Many Afrikaners told The Daily Caller that there is something rotten in the state of South Africa — and they weren’t just talking about farm attacks. Unemployment hovers near one-third, basic infrastructure like power and water is failing, the border is wide open and even the constitution, they say, is treated more like poetry than binding law.

But what should give Americans pause is the warning these South Africans delivered: their crisis isn’t unique — it’s a preview of what’s coming to the United States.

They even have a word for it: South Africanization — the process of becoming like post-apartheid South Africa. Originally embraced by global elites who celebrated the “Rainbow Nation” as a model of racial reconciliation and socialism, the term has taken a grimmer turn.

Even former President Barack Obama joined in the praise.

“South Africa shows we can change… We can choose a world defined not by conflict, but by peace and justice and opportunity,” Obama said at Nelson Mandela’s 2013 memorial.

A sign language interpreter (R) gestures as US President Barack Obama delivers a speech during the memorial service for late South African President Nelson Mandela at Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg on December 10, 2013. Mandela, the revered icon of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and one of the towering political figures of the 20th century, died in Johannesburg on December 5 at age 95. Mandela, who was elected South Africa’s first black president after spending nearly three decades in prison, had been receiving treatment for a lung infection at his Johannesburg home since September, after three months in hospital in a critical state. (Photo by PEDRO UGARTE/AFP via Getty Images)

But behind closed doors, global leaders have admitted the country is failing.

South African writer and filmmaker Ernst Roets told The Daily Caller about a conversation in 2012 with a senior Dutch UN official while seeking NGO recognition for AfriForum, a nonprofit aimed at addressing a wide variety of issues within the South African nation.

“We can see the cracks are showing in South Africa, but we don’t want to talk about that,” Roets recalled the official saying. “South Africa is the UN’s prime accomplishment. Admitting failure here means admitting failure for the UN itself.”

Roets summed it up: “We want to believe it’s a miracle story.”

Many left-wing ideas now mainstream in the U.S. were tested first in South Africa — where, after not immediately failing, they were exported.

During The Daily Caller’s June reporting trip, spurred by President Donald Trump drawing global attention to South Africa, locals of different professions and backgrounds repeatedly urged: “Look into BEE.” (RELATED: Investigating Farm Killings In South Africa — What We Saw)

Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) was etched into law in 2003 to correct apartheid-era injustices by giving black South Africans hiring preferences, business ownership quotas, and priority in state contracts.

But in practice, it has caused deep distortions.

“On my farm, if I’m not 51% black, I can’t get a loan, can’t sell to the government, can’t even contract with a chain store,” said Theo De Jager, executive director of the Southern African Agri Initiative. “How do you BEE a family farm?”

This aerial view shows maize crops on farmlands near Bothaville on April 20, 2025. (Photo by WIKUS DE WET/AFP via Getty Images)

De Jager warned that racial land reparations can even hurt black farmers.

The controversial Expropriation Act of 2024 gives the state power to seize land, or any form of private property, for “nil” compensation. In theory, this could allow the government to redistribute white-owned farmland to black farmers as part of a push for egalitarian land reform.

But in practice, De Jager said, the land wouldn’t even be transferred to black farmers. Instead, it would be leased to them by the government, which would retain ownership and control. That arrangement, he explained, makes it nearly impossible for black farmers to secure financing or invest in long-term growth.

De Jager beaded to the U.S. in June to raise awareness about farm killings, BEE, and the Expropriation Act. He said foreign pressure is the “only hope” left.

“We’re such a small minority — we can’t change it from the inside,” De Jager said.

De Jager added, “Be serious when you say you’re working toward a non-racial society. You can’t say that and still have 132 acts discriminating on the basis of race,” referencing the claim that post-apartheid South Africa now has more race-based laws than existed under apartheid.

The equity obsession spread from business and farms to schools via the BELA Act, signed into law in 2024. Previously, local school governing bodies — made up of parents and teachers — set admissions policies and chose which of South Africa’s 11 official languages to teach in. Under BELA, provincial authorities can override both.

Many Afrikaners, South Africa’s largest white minority, fear this means forced language shifts to English and admissions overrides in historically Afrikaans schools. In response, organizations such as AfriForum and the Orania Movement have invested resources in independent Afrikaans-language institutions where students are taught in their native language.

🧵 3/6 Because of their emphasis on self-reliance, Orania invests heavily in education—focusing on practical skills like masonry, plumbing, electrical work, and agriculture.

Classes are taught in Afrikaans, offering an alternative to South Africa’s BEE policies, which residents… pic.twitter.com/hNkE5Un9oz

— Derek VanBuskirk (@DerekVBK) June 3, 2025

Though affirmative action quotas and federal overreach in schools are issues the Trump administration is now challenging, if they aren’t addressed, the U.S. could see a similar rise in alternative institutions created by parents and communities.

Just as American universities serve as petri dishes for woke ideologies today, many of these ideas were first tested in South African universities.

While touring the Afrikaner-only town of Orania, Orania Movement CEO Joost Strydom showed The Daily Caller a memorial site filled with statues that would have been torn down elsewhere, including a monument to Irish volunteers in the Second Anglo-Boer War and busts of South African leaders now deemed too problematic.

🧵 4/6 These statues were torn down elsewhere in South Africa and brought to Orania for protection—just like the people here.

The four pillars on the right are the Irish Volunteer Monument, honoring Irish nationals who fought alongside the Boers in the Second Anglo-Boer War. It… pic.twitter.com/goXfOcEujQ

— Derek VanBuskirk (@DerekVBK) June 3, 2025

The statue destruction trend that later swept the U.S. began not in Charlottesville or Portland, but in Cape Town, South Africa.

In April 2015, students at the University of Cape Town demanded the removal of a statue of Cecil John Rhodes, a British colonialist and claimed symbol of white imperialism.

Their mission statement described Rhodes as a “racist, imperialist, colonialist, and misogynist” and utilized other phrases like “decolonization of the university” and “centering black pain,” which would sound all too familiar to students on any US college campus today. 

Just two months after the Rhodes statue fell in Cape Town, a mass shooting at a historically black church in South Carolina ignited debates over Confederate monuments. After it was revealed the shooter had visited Confederate sites, at least four statues were removed across the U.S.

What followed was a nationwide push to remove or rename any monument or symbol that no longer aligned with modern moral standards — a movement that began on the opposite end of the planet.

“We always say that South Africa is ahead of the curve, rather than behind,” Roets told The Daily Caller. “South Africa is not catching up with America — America is catching up with South Africa.”

According to Roets, it’s not just the United States. He pointed to the “South Africanization of Europe,” including England and the riots in Paris, which he compared to the 2021 Zuma riots in South Africa.

Roets described South Africanization as the accumulation of cultural decay and failed policy.

“I think the world should take note of it,” Roets said.