Statement from White South African Christian Leaders on Recent Actions by the United States Government

On 7 February 2025, the President of the United States of America issued an executive order withdrawing all U.S. government aid to South Africa. In the same week, their Secretary of State announced his refusal to attend the G20 summit in South Africa. The stated reasons for these actions are claims of victimisation, violence and hateful rhetoric against white people in South Africa along with legislation providing for the expropriation of land without compensation.  

As white South Africans in active leadership within the Christian community, representing diverse political and theological perspectives, we unanimously reject these claims. We make this statement as white South Africans because these claims are being made about us and our experience in this place.  The narrative presented by the U.S. government is founded on fabrications, distortions, and outright lies. It does not reflect the reality of our country and, if anything, serves to heighten existing tensions in South Africa.  It also detracts from the important work of building safer, healthier communities and addressing the complex history of land dispossession by white Europeans from the black African majority. 

That South Africa has failed to effectively address the racial injustices of Apartheid and Colonialism is obvious. Whilst the reasons for this are complex, one factor is the sustained resistance by many white South Africans to initiatives that seek to meaningfully address the economic and land ownership consequences of these systems of racial oppression.  The resultant tensions thereof are now being weaponized for cheap political points in the USA. Similarly, there are South African leaders, especially within the white community, who are using the deplorable actions and statements of the President of the United States of America and his supporters to serve the narrow needs of their local constituencies. We call on our fellow South Africans to reconsider this dangerous political strategy and to rather give their energy towards working for a more just future in South Africa.

As South Africans who are Christian, followers of the ways of Jesus, we do this because we are conscious that the current U.S. government administration identifies and draws support from significant parts of our fellow believers in the USA. Recalling our history where the Christian faith was used to justify the oppressive colonial and apartheid regimes tacitly and explicitly, we have watched in horror as political rhetoric in the United States of America has also drawn on the Christian faith in ways which dismiss the most basic Christian call to caring for the vulnerable, loving of neighbours, and working for a good society for all. Such distortions of Christianity have produced innumerable violences, and the justifying of such violences in the name of Christianity is something we condemn and reject as leaders of our faith.

What is today known as South Africa is a part of the world that has experienced immense violence over multiple generations. We lament the fact that it continues to be a country with extremely high levels of violence which have impacted many, if not most of us, personally. However, while all South Africans have been personally touched by violence, the narrative of “disproportionate violence” aimed at white South Africans that President Trump is attempting to push negates the indisputable reality, for anyone living in South Africa, that black South Africans continue to be subject to the worst excesses of violence and oppression. Genocide Watch has noted that while white South Africans make up around 8% of the population they account for less than 2% of the murder victims.[1]

Whilst we have serious concerns about the political nature of foreign aid into our country and continent, the sudden and immediate withdrawal of aid, particularly aid which supports our health systems, promises devastation for our communities. In particular, the support being withdrawn from South Africa disproportionately affects the HIV community who rely on antiretroviral medication. South Africa has a significant number of people who are HIV+, and for whom access to antiretroviral medication is a matter of life or death. As pastors, we know them as members of our congregations and communities. As followers of the God of life, and of Jesus Christ whose ministry of healing has guided the work of the church over centuries, we must protest in the strongest possible terms where we see racial politics being weaponized in ways that will contribute to the early death for the poor and vulnerable, while serving the political agendas of the powerful.

As white Christian South Africans, we confess that we have not done enough to rectify the injustices of our colonial and apartheid past. We acknowledge the call of the gospel to continue working to undo the injustices of the past, and we recommit ourselves to work for redress, restitution and healing.  We know that rectifying historic injustices in land ownership and working beyond this towards undoing immense inequality is a key part of the gospel call for a commitment towards justice in our country.

We also commit ourselves to pray and stand in solidarity with faith leaders in the United States of America who are called to be a voice for justice and peace in this turbulent time. We recognize that the actions of the government and business leaders of the USA will have a definite impact on the future of the entire globe and that faith communities are called to critical witness in a time such as this. In the same way that churches were called to commit to united work for justice during the dark days of apartheid, we commit to supporting the prophetic church in the USA as it works for justice in the weeks, months, and years to come.

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[1]  https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/rising-crime-in-south-africa