Apartheid divided South Africans into beneficiaries, victims and bystanders.
Today, Trumpism divides the world in the same way – into those who gain from supremacy, those crushed by it and those who pretend neutrality absolves them.
Supporters of apartheid saw no fault in it because they benefited or believed it natural, often invoking scripture to justify oppression.
Opponents, including its victims, resisted because the system dehumanised them.
Some whites, though not directly harmed, joined the struggle out of conscience, refusing to stand idle. Many of those continue today to advocate for real change that addresses apartheid’s imbalances.
Apartheid was not an isolated invention. It was a by-product of Nazism. The National Party’s rise in 1948 was inspired by Hitler’s racial hierarchy, applying his policies to black South Africans as Jews had been targeted in Europe.
Both systems thrived on supremacy, oppression and authorised brutality, differing only in intensity. The architects of apartheid borrowed directly from fascism’s playbook, proving that authoritarianism is never confined to one geography– it is a virus that mutates and spreads.
Trumpism now echoes that lineage. His return to power has emboldened fascists worldwide, from neo-Nazis in Europe to right-wing secessionists in South Africa dreaming of a Boerestaat, or an independent Western Cape.
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Social commentator Donovan E Williams recently told SABC’s Sakina Kamwendo that Trump has built the largest right-wing movement in the world.
He pushes such groups to the forefront, hoping even for a right-wing party in South Africa. In Trump’s America, fascist tendencies are unmistakable.
Police heavy-handedness has surged. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrest without cause, migrants are profiled and brutality is meted out with impunity.
Women are not spared. Homes are seized under racist pretexts, targeting immigrants and black citizens. This is not democracy – it is apartheid with a new passport.
Visiting the US today can feel riskier than travelling to authoritarian states. A police officer may pin you down with a knee on your neck even if you comply, simply to assert dominance.
The so-called world’s number one democracy increasingly resembles a police state. The irony is bitter: America once claimed to be the beacon of freedom, yet now exports authoritarianism as readily as it once exported consumer goods.
Trump’s foreign policy mirrors his domestic authoritarianism. He demands that South Africa inherit Washington’s enemies – Russia, China, Iran – without question.
But why should Pretoria adopt America’s quarrels? One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.
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When Nelson Mandela sought help in the 1960s to fight apartheid, the US refused, siding instead with the oppressors. That betrayal is now repeated in Trump’s treatment of migrants and minorities.
The parallels are stark. Apartheid borrowed from Hitler. Trumpism borrows from apartheid.
Both rely on scapegoating, brutality and the illusion of supremacy. Both weaponise fear and division. And both demand complicity from those who would rather look away.
Neutrality, then as now, is not innocence – it is endorsement. Yet history offers hope.
Apartheid fell because ordinary people resisted, refusing neutrality. Fascism unravels when confronted by solidarity and moral clarity.
Trump may have built the largest right-wing movement in history, but his chaos will not outlast him. Authoritarian leaders thrive on spectacle and fear, but they are undone by persistence and collective resistance.
South Africa must resist imported fascism disguised as foreign policy. We must reject the idea that neutrality is safe.
Neutrality is complicity. Resistance is survival. We defeated apartheid. We can defeat Trumpism, too.
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