New US visa restrictions targeting people accused of human rights abuses against minorities in South Africa have sharpened divisions within the Afrikaner community, with some organisations welcoming the move and others rejecting claims that they face racial persecution.
AfriForum, an Afrikaner lobby group with ties to US President Donald Trump’s political camp, celebrated Washington’s announcement of restrictions against those deemed responsible for gross human rights violations against minorities, including Afrikaners.
But Afrikaners for South Africa, a group established to challenge such portrayals of the community, said those supporting the measures did not speak for everyone.
The actions of a few organisations should not stigmatise an entire community, the group said in a statement following the US State Department announcement.
Founded in October 2025, several months after the White House announced a special refugee pathway for Afrikaners, the association adopted the slogan “Not in my name”.
Afrikaners are a white South African community descended largely from Dutch, French and German settlers.
The association rejects narratives depicting Afrikaners as victims of racial persecution in post-apartheid South Africa. According to Le Monde Afrique, its founding statement also warned that such claims were being used in the United States to promote the far-right “great replacement” conspiracy theory.
The group argued that this portrayal distorted South Africa’s realities and exploited its history for political purposes.
Anthoni van Nieuwkerk, an international relations professor and a signatory to the founding statement, said the organisation emerged out of concern that a small minority was claiming to represent the entire community.
He expressed particular unease over the influence of AfriForum, which describes its mission as defending minority rights, with a focus on Afrikaner interests.
Since Trump returned to the White House, AfriForum has openly sought support in Washington, bringing its grievances to politicians aligned with his Make America Great Again movement.
The organisation has highlighted killings of white farmers, accused the South African government of seeking to seize privately owned land and opposed affirmative action policies intended to address inequalities inherited from apartheid.
Those grievances have also featured prominently in the Trump administration’s criticism of South Africa.
South Africa’s foreign ministry described the visa restrictions as an extension of a narrative promoted by fringe groups falsely presenting themselves as representatives of minorities and Afrikaners as a whole.
AfriForum is part of the broader Solidarity Movement, which describes itself as a network serving Afrikaans speakers, Afrikaners and other South Africans. The movement says it has more than 570,000 members.
The Afrikaner population is generally estimated at between 2.5 million and 3 million.
Van Nieuwkerk acknowledged that the network’s community work had helped make it active and popular among many white South Africans. But he criticised what he described as its racially exclusive approach, alleging that services such as street cleaning, park maintenance and food distribution benefited white residents alone.
