The reality is that Gayton McKenzie has no place in government and his clownishly dangerous comments must be met with sanction.
While everyone was distracted by the spectacle in the Oval Office between Presidents Trump and Ramaphosa, Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Gayton McKenzie was engaging in xenophobic outbursts, not as a campaigning Patriotic Alliance rabble-rouser but, in effect, asserting xenophobia as government policy.
While addressing the chairpersons and CEOs of all Department of Sport, Arts and Culture entities – including museums, theatres and heritage and funding agencies, he launched into an attack on “foreigners” in South Africa.
He is quoted, inter alia, as saying:
- “Some of you here [have] the audacity to hire foreigners instead of South Africans.”;
- “I don’t care how you used to do it. But for as long as I am the minister, there will be no foreigner that will work in an entity while a South African can do the same thing.”;
- He said that “foreigners” employed by departments needed to be “out in three weeks”. “I said it, I want them out, get them out.”
Leaving aside the inappropriate tone of engagement by a Cabinet Minister, it is the language of “them” and “us”, threatening to divide and fomenting hate, which should disturb us all.
In reporting by Marianne Thamm, we understand that, “Daily Maverick has seen a letter dated 9 May from McKenzie to the chair and CEO of the Market Theatre following up on ‘an audit’ of ‘non-South Africans employed by the various entities incorporated under the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture’. ”
Read more: Gayton McKenzie’s vulgar ‘foreigners’ outburst needs to be called out by the GNU he serves
We need to fully understand how dangerous this kind of exercise of authority is from a man patently unfit to hold any leadership position. It beggars belief that he could have been considered for a Cabinet position. An “all-in” GNU required this irksome compromise, it would seem.
His Patriotic Alliance won eight seats in the National Assembly in last year’s election, which represents 2.05% of the vote. But, Sport, Arts and Culture has mostly been a ministry where shamed politicians go, to while away time or recover from scandal. The ANC has never really taken this portfolio seriously, which is shameful and says a great deal about what the party prioritises.
We should also not be surprised at McKenzie’s ‘instruction’ to Department of Sport, Arts and Culture entities. This is who he is, a crude, embarrassing street-fighter, former criminal and a well-known driver of xenophobia and hate. While district mayor in Beaufort West, McKenzie vowed to make the Central Karoo an “illegal immigrant-free zone”, sending shivers down the spines of the Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Ethiopian communities.
As Richard Pithouse has written in a piece worth reading again, “When McKenzie and the Patriotic Alliance were brought into the government of national unity, all its participants knew that they were right-wing populists whose xenophobia was openly at odds with the Constitution.” There is a reason McKenzie initially expressed a desire for the Home Affairs portfolio.
Constitutional rights undermined
No one in the Cabinet seems to have raised an eyebrow at their colleague’s most recent statements. The President himself has said and done nothing in response to McKenzie’s comments, which a large grouping of civil society organisations has called, “vulgar”, in a statement released on 20 May. It further called the comments “morally repugnant and entirely devoid of legal authority”.
The civil society statement says that, “His demand of CEOs that they immediately dismiss foreign employees or face dismissal themselves constitutes an egregious violation of South Africa’s constitutional law, its labour laws and its international treaty obligations. South Africa’s Constitution enshrines the rights of everyone – including foreign nationals – to fair labour practices. The minister’s remarks and instructions undermine these rights and amount to unlawful discrimination based on nationality, which is expressly prohibited under both domestic and international law.”
Read more: Minister McKenzie, your directives are morally repugnant and devoid of legal authority
Again, these sorts of sentiments, while rightly called “morally repugnant”, are not new. They course dangerously through our political discourse. The ANC itself has frequently expressed xenophobic sentiments. A few examples to recall: In 2022, Phophi Ramathuba stood at the bed of a Zimbabwean patient who had been involved in a car accident, in a hospital in Bela-Bela, Limpopo, and said: “You are killing my (sic) health system.”
Ramathuba was MEC of Health at the time. It was a shameful scene, and even while the cameras rolled, Ramathuba showed very little care.
When these words were followed by an outcry, Ramathuba insisted she would not apologise.
Defiant and callous. After the May 2024 general election, Ramathuba was elevated to Premier of Limpopo. So, xenophobia pays, it seems.
