The Haunting Memory of Elangeni Hotel: What America Should Know About South Africa's Refugee's

I was eight years old, standing on the balcony of the Elangeni Hotel in Durban, when I witnessed something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

A Black man had jumped into the hotel swimming pool—a simple act that, anywhere else, might have gone unnoticed. But this was apartheid South Africa.

The reaction was immediate and terrifying. White men shot up from their loungers, shouting obscenities as they rushed to the balconies. They hurled toilet paper at the man while security guards dragged him from the water. The crowd's fury wasn't about a broken rule—it was about a broken code. A boundary had been crossed.“Disinfect the pool!” they screamed, as if his Blackness had contaminated the water itself.

I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. My child’s mind struggled to make sense of such naked hatred. I never found out what happened to that man. But decades later, the memory remains chilling. The casual cruelty. The public spectacle. The way violence and humiliation were normalised. This wasn’t an aberration.This was daily life under apartheid.

Today, as the United States welcomes the first group of white South African “refugees” under a controversial new program initiated by the Trump administration, that memory returns with startling clarity.

Most Americans don’t understand—can’t understand—what apartheid was. Not really. They may know it ended in 1994. But they don’t grasp how thoroughly the system dehumanised Black people and indoctrinated generations of white South Africans, especially Afrikaners, with a belief in racial superiority that didn’t just vanish overnight.

It’s been five years since I left South Africa to rebuild my life in the UK, yet the memories persist like a shadow I can’t outrun. And so do the ideologies. My own cousin, who still lives in a predominantly Afrikaans area in South Johannesburg, is a chilling example. He casually repeats pseudoscientific racism, claiming “people of colour don’t have the same brain” as whites. In the early 2000s, he shot and killed two men attempting to rob a nearby bank. He was rewarded, not arrested. I haven’t spoken to him in years—but I wouldn’t be surprised if he applies for this refugee program.

He’s not an outlier.

I grew up seeing white South Africans beat Black people in the streets, call them names I still won’t repeat, and laugh while police turned their backs. Murders were ignored. Humiliation was entertainment. Racism wasn’t hidden—it was institutionalised, celebrated, rewarded.

And now, the U.S. is fast-tracking refugee status for people shaped by this system—some of whom may never have questioned it.

Yes, they’ve been screened for “security threats.” But have they been screened for ideology?

This isn’t about immigration policy. This is about who we’re inviting into our communities—and what they bring with them.

In a country already teetering under racial tension and political polarisation, inserting potentially radicalized individuals into American towns and cities—individuals who may now have access to firearms in ways they never did in South Africa—isn’t just irresponsible. It’s dangerous.

What’s even more disturbing is how this program hijacks the purpose of refugee resettlement. It weaponizes compassion. While actual refugees fleeing war zones remain stuck in bureaucratic limbo, white South Africans—who statistically remain one of the most economically privileged groups in the country—are being granted expedited resettlement and a pathway to citizenship.

It raises the question: Do those implementing this policy truly not understand who they’re bringing in—or do they understand all too well?

I still remember the water that day, rippling silently after they dragged the man out. I remember the shouting. The rage. The shame.And I remember how easily it all happened—how normalised it was.

Hatred, when enabled by a system, becomes invisible to those it benefits.

As America opens its doors to some of those shaped by that system, I can only hope I’m wrong. But I have lived this story once before. And I know how it ends.