EDITORIAL: Africa must tell its own story

A high-powered South African delegation led by President Cyril Ramaphosa is currently in the United States – largely to extinguish a raging lie: the false claim that a ‘white genocide’ is underway in South Africa. What began as a fringe conspiracy, amplified within far-right circles, has now embedded itself in mainstream discourse across parts of the West - swallowed whole by those too eager to believe in the victimhood of the white man and too lazy to interrogate reality. Once a lie is dressed in the language of human rights and persecution, it finds sympathy, even protection, in places it doesn’t belong. This saga isn’t just about South Africa. It’s a cautionary tale for Africa as a whole. It underscores the urgency of building our own platforms - not just social media, but also AI, data tools, and robust media institutions. We must tell our stories ourselves, or risk having them twisted, weaponised, and sold back to us by those who neither know nor care about us. The case of Grok - the generative AI chatbot on Elon Musk’s X platform - offers a chilling preview of this danger. Grok initially did what responsible technology should do: it rejected and corrected the white genocide narrative. However, reports suggest that Musk, frustrated by its refusal to align with his rhetoric, may alter the tool to reflect his version of the truth. When one man can reprogram reality to suit his ideology, the stakes are clear. Africa must not sit idly while far-right influencers distort its image and sow division. We need sovereign technological ecosystems, independently governed and owned, to safeguard our narratives and defend against ideological manipulation from abroad. We cannot keep flying across oceans to correct lies.