Stilfontein
When we witnessed a most abhorrent act as illegal miners were trapped inside a mine in Stilfontein with no help forthcoming, the response from Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, made national and international headlines when she said, stone-cold: “You want to send our law enforcement officers to risk because criminals want to destroy our country? What if we send the police or military down there to supply them with food, the place explodes and caves in? What will happen? So families must continue to sacrifice because criminals got themselves into a bind?”
It ran on, with Ntshavheni saying the government would not send help.
“We will smoke them out”, she said, without understanding how objectionable her words were.
What a disgrace.
We recall Operation Dudula, which gained prominence on the streets, especially after its leader, Nhlanhla “Lux” Dlamini, was arrested in 2022. Operation Dudula brought with it violent language and has enticed those at the margins of our society.
There is a straight line from where we are today back to 2008 and the painful moment when violence was unleashed against foreigners across our country.
McKenzie doubles down
Instead of being remorseful and attempting to understand the constitutional imperatives at play, McKenzie reinforced his comments during an interview with the Africa Report on 22 May while attending the South Africa-France Investment Conference at Place Vendôme in Paris.
If the interview is anything to go by, one shudders to think what further contribution McKenzie made at this conference. Responding to the civil society statement, he said, ‘“Our people don’t have jobs. We’ve got double-digit unemployment, youth unemployment in our country, but illegal foreigners have jobs.
“We cannot allow this and they can call me vulgar. What is vulgar? It’s giving your neighbour children food, shelter, water, while your own children are starving. That is vulgar…
“I will get rid of illegal foreigners. I will close this type of charity because we need patriotic charities in our country. I will close down the charities that are anti-government, that are anti-South Africa.”
McKenzie, like all populists, understands grievance.
But he was greeted with cheers by attendees at the Paris conference while hugging and handshaking. During the same interview, he claimed he had “Presidential aspirations”. So, President Ramaphosa needs to be clear about where this GNU stands on xenophobia and also the threats to “close down” “anti-government” charities (sic). What exactly does this mean?
In the same interview, he specifically attacked the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, one of the civil society signatories to the statement mentioned above. There can be no ambiguity about the role of civil society in a democracy. It is not McKenzie’s gift, but a constitutional right and the President of the country should reassert this as head of state of our constitutional democracy.
Complex causes
As with everything else in South Africa, the reasons for violence are complex. Sometimes it has been driven by xenophobia, at other times a rather more confusing cocktail of anger, frustration and intolerance bubbling at the surface of our society, fuelled by exclusion, poverty and rampant unemployment.
We seem to be straining at the seams as the repercussions of deep inequalities, our inability to bring about structural economic transformation after 1994 and the old baggage of the apartheid years come to haunt us.
The environment is ripe for blaming “the other” while competing for scarce resources. At the heart of the incendiary rhetoric lies populist exploitation and an instinct to simplify the complex. This is not unique to South Africa. We have seen it in Donald Trump’s presidency and the arguments for Brexit.
Widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo has driven voters in small towns towards the politics McKenzie espouses. Our towns and municipalities, mostly falling apart as a result of ANC corruption and neglect, are ripe pickings for the Patriotic Alliance.
Last week, the party won a seat off the ANC in the small town of Sutherland, and the ANC was able to hold off the PA in two other closely contested by-elections.
Read more: Historic win — Patriotic Alliance takes Sutherland ward off ANC in tight Northern Cape contest
Last week, we heard of xenophobic violence flaring up in Addo, with dire consequences.
We should not be so distracted by historical clips of Julius Malema singing “Kill the boer!” that we fail to see McKenzie and his ilk in plain sight. Our challenges require thoughtful leadership rooted in the Constitution, not McKenzie’s brand of politics, which will only result in further corruption and hate.
We can call on our hapless politicians to “put an end” to the xenophobic violence, rhetoric and disruption that often accompanies these protests, but xenophobia is a challenge for the whole of our society.
Having said this, however, President Ramaphosa needs to send a clear message against this thuggery and intimidation by one of his Cabinet ministers.
The reality is that McKenzie has no place in government and his clownishly dangerous comments must be met with sanction. If our passive President does not act against McKenzie’s threatening comments against civil society and his illegal pronouncements against government entities, then we must assume that these comments represent the GNU Ramaphosa leads. DM