Ramaphosa warns against detractors sowing fear, hatred

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa used his Day of Reconciliation address to dispel the Donald Trump narrative of white genocide in the country, saying detractors overlooked ‘successful’ land restitution.

“Our democracy was built on reconciliation. South Africans bear the scars of centuries of dispossession and oppression, of resistance being met with batons and bullets. 

“Fellow South Africans, there are those, inside and outside our country, who are trying their utmost to paint a false picture of us as the South African people.

“They do not tell us what the surveys say: that the majority of South Africans are hopeful about the state of our democracy. They do not tell us that the majority of South Africans believe race relations have improved since 1994.

“They do not show the pictures of African, white, Indian and coloured children learning together, studying together and playing together,” Ramaphosa said.

Trump recently amplified his hostilities towards South Africa after the successful hosting of the G20 Summit in Johannesburg where no American official attend. 

Using his social media platform, Trump said the US did not attend the G20 in South Africa “because the South African Government refuses to acknowledge or address the horrific Human Rights Abuses endured by Afrikaners and other descendants of Dutch, French, and German settlers”. 

He also said that due to South Africa’s refusal to hand over the G20 Presidency to a Senior Representative from the US Embassy, “at my direction, South Africa will not be receiving an invitation to the 2026 G20”, which will be hosted in Miami, Florida.

Ramaphosa told the gathering at the Ncome Museum, Nquthu Local Municipality, in the uMzinyathi District, KwaZulu-Natal on Tuesday that South African detractors were painting a false picture designed to sow fear and hatred. 

“We must not let them succeed in their efforts. If we continue and together we build our nation as South Africans, there will be no one who will be able to plant the seed of discrimination and exclusiveness amongst us.”

Ramaphosa said that South Africa is a country of many diverse views where people not only understand the history in different ways, but also experience the reality of the present in different ways.

“We must not try to hide these differences. We must speak about them and continue to work to bridge them… For as long as the majority of black South Africans live in poverty, for as long as inequality persists, our country will not find true reconciliation,” Ramaphosa said.

Cape Times