South Africa’s Government: The World’s Most Race-Obsessed Regime

The ANC’s Race-Driven Policies

Both President Donald Trump and Elon Musk recently called out the South African government for its threats to private property and its many race-based laws - and rightly so. For decades, the African National Congress (ANC) has steadily imposed an ever-growing set of race-driven policies while openly threatening citizens with expropriation without compensation. South Africans have been hearing about this looming threat of confiscation of private property for at least seven years now. But how did the country that was supposed to move beyond racial division end up here?

The end of apartheid was meant to mark the beginning of a truly non-racial South Africa. Instead, nearly three decades of ANC rule - and now coalition politics - have entrenched a new kind of racial discrimination, dressed up as progress. Historian Hermann Giliomee once noted:

“More than 80% of Afrikaners in polls taken in 1979, 1984, and 1987 believed that under black majority rule, there would be reverse discrimination, and that the Afrikaans language and culture would be threatened.”

These fears were not unfounded. They were a chillingly accurate prediction of what was to come. Consider the reality today: laws and policies explicitly designed to disadvantage and target certain racial groups, justified by those who support racially discriminatory laws when they approve of the people they target.

Institutionalizing Race-Based Exclusion

The ANC’s racially discriminatory policies - some dating as far back as the 1990s - have always been carefully packaged in flowery language. The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act 53 of 2003 is a prime example. Marketed as a tool for “black economic empowerment” (BEE), it has instead institutionalized race-based economic discrimination, punishing businesses that do not comply with racial quotas.

Investigative journalist James Myburgh has meticulously documented the history of these race-driven policies in post-1994 South Africa. But here’s the real question: When does so-called “redress” cross the line into outright racial engineering? And at what point does South Africa, under the guise of correcting past injustices, simply entrench another racialist status quo?

In 2020, at the height of a global crisis, the ANC provided a clear answer: not even a pandemic would put a pause on its race-driven policies. The government’s Tourism Relief Fund, meant to help struggling businesses survive lockdowns, didn’t prioritize need - it prioritized race. If a business owner didn’t meet the required racial criteria, they could be left to sink, no matter how many livelihoods depended on them.

This wasn’t just bureaucratic oversight; it was a deliberate choice. As businesses of all racial backgrounds teetered on the edge of collapse, the Minister of Tourism proudly defended the policy, calling it “perfectly rational.” ANC rationality: to deny aid to struggling businesses based on skin color.

Thankfully, civil rights group AfriForum and trade union Solidarity took the matter to court and won, striking down this openly discriminatory policy. But the fact that such a system was put in place at all, especially in the midst of a global emergency, reveals just how deeply racial ideology has infiltrated government decision-making.

Race-Madness Infecting Every Facet of Society

This obsession with race isn’t limited to government funds; it actively harms civil society and private businesses. Consider the Tears Foundation, a non-profit fighting sexual and gender-based violence. When it applied for government funding, it wasn’t its mission or effectiveness that mattered - it was its racial compliance. The BEE framework effectively shut the funding-door on an NGO dedicated to protecting some of the most vulnerable.

And it’s not just charities. In 2022, South Africa’s second-largest retail pharmacy chain, Dis-Chem, made headlines when a leaked internal memo exposed the extent of government-driven racial hiring policies. The company’s CEO announced a total freeze on hiring and promoting white employees, not because of merit or business needs, but because the threat of government fines made it too risky to do otherwise. Around the time of this scandal, I wrote a piece that detailed how race-mad South Africa had become. South Africa, once promised as a nation of opportunity for all, is now a country where even job applications are judged by skin color first.

How long can the ANC keep using the past as a shield to justify present-day discrimination? And most importantly, how much damage will be done before South Africans say: enough?

Race-Based Laws in Post-Apartheid South Africa

South Africa’s obsession with race-based policies is no secret - it's a matter of record. In 2020, civil rights group AfriForum compiled a comprehensive report detailing the government’s racially discriminatory policies, followed by another in 2022. Martin van Staden, Head of Policy at the Free Market Foundation, has documented more than 141 race-based laws still in force today. His research found that since 1910, South Africa’s parliament has passed at least 313 pieces of racial legislation. But here’s the shocking part: nearly 37% of them (116+) were introduced after 1994, under ANC rule. Another racialist regime, under new management.

The ANC’s race-obsessed policies reached new heights in 2023 when the government introduced race quotas for water usage, as if South Africa’s worsening water crisis wasn’t bad enough. Meanwhile, despite almost two decades of rolling blackouts, state power monopoly Eskom announced plans to fire 500 white maintenance workers - not because they were unqualified, but to meet government-imposed racial quotas. Who cares if hospitals are without power, as long as racial targets are met?

But perhaps the most ridiculous example is the government’s ongoing refusal to grant Elon Musk’s Starlink a license to operate in the country. Why? Because SpaceX doesn’t meet the ANC’s racial ownership requirements. The result? In 2025, South Africa remains the only southern African country without Starlink or even a launch date. Even Zimbabwe got Starlink before South Africa. That’s how dedicated the South African government is to what it sees as its right to discriminate.

The Real Price of Ideology

These policies aren’t isolated cases. They’re part of a deliberate and systematic attempt to govern through racial division. Instead of solving its crippling unemployment crisis, fixing its collapsing infrastructure, or securing reliable electricity, the South African government appears more focused on cementing itself as the most race-obsessed regime on the planet.

The ANC continues to cynically attempt to direct everyone’s eyes to the rear-view mirror, while simultaneously championing its own laundry list of race laws. Its twisted reasoning boils down to digging a new pothole to fill an old one. Fortunately, leaders like Donald Trump appear not to be falling for their twisted narrative anymore.

Ernst van Zyl

Head of Public Relations at AfriForum | Political Commentator