The "D Word" that kills twice: Denial and genocide in South Africa - Matt Chancey

Key topics:Genocide's warning signs witnessed in Sudan echoed in South Africa todayFarm murders and anti-white policies signal systemic racial persecutionDenial by leaders and media deepens the threat and blocks global action.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.The auditorium doors will open for BNIC#2 on 10 September 2025 in Hermanus. For more information and tickets, click here..By Matt Chancey.It’s hard to get the images out of my head… or forget the smell. And it’s still difficult to describe the scene.I’ve been a writer most of my life, but my vocabulary struggles to paint the word picture of what I saw and experienced at Mother of Mercy Hospital, in South Kordofan, Sudan, more than a decade ago. Before me were rows of hospital beds, occupied by children… children with no skin. Their flesh had been burned off by incendiary artillery that struck their straw hut late at night as they slept. Most suffered from severe burns over 90 percent of their little bodies. My organization had just delivered a skin-graft meshing machine to American doctor, Tom Catena, who heroically worked to save the lives of these children. But the machine was useless for most of the young patients. They simply didn’t have enough skin left to graft. “They’re not going to make it,” said Dr. Tom. “What can you do?” I asked.“Try to dull the pain as best as we can. That’s basically it.” Dr. Tom explained that, without skin, the little bodies would be subjected to constant attack by infection, and, gradually, the immune system would simply collapse. The process could take days…or weeks.In the meantime, the children moaned in agony as parents and other relatives sat by unable to do anything—even touch their child to comfort them. The only way I can describe their grief was that they had a kind of shell-shocked look. Staring at their children, or the floor…almost zombie-like.When people use the word “genocide,” it’s often like the word “Nazi.” The technical definition is not as important as the “meaning” the person is trying to convey about the target of their criticism. In other words, someone doesn’t have to literally be a national socialist to be called a Nazi. It’s the same for “genocide.” But what I witnessed in Sudan that day—and throughout the 20 years I’ve travelled to that country—is verifiable, 100 percent pure genocide. Dr. Gregory Stanton, founder of Genocide Watch, famously identified the "Ten Stages of Genocide” framework commonly cited by government officials and NGOs. The stages are not linear and can occur simultaneously or in a different order, but they’re important to note when examining cases of marginalization and persecution within a community. Here is Stanton’s list:1. Classification: Societies divide people into "us" versus "them" based on ethnicity, religion, race, or other markers, creating an in-group and out-group.2. Symbolization: Groups are identified and distinguished through names, symbols, or physical markers (e.g., clothing, badges) that emphasize differences.3. Discrimination: The dominant group uses laws, customs, or power to deny rights and opportunities to the targeted group, such as restricting voting or access to education.4. Dehumanization: The targeted group is stripped of humanity through propaganda, hate speech, or stereotypes, equating them with animals, vermin, or diseases to justify mistreatment.5. Organization: Genocide is planned, often by the state or militias, through the creation of special units, training, or arming groups to carry out violence.6. Polarization: Extremists drive groups apart using propaganda, laws, or violence, silencing moderates and fostering hatred between groups.7. Preparation: Perpetrators plan the genocide, often using euphemisms like "cleansing" or "solution." They build armies, acquire weapons, and identify victims through lists or segregation.8. Persecution: The targeted group faces systematic violations, such as segregation, imprisonment, or extrajudicial killings. This stage often includes mass deportations or confinement to ghettos.9. Extermination: Large-scale killing begins, targeting the group for destruction. This is the stage where genocide is fully realized, often with massacres or death camps.10. Denial: Perpetrators deny the genocide, destroy evidence, blame victims, or minimize the scale of atrocities. This can continue long after the killings, obstructing justice or reconciliation.Stanton’s list has been well represented in Sudan, especially among the ethnic Nuba people, who have been systematically targeted for decades by Islamists in the government and military. But of the 10 stages, the one which is the most pernicious and destructive is arguably the last: Denial. That is the “D word” commonly featured during genocides—or the build-up to them. Think of holocaust deniers today. Also Armenian genocide deniers. You want to end up on Turkey’s bad list, just mention its mass slaughter of ethnic Armenians. It may have happened over 100 years ago, and everyone involved is long dead, but the government is still in denial. Denial permits us to ignore or look away, and that’s why it’s so destructive. Genocide may destroy life, but denial of genocide contributes to the moral destruction of one’s soul. And denial isn’t found only in the perpetrators. Observers can retreat into denial to avoid moral responsibility or culpability. And even victims use denial as a coping mechanism to process the features of genocide operating all around them. By living in denial, victims tell themselves over and over again that their guards are escorting them to shower rooms, not gas chambers. I purposefully provide this foundation in order to address the highly charged subject of “white genocide” in South Africa. This phrase has lately been thrown around a lot by the press and politicians in South Africa…far more than Donald Trump. Of course, the term is mostly used as a bludgeon to criticize the American President and anyone making