of the Breitbart Information Community.
Whereas I’m no billionaire and don’t have any affect over authorities coverage, these males and I nonetheless have fairly a bit in frequent. I used to be born in apartheid South Africa about the identical time as Musk, Pollak and Sacks and benefitted from the system. Like them, I ultimately migrated to the US. Like Musk, I went to Veldskool, or “area college” – a weeklong camp throughout highschool throughout which academics tried to indoctrinate us into Christian nationalism, the whites-only political ideology of the apartheid authorities. Additionally like him, I used to be a nerdy boy who was relentlessly bullied in class.
Nevertheless, I’m additionally very totally different from these males – and never simply because I don’t have billions within the financial institution or a direct line to the US president. In contrast to Musk, I do not support racist pseudoscience. In contrast to Musk and the administration these males serve, I query the apartheid-era insurance policies that allowed a small minority – white South Africans – to regulate a disproportionate quantity of land and assets. And most significantly, I take delight within the achievements and progress of post-apartheid South Africa.
Within the early Nineties when South Africa was making a transition from apartheid to democracy, I used to be working as a radio journalist on the nation’s nationwide broadcaster. I keep in mind the delight and elation felt throughout the nation as South Africans of all races and backgrounds lined as much as vote on April 27, 1994, of their first democratic elections. Over the subsequent few years, my colleagues and I had been a part of the hassle to rework the South African Broadcasting Company from a authorities mouthpiece to a real public broadcaster.
As South Africans received the struggle for democracy, they confronted one other battle, this time in opposition to the AIDS pandemic. As soon as once more, the nation, and its individuals rose as much as the problem. Hundreds of thousands of South Africans organised and took to the streets to demand and finally obtain entry to antiretroviral drugs. After relentless stress, the federal government agreed to decide to therapy. The US authorities additionally did the correct factor and agreed to generously fund AIDS drug therapy within the nation by means of the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Aid (PEPFAR). South Africa has been one of the biggest recipients of PEPFAR aid, receiving $332.6m in 2024. This support saved numerous South African lives.
Now, little question with full assist from his billionaire buddies nostalgic for the depressing days of apartheid, Trump has lower this funding. The cuts for AIDS therapy got here with Trump’s current government orders halting US support to South Africa and providing assist and refuge to white South Africans he described as “victims of unjust racial discrimination”. Later, the Trump administration additionally determined to expel the South African ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool.
Trump is following Musk’s lead in branding post-apartheid South Africa a rustic riddled with racial discrimination. Musk has beforehand described his beginning nation as having “racist possession legal guidelines” and accused its authorities of failing to cease what he calls a “genocide” in opposition to white farmers.
What Musk and Trump describe will not be something just like the nation I do know and love.
My South African husband and I moved to the US in 2010 as a result of I used to be provided an opportunity to play a component in supporting public well being activists internationally by means of a job on the Open Society Foundations in New York.
We determined this was too thrilling a possibility to show down – however transferring to the US from South Africa was not a straightforward determination. We had a really comfy life, and transferring to the US truly meant shedding a lot of rights and protections we had in South Africa, such nearly as good labour protections, paid household go away and – as a homosexual couple – the correct to marry. (Identical-sex marriage wouldn’t change into authorized nationwide within the US for an additional 5 years.) South Africans of all races additionally get pleasure from the correct to abortion and the constitutional rights to well being, schooling and housing – even when these are nonetheless removed from being a actuality in follow.
I turned a US citizen in December 2023. It was a bittersweet time. My father, Malcolm, had died a couple of days earlier than – and I needed to postpone heading dwelling for the memorial till I used to be capable of get hold of my new US passport. He was a person of religion – a minister within the Congregational Church – who donated his physique to science. A religious Christian who was loving and supportive after I got here out as homosexual and even after I advised him I used to be leaving the church, he deeply admired the anti-Nazi German dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer and urged my siblings and me to at all times have the braveness of our convictions.
In contrast to Musk, Thiel, Sacks and Pollak, I’ve no nostalgia for apartheid, and if I’m to have the braveness of my convictions as my father taught me, I really feel I need to communicate out when Musk cynically labels efforts to undo the legacy of segregation “racism” and leads the way in which in slicing the funding for worldwide well being and improvement help (a tiny fraction of the US federal budget) that, in keeping with specialists, might end in more than 500,000 deaths in South Africa over the subsequent decade.
I really feel compelled to talk out as a result of Musk and his uberwealthy South African-born or -raised buddies – individuals with more cash than many people can fathom – at the moment are instantly working with the American president to take every little thing away from those that have virtually nothing.
Their mannequin will not be the one we ought to be following. There are much better examples previously and current. Take Jennifer Davis, who helped forge constructive connections between South Africa and the US based mostly on human rights and justice. Or the various members of the CHANGE coalition, led by organisations equivalent to Health GAP within the US and the Health Justice Initiative in South Africa, who’re proper now collaborating to problem and reverse Trump’s support cuts. Or the thousands and thousands of individuals in each international locations who’re exhibiting up on daily basis to do the work essential to make the US and South Africa higher for all their individuals, regardless of their race, sexuality or financial institution steadiness, motivated and impressed by the values of democracy, social justice and Ubuntu – the concept that we’re all linked and accountable for each other.
Musk and his like-minded buddies might now have all the ability, however they’re only a tiny minority. Justice- and democracy-loving individuals of South Africa and the US received in opposition to their type earlier than, and I’m sure they may accomplish that once more.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
