Editorial May 2025 | Digital warriors

In the 2025 Ranking of Most Popular Countries, recently released by the Alliance of Democracies, South Africa ranked seventh. The metric measures “how countries are perceived by their neighbours, key trading partners, and other nations” on issues such as credibility and global trust. South African opinion maker and tech consultant Phumzile van Damme shared this striking result on LinkedIn at a time when U.S. President Trump and a surrounding coterie of South African apartheid beneficiaries had launched an “infowar” against South Africa, alleging a “white genocide” and claiming that white farmers were being driven off their land in large numbers.

Van Damme, formerly a Member of Parliament for the Democratic Alliance in South Africa, describes how South Africans—prompted by fellow opinion maker Tumi Sole and united under the hashtag #CountryDuty—combated a heavily funded misinformation campaign. Across countless posts, comment sections, timelines, quote tweets, WhatsApp groups, media platforms, and community forums, these “digital warriors” countered falsehoods with facts, context, insight, and humour. “This is what digital resilience looks like,” says Van Damme.
Almost 190 years after Afrikaners left the Western Cape in protest against the abolition of slavery, a new Great Trek took place when around 50 white South Africans travelled to the US in mid-May—this time at Trump’s invitation and by plane instead of oxcart. It was widely ridiculed and rightfully so.“Traitors dressed up as refugees,” said posts—remarkably often shared by white South Africans.

In a new, exciting project, we ask: can African creativity and design be used to combat the toxicity of the online world? We believe so. ZAM has partnered with Bubblegum Club in Johannesburg to create and publish a digital zine featuring essays, creative writing, visual interventions, poetry, and sonics to kick-start real change. As Heidi Thembeka Sincuba, editorial lead of the Glitching the Future project, says: “Africa’s next Gen Digital revolution isn’t on its way. It’s already here.”