It’s unsettling how history finds ways to echo. Watching Elon Musk—a fellow South African, I’m less than thrilled to say—make headlines over the past week for reportedly considering offering $100 million to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party feels like stepping back into a history I hoped we’d long left behind. Musk, whose immense wealth and political influence already helped amplify Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric in the United States, seems poised to double down on supporting figures who traffic in exclusionary ideologies.

For me, this isn’t just another political headline; it’s personal. Growing up under apartheid in South Africa, I witnessed firsthand how nationalism, masquerading as patriotism, fractured a society and poisoned its future. What I see in Musk’s actions today reminds me of the same hollow rhetoric I heard as a child—words that whispered, “We’re better than them,” and inevitably led to violence, exclusion, and oppression. As nationalism rears its head once more in the UK and beyond, it’s impossible not to reflect on the lessons of apartheid and the scars it left behind.

Extract from Bear Necessities of Politics and Power: Decoding the Chaos of Modern Politics, One Ideology at a Time.

Growing up in South Africa under the latter years of the National Party’s rule was like living in a world meticulously curated by a propagandist who had mastered the art of stark contrast—black and white, literally and figuratively. No room for grey, no space for doubt. Apartheid wasn’t just about keeping people apart; it was nationalism at its most grotesque—stitched together with fear and a bloated sense of superiority, paraded as “patriotism.” It wasn’t enough to simply love your country; you had to believe that one group was inherently superior to all others, that one race had the inalienable right to rule. Nationalism didn’t just thrive under apartheid—it was the blood coursing through the regime’s veins.