In a social media post on Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Rasool was “no longer welcome in our great country”.
Rubio had linked his remarks to an article by the right-wing media outlet Breitbart, wherein Rasool is quoted as saying Trump mobilised a “supremacist instinct” and “white victimhood” as a “dog whistle” during the 2024 elections.
But South African political analyst Sandile Swana told Al Jazeera that the “core of the dispute” was Pretoria’s decision to form a genocide case at the International Court of Justice against Israel, a staunch US ally, over its war on Gaza.
In February, Rasool, an anti-apartheid campaigner, told the Zeteo news site that what South Africans experienced during apartheid rule “is on steroids in Palestine”. Moreover, Swana explained that in the fight against apartheid, the US “supported the apartheid regime”.
“[So] Rasool continues to point out the behavior of the United States, even now is to support apartheid and genocide”, he added.
On Saturday, South Africa’s presidency issued a statement stating that the decision was “regrettable” – but added that the country “remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States of America”. Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation, posted on X that the government “will engage through the diplomatic channel”.
FYI, South Africa is governed by the African National Congress (ANC), a party that emerged out of the anti-apartheid struggle that ended white minority rule in that country. But the government have been a target of particular ire for the Donald Trump administration and allies like right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, who is of South African origin.
Already, Trump’s government have accused the ANC government of discriminating against their white population. Trump has even nixed aid to South Africa and, in February – at a time when the White House had almost entirely shuttered refugee admissions for people fleeing violence and repression around the world – Trump offered expedited citizenship for white Afrikaners “escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination”.
The announcement was a response to a land distribution law meant to address inequalities that have continued since the apartheid era. The South African government say that Trump is misinformed about the law, which has not been used to confiscate any land.
Vincent Magwenya, a spokesperson for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, told the Reuters news agency that his country was “not going to partake in a counterproductive megaphone diplomacy” – referring to Trump’s propensity for issuing missives about South Africa on social media.
Despite Trump’s portrayal of Afrikaners as a besieged minority, South African authorities say that the economic legacy of apartheid, during which white South Africans exercised near-total control over the economy, persists in continued levels of economic inequality between Black and white residents.
A 2017 government audit found that while Black people make up 80 percent of the population of South Africa, they own just 4 percent of privately held farmland. The white Afrikaners who own the vast majority of South Africa’s farmland comprise a mere 8 percent of the population.
Rasool and his family were themselves expelled from their home in Cape Town during the apartheid period, when Black people were forcibly relocated to designated non-white areas with almost no resources or economic opportunities.
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