This week, the relationship between South Africa and the United States (US) reached a breaking point following years of tensions between the two countries. Repairing these bonds requires a frank discussion about the situation in South Africa and the causes of our problems. This is why the Free Market Foundation (FMF) will be touring the US over the coming weeks.

On Tuesday, 15 September, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a policy introducing visa restrictions on South African nationals. He said: “The South African government has consistently failed to adequately address rural crime, violent and dehumanising rhetoric, and race-based discriminatory policies against Afrikaners and other minority populations.”

In past columns, I have written about how both the US Ambassador and Elon Musk have been right in their assessments of South Africa. Now it is Marco Rubio’s turn to be right about South Africa.

On the Road

The timing is good. The issues raised by Secretary Rubio are precisely the reason why the FMF will be embarking on its tour of the US in September and October.

During our trip, my colleague, Dr Martin van Staden, and I will be meeting with federal officials, think tanks, lobby groups, and longtime friends and associates of the FMF in Washington DC, with further engagements taking place in New York City.

In our meetings, we will hand over a memorandum that sets out the FMF’s assessment of the US-South Africa relationship for an American audience.

The document is titled the Don Caldwell Memorandum on Socialism and Racial Engineering in “Post-Apartheid” South Africa and is named in honour of Donald Caldwell, an American economist, journalist, and author who lived in South Africa in the 1980s and 90s.

Don was a passionate libertarian who worked closely with the FMF to promote a free, non-racial South Africa. Sadly, Caldwell died in a car accident in 1992 at the young age of 32.

We like to think that if Don were alive today, he would be as appalled as we are by the prevalence of racialised law and socialist economic thinking in South Africa. This is why we have chosen these two topics as the thematic focus for the memorandum.

We Need to Talk

Both Dr Van Staden and I have been invited to participate in the White Cross Project, an initiative of Dr Ernst Roets, who heads the South African think tank and advocacy group Lex Libertas.

The project will highlight four interconnected themes relating to the crisis in South Africa:

• •Political incitement of violence against minorities
• •Farm attacks and rural safety
• •Racial exclusion through legislation
• •The threat to property rights

The first of two formal events will take place at the National Press Club in Washington on Friday, 25 September.

I have been asked to speak about threats to property rights, so I intend to highlight the risks of the Expropriation Act of 2024 and address some misconceptions about the so-called “land question” in South Africa.

The FMF’s Rule of Law Project recently joined litigation in the Western Cape High Court against the Expropriation Act as an amicus curiae (friend of the court). The FMF was ably represented in this litigation by Advocate Mark Oppenheimer, who will also be joining us for the conference.

Adv Oppenheimer shot to fame in 2022 when he represented civil rights group AfriForum in its case against Julius Malema and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in the Equality Court. The trial centred on Malema and the EFF’s singing of the “Kill the Boer” chant, which the American government rightly objects to and which President Cyril Ramaphosa refuses to condemn.

At the conference, Adv Oppenheimer will be speaking about the problem of violent rhetoric and racial incitement with reference to this case (which the Constitutional Court inexplicably declined to hear on appeal).

One of the leading authorities on hate speech law in South Africa, Adv Oppenheimer also serves as executive director of the Free Speech Union of South Africa (FSU-SA), of which I too am a director. In October, Mark and I will be attending the Global Free Speech Summit in Nashville, Tennessee wearing our FSU-SA hats.

In addition to his role as head of policy at the FMF, Dr Van Staden is the author of the Index of Race Law, which catalogues the numerous race laws in South Africa. By now you have surely seen Elon Musk reposting Dr Van Staden’s graph on X.

Dr Van Staden’s research reveals that there have been 324 race laws adopted in South Africa since 1910. Of these, 122 have been adopted since 1994. Of the 324 total laws, 145 remain on the books. And of the 145, 136 remain racial (the Index was last updated in June 2025).

During his remarks at the conference, Dr Van Staden will be at pains to point out the gaslighting by the South African government and local media, which like to argue that there are no race laws in South Africa. In the very next breath, however, these very same people insist that the race laws are in fact necessary in the interests of achieving equity and justice.

Other speakers at the conference will include Dr James Myburgh – editor of PoliticsWeb and a contributor to The Common Sense – as well as Stefano Forte, president of the New York Young Republican Club.

In Memoriam

The next morning, on Saturday, 26 September, Lex Libertas will host the White Cross Vigil, where it will erect 3 000 white crosses on the lawns of the National Mall in Washington (between the iconic Washington Memorial and the White House).

This is sure to be a powerful symbol of the extent of farm violence and the persecution facing the Afrikaner community in South Africa. Each cross will bear the name of a victim of violent farm attacks.

I should point out that it is not only white Afrikaners whose deaths will be memorialised during the vigil. However, this does not mean that those Afrikaners who lost their lives matter any less or that their plight does not deserve special consideration.

Of course, violent crime is an endemic problem in South Africa and affects all its citizens in one way or another. Over the past week there has been justified outrage at the spate of killings of women in Kempton Park on the East Rand of Johannesburg. It is notable that the South African government has sprung into action in an attempt to catch what appears to be a serial murderer.

This is the kind of attention that Afrikaner community groups are requesting: an acknowledgement of the problems they face and concomitant action by the authorities. Instead, they are either met with indifference or are falsely accused of sowing misinformation and spreading a “white genocide” narrative.

The problem of farm murders is not a subject that the FMF tends to focus on very much in its policy work. However, at a personal level, I feel a profound sense of moral indignation at the plight of South Africa’s farmers, a disproportionate number of whom have been subjected to the most horrific violence.

Several survivors and relatives of farm attack victims will be speaking at the conference and participating in the vigil. They have endured the most unimaginable trauma and their journey to Washington represents something of a spiritual pilgrimage. It is with the greatest humility that I will join these brave people in drawing the world’s attention to a crime that the South African government would prefer to ignore.

Ansara is CEO of the Free Market Foundation.