On May 21, 2025, the world witnessed a stunning moment in the Oval Office. The President of the United States, Donald Trump, publicly humiliated South Africa’s head of state, Cyril Ramaphosa, while elites on both sides of the Atlantic played their parts in what can only be described as imperial theater.
The moment was orchestrated, rehearsed, and executed for effect. And its target wasn’t just Ramaphosa, or even South Africa. The target was revolution.
Act I: The Lie of “White Genocide”
In front of cameras, Trump confronted Ramaphosa with a media montage and tabloid clippings pushing the long-debunked conspiracy of “white genocide,” a narrative weapon designed to undermine land reform and portray the post-apartheid state as anti-white.
Then Trump crossed a line.
He called for the arrest of CIC Julius Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, a staunch Pan-Africanist, and one of the continent’s few unapologetic Marxists.
This was not a casual insult. It was a geopolitical message. Black revolutionaries who challenge capital will be criminalized.
Act II: Internal Betrayal
Rather than defend Malema on principle, Ramaphosa passed the stage to his white Minister of Agriculture, who not only validated Trump’s “farm murder” narrative, but also called Malema “rot” and said he should be barred from union buildings.
This wasn’t just racial betrayal. It was class betrayal.
It was the post-apartheid elite affirming their place as junior partners in the imperial hierarchy. On a global stage, a white minister used the language of settler fear to delegitimize a Black revolutionary, while standing next to an actual settler imperialist.
Act III: The Plea for Tech, Not Liberation
Then came a Black South African trade unionist, who acknowledged what is already well-known. South Africa’s problem is a general crime epidemic, not a targeted campaign against white farmers.
But rather than point to inequality, land theft, or racialized capitalism as the root of that crisis, she turned to empire and begged for help.
She asked for Starlink, for surveillance systems, for border equipment.
Tools of control. Tools of empire.
No mention of land reform.
No call for reparations.
Just a plea to be managed more efficiently by the very forces that underdeveloped the continent.
The Richest Man Watched
Present at the meeting was Elon Musk, born into apartheid privilege and now the richest man in the world. Once hailed as a potential tech partner for South Africa, Musk stood silently while Ramaphosa’s delegation crumbled. Months earlier, he had criticized South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment laws and threatened to withhold Starlink services unless exempted.
Now, the South African state and its white capitalist class appear ready to oblige.
South Africa on Its Knees
And all of this unfolded while South Africa is still actively pursuing a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. The contradiction is blinding.
How can a state that challenges empire abroad bow before it at home?
This was not diplomacy. It was a soft coup by shame, a calculated public submission of a former liberation movement turned middle manager for capital.
And the question must be asked.
If South Africa, with its economy, infrastructure, and revolutionary legacy, can be humiliated like this, what does that mean for smaller states like Burkina Faso or Mali?
A Continent Under Siege
Across Africa, a new generation of revolutionary leaders is rising.
In the west, Captain Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Faso is nationalizing resources, rejecting French neocolonialism, and speaking openly of socialism.
In the south, CIC Julius Malema calls for land expropriation without compensation, a radical break with neoliberalism, and the return of political power to the Black majority.
These leaders represent something empire cannot tolerate: clarity.
Clarity about capitalism.
Clarity about colonialism.
Clarity about the need for systemic transformation, not reform, but rupture.
And so, once again, just like during the Cold War, we are witnessing a new wave of imperial witch-hunts. This time it is not tanks and coups. It is narrative warfare, tech dependency, elite betrayal, and the constant criminalization of those who dare to imagine a post-capitalist Africa.
What Now?
This is not the time for despair.
It is a time for clarity, a time for connection across borders.
A time to remind the world that Malema is not the threat, and Traoré is not the threat.
The threat is inequality, capitalism, and the continued theft of African futures.
The spectacle in Washington was a humiliation, yes.
But it was also a mirror.
A warning.
And a call to resist.
Because Africa’s future does not belong to satellites and surveillance.
It belongs to the people.
It belongs to the land.
It belongs to the struggle.
By lilSatoshi13,
Rukungiri, Uganda
