内容摘要：In 2024, total goods trade between the US and South Africa amounted to $20.5bn. This included $5.8bn in US exports to South Africa and $14.7bn in South African exports to the US.

In 2024, total goods trade between the US and South Africa amounted to $20.5bn. This included $5.8bn in US exports to South Africa and $14.7bn in South African exports to the US.

The media in Pakistan amplified this narrative with patriotic zeal. Indian strikes were framed as war crimes, mosques hit, civilians killed. Photographs of rubble and blood were paired with captions about martyrdom. The response, by contrast, was precise, moral, and inevitable.Pakistan’s national identity, as constructed in this moment, was one of righteous victimhood: we are peaceful, but provoked; restrained, but resolute. We do not seek war, but we do not fear it either.

The symmetry is uncanny. Both states saw themselves as defenders, never aggressors. Both claimed moral superiority. Both insisted the enemy fired first. Both said they had no choice.Constructing the enemy and the victimThe symmetry was also apparent in the constructed image of the enemy and the declared victims.

India portrayed Pakistan as a terror factory: duplicitous, rogue, a nuclear-armed spoiler addicted to jihad. Pakistani identity was reduced to its worst stereotype, deceptive and dangerous. Peace, in this worldview, is impossible because the Other is irrational.Pakistan, in turn, cast India as a fascist state: led by a majoritarian regime, obsessed with humiliation, eager to erase Muslims from history. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the aggressor. India was the occupier. Their strikes were framed not as counterterrorism but as religious war.

In each case, the enemy wasn’t just a threat. The enemy was an idea — and an idea cannot be reasoned with.

This is the danger of media-driven identity construction. Once the Other becomes a caricature, dialogue dies. Diplomacy becomes weakness. Compromise becomes betrayal. And war becomes not just possible, but desirable.“I am in an absurd situation where I was born in South Africa but cannot get a licence to operate Starlink because I am not Black,” he claimed.

Before Wednesday’s meeting, a White House official told the Reuters news agency Trump is likely to tell Ramaphosa that all US companies in South Africa should be exempt from “racial requirements”.Opposition figure Malema’s party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), threatened legal action after news that the government was considering offering regulatory assurances to Musk’s Starlink. The EFF said the move would be unconstitutional and shows Ramaphosa is willing to compromise the country’s sovereignty to “massage the inflated ego of Musk and Trump”.

Isike said that while trade concessions would be discussed, he doubted the South African government would give up its laws to appease Musk.“I will be surprised if Starlink gets its way by refusing to follow South African transformation laws, which require 30 percent Black ownership of a foreign company,” he said.