Across South Africa’s political spectrum, a troubling pattern has taken root. It is visible not only among political elites but also among their followers, ideological disciples and wide sections of society that echo, defend and normalise the same assumptions. Disparate elements of society appear united by a shared disposition: the steady undermining of the political centrality of the majority as legitimate citizenry and an increasingly casual attitude toward the sovereignty of the South African state itself. This shared orientation and attitudinal configuration could, consequently, precipitate an existential crisis for the nation.
This is no longer simply a problem of leadership. It has become social common sense.
Across society, media platforms and activist spaces, narratives circulate that ultimately dehumanise the majority of citizens or treat their political claims as illegitimate and unfounded. Demands by citizens for protection by the state are frequently met with cynicism. Concerned citizens who call for an effectively functioning state that upholds the rule of law and robustly enforces national sovereignty and security are often portrayed as failures at their own personal levels, unable to be sufficiently self-reliant and overly dependent on the state. Economically marginalised citizens in particular are thus implicitly or explicitly constructed as unsuccessful aspirants to middle-class status, marked by their perceived failure to acquire the emblematic attributes of that status, such as private healthcare, private schooling, residence in gated communities and reliance on private security services. What is striking is how widely these ideas are absorbed and repeated, often by ordinary citizens who see themselves as politically conscious or morally advanced.
Just as revealing is how many South Africans, not only elites, proudly invoke external allies and foreign reference points—Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Havana, or an abstract and romanticised “Africa.” In doing so, these segments of society signal that political legitimacy is derived not from serving South African citizens but from alignment with forces beyond the country’s borders.
What this reveals is stark. At the centre of South African politics stands a native majority with little transnational appeal, no foreign patrons and no external constituency. Its only claim is a deep historical attachment to the land and a reasonable expectation that the South African state exists to serve its citizens. In today’s discourse, this attachment is increasingly portrayed not as legitimacy but as political inadequacy.
The spread of transnational loyalties
The concept that best explains this development is transnational loyalty. Transnational loyalties arise when aspects of identity—race, religion, ideology, class, or supranational geography—are elevated above national citizenship and used to signal affinity with outsiders rather than with fellow citizens. This attitudinal orientation exemplifies xenocentrism, defined by a systematic valorisation of exogenous ideas and cultural practices over endogenous alternatives and underpinned by the presupposition that what is foreign or externally derived, possesses intrinsic superiority. While political elites may articulate these loyalties most visibly, they gain real power only when absorbed, defended and reproduced by society at large.
These loyalties operate horizontally across borders rather than vertically within the nation. They shape how people speak, organise, protest and moralise. Over time, they weaken the bonds that make collective national and political life possible.
When transnational loyalties become socially normalised, the consequences are predictable. National sovereignty and actual sense of nationhood undergo gradual erosion, social cohesion frays. Accountability becomes scattered. Patriotism and nationalism are dismissed as crude or backward, while loyalty to abstract global causes is framed as enlightened and progressive. This logic is repeated not only by politicians and intellectuals but by citizens who see themselves as forward‑thinking participants in global moral struggles.
South Africa has increasingly moved in this direction. Transnational commitments are celebrated, while attachment to the nation‑state is treated with suspicion. Pan‑Africanism, for example, is often presented not as one ideological position among others but as an unquestionable moral horizon. Asking how global or continental ideals translate into concrete obligations to South African citizens is often enough to invite accusations of ignorance, moral failure or political regression.
The end result is a political culture in which the nation‑state is viewed as provisional—useful only insofar as it advances broader racial, ideological or continental aspirations. Many South Africans and political parties, underestimate the force and persistence of transnational loyalties as a determinant of political behaviour. While political parties often articulate domestic policy in ways that align with the preferences and material interests of citizens and voters, their foreign policy stances are frequently controversial due to transnational loyalties. The resulting policy configuration reflects a complex political geometry which actors must navigate due to overlaps, intersecting and sometimes conflicting preferences.
A lesson from history we ignore at our peril
This condition is not new. It closely resembles the disorder that preceded the birth of the modern state itself.
Seventeenth‑century Europe was devastated by the Thirty Years’ War, a conflict driven not just by theological disagreement but by a crisis of authority. Kings ruled territories but their power was repeatedly challenged by a transnational institution: the Catholic Church. Religious allegiance crossed borders, mobilising populations against their own political communities in the name of universal truth. Crucially, these loyalties were not confined to elites; they were widely internalised by ordinary believers.
The result was ruinous instability. No ruler could govern where loyalty was divided and no society could stabilise while authority remained contested.
The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 resolved this crisis by establishing sovereignty as the organising principle of political life. Supreme authority would reside within territorially defined states, not in transnational institutions. Religion was not abolished but it was decisively subordinated to political authority. Universal moral claims lost their power to command political obedience across borders.
Westphalia succeeded because it forced societies, not just rulers, to accept that political loyalty must have a final and local destination.
It is often noted—correctly—that the modern sovereign state is a European construct. But this historical fact cannot be allowed to justify reckless political experimentation. South Africa cannot afford frivolous debates that treat borders as provisional or sovereignty as negotiable. We cannot gamble with the only country we have and share through futile exercises in “decolonising” borders or tampering with the territorial integrity of what remains the most attractive democracy and one of the few functionally coherent states on the African continent.
South Africa’s pre‑Westphalian moment
South Africa today risks sliding backward into a pre‑Westphalian condition. The legitimacy of the sovereign state is increasingly questioned—not only by political leaders but by activists, commentators and citizens who view national attachment as morally suspect. The country is framed as temporary, an obstacle to grander racial, ideological or continental projects.
This is especially dangerous given South Africa’s social realities. While globally connected elites and their ideological allies can integrate themselves into international networks of validation and opportunity, the majority cannot. Their survival, dignity and political voice depend on a functioning South African state.
When sovereignty weakens, elites and their followers may still thrive psychologically and symbolically. Ordinary citizens do not.
Why sovereignty still matters
Defending sovereignty is often caricatured as narrow‑minded or exclusionary. This is a mistake. Sovereignty is not an ideology; it is the basic condition of political existence, a core feature of the nation-state. It is what gives citizenship meaning, makes accountability possible and allows democracy to function.
To insist that South African citizens must come first is not a rejection of cooperation or solidarity. It is a recognition that transnational commitments—no matter how morally attractive—must remain subordinate to the national political community. Ultimately, a nation-state requires a shared overarching ideology or collective purpose that can serve as a focal point for social integration, political cohesion and collective mobilization.
History offers a clear warning. When transnational authority eclipses territorial sovereignty, the result is not unity but instability. Without sovereignty, there is no state—only contested space. South Africa cannot afford to forget this.
Dr Mabutho Shangase is a senior lecturer in Political Studies and International Relations at North-West University. @nativconscience
Transnational commitments are celebrated, while attachment to the nation‑state is treated with suspicion
