Thank you, Chief Rabbi Goldstein, and there is more...

Editorial Note: President Donald Trump had set a trap for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and the latter walked right into it. Before a global audience, on a video that was an instant viral sensation, President Ramaphosa's host treated him to a never-ending compilation video of the state-enabled, state-encouraged and state-condoned murder and dispossession of the country's Afrikaner (Boer) farmers. Murtadd to Human brings to readers two uncannily similar, yet very different, reflections on the meeting in the Oval Office between President Donald Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa: the first from a former South African, Dr Anjuli Pandavar, the author and editor, and the second from the Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Dr Warren Goldstein.

I watched Cyril Ramaphosa carefully, and he reminded me of an awakening moment I had as a young student in South Africa in 1977, at the height of Apartheid (the awareness was inchoate and only to mature years later).

Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko had died at the hands of the police while in their custody. A worldwide outcry forced the government to concede a public inquest into Biko's death, held in the Old Synagogue (otherwise known as the Pretoria Hebrew Congregation) on Paul Kruger Street, Pretoria, where the Minister of Police, Jimmy Kruger, gave testimony.

Sitting through the video and Trump then presenting a stack of print-outs of individual South African farmers and their families brutally murdered, was awkward for Ramaphosa, perhaps even embarrassing, perhaps, but it was definitely not humiliating. Directly after this massive exposé, without missing a beat, Ramaphosa picked up as follows:

Ramaphosa: What we would also like to talk about, including of course, trade matters, investment matters, so the issues that concern you as the United States—

Trump (handing Ramaphosa the stack of print-outs): Those are all recent. Those are all deaths.

Ramaphosa: —yeah—in many ways, I mean, one, one should say you are a partner, partner of South Africa.

As I watched Ramaphosa bounce the papers of the dead farmers on his knee as if they were blank pages, a remark that had propelled Jimmy Kruger to instant universal notoriety came back to me with full force:

I am not glad and I am not sorry about Mr Biko. It leaves me cold.

That moment, in 1977, was the first time I understood that Apartheid had damaged every South African's psyche, some more so than others, but we were all in some way snapped, geknak, as one might say in Afrikaans. Incidentally, it is this insight that helped me understand what Islam does to every single Muslim. Everyone who has lived through Apartheid, Islam or Communism emerges just ever-so-slightly mad. Jimmy Kruger, left cold by the death of Steve Biko, encapsulated for me the essence of a human being snapped by Apartheid.

Now, in 2025, my contemporary in "the struggle," Cyril Ramaphosa, did one better than Jimmy Kruger. Whereas Kruger had taken the trouble to explain himself by composing two sentences on one death, Ramaphosa, could not be moved to acknowledge any connection to the thousands of deaths on his watch. Worse than that, it can be said that Jimmy Kruger appreciated the gravity of the matter enough to conduct himself with respect and decorum towards the proceedings. Nothing of the sort was forthcoming from Ramaphosa. It is possible that he was not even aware of the disrespect he conveyed to the victims, to his country and to his hosts, when:

1. He immediately went on to talk about money, and this after President Trump had reprimanded a journalist for exactly the same callous disregard towards the gravity of the topic.
2. President Trump found it necessary to bring Ramaphosa back on topic, "Those are all recent. Those are all deaths".
3. Not only did Ramaphosa not acknowledge Trump's having to reiterate the gravity of the matter, he would not allow Trump to interrupt his flow, picking up exactly where he had left off.
4. He was oblivious to how angry Trump was becoming.
5. He handled the print-outs of the murder victims in a casual, demeaning manner.
6. He back-handed the print-outs to his colleague without as much as a glance at any of them.

Jimmy Kruger was a monster, but what does that make Cyril Ramaphosa?

To this already bewildering multiple coming of full circles, Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Dr Warren Goldstein, adds a few of his own.

The White House meeting between President Ramaphosa and President Trump in full glare of the media served to highlight the appalling failures of South Africa's ruling elite. The moment when Mr Trump played [EFF President] Julius Malema chanting "Kill the Boer" in a packed stadium was particularly devastating:

Kill the Boer, the farmer. Kill the Boer, the farmer. Shoot to kill! Hamaza! [Hurry!] BRRRRR-PAH! PAH!

Every decent human being in the world watching this knows instinctively that "Kill the Boer. Kill the farmer" is hate speech and criminal incitement to violence. SRF [Social Research Foundation] polls show that the vast majority of South Africans, including ANC and EFF voters, regard it as hateful and wrong. Everyone knows it is wrong except President Ramaphoza, who has never publicly condemned the chant as hate speech, not even in the Oval Office, when he had every opportunity and motive to do so. Everyone knows it's wrong, except the judges of the Constitutional Court, who just a few weeks ago ruled unanimously that "Kill the Boer. Kill the farmer" is neither hate speech nor incitement to violence. They even dismissed the right of AfriForum to appeal the decision, saying it was inconceivable that another court could hold differently. This judgment casts a shadow on the integrity and legacy of the Constitutional Court and makes a mockery of their role as the guardians of human rights in South Africa. The judges should hang their heads in shame.

