By Alicia Mmashakana
Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie has hit back at former president Thabo Mbeki on his warning over identity politics and xenophobia that he said the nation must guard against.
Mbeki in a newsletter published this week warned that politicians like McKenzie could potentially lead the country to an unstable society with xenophobic Afrophobia rhetoric.
But McKenzie remained unfazed, saying if standing with South Africans who are disenfranchised by illegal immigrants made him anti-revolutionary, then he was proud to be one.
Mbeki used the recent riots in the UK which were sparked by an incorrect story about a teenaged boy who according to social media was asylum seeker who had murder three girls in that country.
It later emerged that the murderer of the girls was a 17-year-old boy whose parents had legally immigrated from Rwanda.
The death of three children at Stockport in England set in motion riotous scenes and led to the attack of police officers who had stood guard at a mosque to protect from being attacked.
Mbeki reportedly said the UK story should serve as a lesson for South Africa.
“In the UK it took the propagation of a false story about the murder of three English girl-children by an illegal Muslim migrant to drive these neglected and ignored people into a riotous rampage.
“As in the UK, these are not right-wing people. However, they feel that democratic politics is not working for them. In many instances in the past, they did not vote for the ANC or any other party. They continue to belong among the neglected, the ignored, the impoverished, the reviled, the mutinous,” he said.
Mbeki stated that this is a lesson for South Africa given that the image of those “who feel excluded and abandoned” resonates strongly with South Africa’s current reality.
He also brought up the subject of a Miss South Africa Chidimma Adetshina who was forced to withdraw from the pageant after her citizenship came under scrutiny.
“Given the sordid response to the Miss South Africa candidacy of Miss Chidimma Adetshina, it could easily happen that such negative forces in our country could use xenophobic Afrophobia to engage in the moronic inferno,” Mbeki said.
He stated that they would be encouraged in this regard because those who take great pride in demanding “Mabahambe!” and others like them now serve in both our Parliament and Government.
“We must also emphasize that xenophobic Afrophobia is a significant part of the counter-revolutionary political agenda,” Mbeki said.
Even though Mbeki had not named McKenzie by name, the minister was quick to defend himself on social media.
“If standing with the South African who had her whole identity stolen and not with Chidima makes me a counter revolutionary, if calling 4 those who are here illegally taking jobs and running havoc to “Abahambe” makes me a counter revolutionary, I am a counter revolutionary proudly,” he tweeted.
In an interview with sportscaster Robert Marawa, McKenzie said, “What I do know, and in 2068 I will still hold the view, that no Nigerian, Zimbabwean, Italian or American should become Miss South Africa. There’s Miss World for those things, there’s Miss Universe for those things.”
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