such accusations against the South African government.But let’s look back at Stanton’s list and compare it with what we’re seeing in South Africa.Classification: No one can deny that this has been the trend with many political parties in South Africa (including the ANC). Julius Malema might be considered on the margins, but this “us vs. them” is a regular part of the political messaging among African nationalists. This is illustrated by credible polling of South African blacks showing comfortable majorities believing non-black South Africans should be treated as “guests”—meaning South Africa doesn’t belong to “them.”Discrimination: South Africa’s law features many examples of racial discrimination against whites and other minorities, including the BELA Act, Expropriation Act, and expansion of BEE laws contributing to the economic marginalization of the white minority.Dehumanization: A casual glance at “Black Twitter” in South Africa will provide a legion of evidence of the widespread use of terms like “neanderthals,” and “colonizers” as a slur against whites, some of whom come from families residing in South Africa over 350 years. Much of the rhetoric is truly “Nazi” in that it openly de-humanizes whites. Eg: https://x.com/Recon1_ZA/status/1891858652081869056 This kind of fiery rhetoric and messaging is regularly stoked by many black leaders and podcasters. Polarization: Stadiums filled with people singing “Shoot to kill! Kill the Boer! Kill the Farmer!”easily constitutes “polarization” by extremists to drive the “us vs. them” narrative.Persecution: In South Africa, illegal land invasions (which are allowed to take place — and encouraged by many politicians) are an increasing threat to the property ownership of white “colonizers.” With passage of the Expropriation Act in 2025, the state now has the legal grounds to engage in massive theft. Whites are also routinely passed over for hiring, promotions, college admission, advancement, etc. These discriminations are protected and even mandated by law. So already, we have five clearly distinguished phases of genocide currently operating in South Africa against a racial minority. But we’re forgetting the sixth and most relevant feature today: the “D word.”The level of denial in South Africa— especially among the media and what I call the “white liberal elite” safely ensconced behind their high walls in Constantia— is shocking but not unprecedented. But there is an element of this denial which I find not only pernicious but inexcusable— that which touches the subject of farm murders (of which the victims are nearly 90 percent white). South African businessman and “Capitalist Crusader” Rob Hersov has tried to put this in perspective when he’s interviewed by foreign media. He notes that today, a South African is three times as likely to be murdered if they’re a white farmer than if they’re a police officer. And police officers in South Africa are twice as likely to be murdered as regular citizens. And South Africa’s murder rate is nearly eight times that of the United States. This means that being a white farmer in South Africa is easily among the most dangerous jobs in the world.Hersov adds that if we adjust the numbers on a pro rata basis, comparing them with American commercial farmers, the US would have suffered over 230,000 farm murders in the last 25 years. This is a BIG problem.“Oh, but it’s not a white problem,” says the deniers. “Crime is just generally bad for everyone in South Africa.” Aside from the terrible optics of this response (imagine the tourist brochure: “Visit South Africa: it’s equally unsafe for everyone!”), it ignores the particularly gruesome and cruel nature of many farm murders. But this poor response is actually an improvement over previous years of denial from leaders, including Cyril Ramaphosa’s infamous 2018 Bloomberg denial that farm murders were happening at all. His denial came, interestingly enough, as a response to the criticism of Donald Trump complaining about large-scale farm murders in South Africa. President Trump seems to consistently be the only world leader not in denial about the crisis in South Africa. I have seen genocide up close in Africa in a way I can never unsee. I know the features and have seen all 10 of Stanton’s phases play out in places like the Nuba mountains and Darfur. And I can tell you that all the victims wish there had been a Donald J. Trump in government 30 years ago who refused to be in denial about what was happening to them and had the courage to call it out while the table was being set for the banquet of misery that followed. Yes, the narrative in South Africa may challenge our pre-programmed prejudices. “A white minority being targeted by a mostly black government?” But let’s just consider what the global response would be if a majority white country regularly filled stadiums with radicals chanting “Shoot to kill! Kill the blacks!” then called it “protected speech” and passed over 100 laws discriminating against the seven percent black minority, economically marginalizing them and treating them as “guests” instead of citizens. We know what the response would be: all of civil society, academia, the media, most governments, and even the Episcopal Church in the United States, would use the word “genocide” so much they’d wear the consonants off of it. And if Donald Trump refused to call it genocide, or accept refugees associated with it, he’d be denounced as another Hitler…sort of like like he is today (I suppose Trump will never win with some people).But Trump evidently doesn’t care about winning on this issue as much as he wants the real victims not to lose. So the bad news for President Ramaphosa is that Trump will likely keep “dimming the lights” and rolling tape until he sees real change in South Africa, because Trump knows from history that you shouldn’t wait until the ovens are lit before you call something a genocide.

The "D Word" that kills twice: Denial and genocide in South Africa - Matt Chancey

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