South Africans Embrace Ethnic Identity, Distrust Other Ethnic Groups

6 January 2026
Afrobarometer (Accra)
By Rehan Visser

More than four in 10 citizens say the government discriminates against their ethnic group.

Key findings

  • Asked whether they identify more with their ethnic group or nationality, a majority (58%) of South Africans say they feel both equally. One-fourth (26%) say they feel "more" or "only" their ethnic identity, while only 16% value their national identity more highly than their ethnicity.
  • Across 33 countries surveyed by Afrobarometer in 2024/2025, South Africans are most likely to identify more strongly with their ethnic group.
  • The proportion of South Africans who have a stronger association with their nationality dropped from a peak of 70% in 2011 to 16%.
  • More than four in 10 South Africans (44%) say the government discriminates against their ethnic group, including 75% of Coloured and 52% of Asian citizens.
  • Only three in 10 respondents (31%) say they trust members of other ethnic groups "somewhat" or "a lot."
  • Trust levels are especially low among Asians (8%), Whites (17%), and residents of KwaZulu-Natal (19%), but rise to more than half (60%) among uneducated South Africans. Citizens holding full-time jobs (43%) express greater trust than those outside full-time employment (20%-28%).
  • Most citizens express tolerance toward other ethnicities: 80% say they "would not care" or would "somewhat like" or "strongly like" if they lived next door to someone belonging to a different ethnic group. But tolerance levels have declined by 13 percentage points compared to 2018.
  • In 2022, four-fifths (79%) of citizens said they would not mind or would like it if a member of their family married someone of a different ethnicity.
  • One-fourth (24%) of Whites were opposed to interethnic marriage, compared to roughly one-sixth (15%-18%) of other races.

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In 2000, South Africa adopted a new coat of arms replete with a new motto: !ke e:/xarra//ke. Written in the language of the /Xam people, the phrase translates to "diverse people unite." According to an official government explanation, "it represents the nation uniting in a common sense of belonging and national pride" (Government Communication and Information System, n.d.). To what extent do South Africans today feel united under the banner of the "Rainbow Nation"?

South Africa's colonial history is peppered with conflicts between ethnic groups over resources such as land, cattle, and gold: Khoi-Khoi vs. Dutch; Zulu vs. various neighbouring tribes; English vs. Xhosa, Zulu, Pedi, and Afrikaners; and Afrikaners vs. Ndebele, Griqua, Zulu, and Sotho (Reader's Digest, 1994). During this period, ethnically homogenous states were established within the contemporary borders of South Africa that survive to this day - Lesotho and Eswatini - while another, Botswana, lies to the north. Large groups of ethnic Sothos, Swazis, and Tswanas are South African nationals.

Early in the 20th century, Black Africans were assigned and moved to ethnically distinct "native reserves" (later "homelands" or "Bantustans"), with 87% of the country's land reserved for Whites (Reader's Digest, 1994). Forced removals of millions of Black Africans continued up to 1983 (South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid, Building Democracy, 2005). Rural homelands were extremely economically depressed, with little arable land and few work opportunities, pushing many to seek work in cities, where they were confined to crowded informal settlements and had to carry passbooks to enter White urban areas. Coloureds and South Asians/Indians were also forcibly relocated to racially homogenous zones (Reader's Digest, 1994). Today, all South Africans enjoy freedom of movement, yet these large-scale residential patterns remain largely unchanged.

Many South Africans continue to live in ethnically distinct areas - or in extreme cases, enclaves. Orania, an infamous small town in the Northern Cape, is an "Afrikaner-only" area founded by Whites. Prospective residents are screened by the town council, which prevents Black and mixed-race South Africans from living there, even if they speak Afrikaans. The town even has its own flag and currency (Fihlani, 2014). A similar community, called Kleinfontein, exists outside the capital, Pretoria. Residents of both areas defend their way of life by saying that they are protecting their distinct cultural identity (Raghavan, 2013). Meanwhile, more than 5 million Zulus, spread across 2.8 million hectares or 30% of KwaZulu-Natal's territory, live on land held by the Ingonyama Trust, of which the Zulu king is the sole trustee (Human, 2024).

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the country's legacy of racial segregation and oppression, many aspects of South African discourse remain racialised, from debates about expropriation of land to the existence of racial quotas in sports such as cricket (Blackburn, 2025; Totsi, 2025; Mohamed, 2025). Race also features prominently in government policy, including in public procurement and new sectoral targets for employment equity. Indeed, 145 pieces of national legislation containing racialised elements are currently operative, 122 of which were passed after 1994 (South African Institute of Race Relations, 2025).

In 2025, South Africa's ethnic tensions generated significant international media attention as the United States of America introduced an asylum programme dedicated to White Afrikaners, citing "unjust racial discrimination" against the group (Savage, 2025). President Cyril Ramaphosa referred to the few dozen people who left as "cowards" (Muia, 2025).

This dispatch looks at South Africans' views on ethnic identity, discrimination, and other ethnic groups. Survey findings reveal that one-fourth of citizens value their ethnic identity more highly than their nationality - the largest such share across 33 African countries surveyed in 2024/2025. One-sixth of citizens identify more with being South African, down from seven in 10 who felt that way in 2011.

More than four in 10 respondents say the government discriminates against their ethnic group, including majorities of Coloured and Asian citizens.

Fewer than one-third of South Africans say they trust members of other ethnic groups. Trust levels are especially low among Asians, Whites, and residents of KwaZulu-Natal.

On a positive note, an overwhelming majority of South Africans would not mind or would welcome having someone belonging to a different ethnic group as a neighbour. Tolerance of interethnic unions in the family are similarly high. However, tolerance levels are notably down since 2018.

Rehan Visser is an editor at Afrobarometer

Read the original article on Afrobarometer.

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