Donald Trump demands darkness. And silence. On May 21, in the Oval Office, the US president showed his audience a video that he claimed proved the “genocide” of white farmers in South Africa. Eyes fixed on the screen, the audience watched – part embarrassed, part skeptical – footage supposedly showing evidence of a mass grave: a line of white crosses planted in the ground. “These are burial sites… over 1,000 [of them],” said the White House occupant. In reality, it was a commemoration honoring a couple, Glen and Vida Rafferty, who had been shot dead five years earlier near their farm in KwaZulu-Natal. The crosses had been placed there for the ceremony. In the Oval Office, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa tried to intervene to set the record straight. Trump ignored him and continued his presentation.

No matter the reality. Trump had little regard for the government in Pretoria and even less for the African National Congress (ANC), the president’s party, which he accused of wasting American aid without accountability. The ANC, the party of the late Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), hero of the anti-apartheid struggle, regularly condemned what it saw as the predatory mentality of the United States.

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