President Trump was right to highlight the moral aberration of "Kill the Boer" chant[s] and the horrific farm murders, but he is wrong that this is only a white genocide. It is a South African genocide, as the head of COSATU, Zingiswa Losi [South Africa's Rashida Tlaib, Ed.], pointed out in the moment, offering as defence of President Ramaphoza, but only to make the case more damning.

There is no doubt about it that we are a violent nation. If you go into the rural areas, where black majority are, you would see women, elderly, being raped, being killed, being murdered, and these are black, elderly women that would be found throat slit, raped multiple times, and all of that. The problem in South Africa, it is not necessarily about race, but it is about crime.

Every South African knows that she is right that violent crime savages black and white alike. The numbers do not lie. In 2024, 26,232 people were murdered in South Africa. That means that just over 70 people were murdered every day. To put that into context, more people are murdered in a single year in South Africa, a country of 60 million, than in the combined populations of nearly 1 billion across the US, EU, UK, Australia and New Zealand. The total death toll of those murdered in thirty years of ANC rule is 653,758. Think about that number. 650,000 people who have been murdered on the ANC's watch. The Talmud says "To destroy one life is to destroy a world." Every day, 70 worlds are destroyed. Every day, 70 South African lives are brutally cut short, 70 families condemned to a lifetime of unbearable grief and loss.

It is very painful and disturbing to share these statistics, but the only path to a better future is by having the courage to be honest about the failings of the present. To have the courage to acknowledge that what is happening in South Africa is a genocide. It is not a white genocide; it is not a black genocide. It is a human genocide. Every South African knows this. Now, thanks to the spectacle in the White House, the world does, too. Every South African also knows that President Ramaphosa and his government do not care. To them, white lives don't matter and black lives don't matter. South Africans have given up hope of the government protecting them.

The middle class, who can afford it, have turned to private security. Here again, the numbers are astonishing: in 1994, there was one private security guard for every police officer; today, there are nearly five. South Africa now has over 2.7 million registered private security guards with 586,042 actively employed, and only 185,000 police officers. The poor, who cannot afford private security, have in desperation turned to vigilantism. In 2024 alone, there were 2,790 cases of vigilante mob justice being metered out. That is seven every day.

This represents a government failing at the most fundamental level: the first responsibility of any government, the most basic obligation, is to protect its own people. That is non-negotiable. That is the foundation of statehood, and to its eternal shame, this government has failed in that duty. President Ramaphosa has failed in his duty. He has failed to protect South Africans. That failure was laid bare on the world stage, exposed in all its shame, on full display in front of a global audience.

As I watched the White House spectacle unfold, as I watched President Ramaphosa literally squirm in his seat, visibly uncomfortable, humiliated, as President Trump accused him of genocide in his own country, I couldn't help but think—I'm not a prophet and I do not presume to know the will of God, and yet the thought kept crossing my mind—this moment, this humiliation, felt Biblical. It felt like divine retribution. It felt like justice for a different, earlier sin, because Ramaphosa and the ANC stood on a different global stage and falsely accused the Jewish state, the State of Israel, of genocide. A lie, a libel, a defamation of an entire nation; and now, in front of the whole world, they themselves are being accused of genocide.

This time a true genocide, demonstrated by the cold brutal facts of a murder rate spiralling out of control, the blood of countless victims on their hands, and their total inability to protect South Africans of any race or background. It felt like what our sages call Middah k'neged Middah, measure for measure, a precise justice, a reckoning, and as that thought took hold, another verse came to mind. I kept hearing the words of Genesis 12:3, "Those who bless you will be blessed and those who curse you will be cursed." President Ramaphosa and the ANC cursed Israel and now it feels as though they are being cursed. You can feel it in the air. In the sense of decay and despair, you can feel the weight of a divine curse settling on this presidency.

One final word to President Ramaphosa: the shame and embarrassment you experienced in the White House in the full glare of the media, as you were accused of grievous sins against your own people, is a small taste of what is to come when your soul leaves this world. Like all human beings after death, you will appear in the full glare of the light of truth before your creator, the Almighty himself, the only true judge in the Heavenly Court.

You will stand accused of presiding over the human suffering of all those who were murdered on your watch. The King of all kings will ask you what you did to stop the carnage, the genocide.

What you went through this week is nothing in comparison. You were in the Oval Office in the presence of flesh and blood, merely politicians and journalists who are here today, gone tomorrow. You could spin and pretend and obfuscate, and you could squirm and even giggle, and wait for the Hell to pass.

But before your creator who knows everything, you will not be able to fudge and avoid the truth, the truth of your leadership and your life will play out before you; and you will be held eternally accountable for every moment of human suffering you caused through your callous neglect, through your omissions and commissions. Live out the remaining days of your term of office with this final judgment in mind, and maybe then you can still redeem yourself and your long-suffering countrymen.

Picture credits:

https://www.enca.com/news/zingiswa-losi-re-elected-cosatu-president

https://freedomstruggles.wordpress.com/2015/05/04/james-jimmy-thomas-kruger/

Screenshot from Willem Penzer video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZY3Vkpv1NE