S
OUTH Africa, we must ask ourselves, where does the hate stop?
Today it is foreigners.
Tomorrow, it will be white South Africans.
Then it will be the Indian communities.
And eventually, those who disagree politically or economically will also be vilified.
Gayton McKenzie’s latest outburst, laced with dangerous xenophobic rhetoric, is not just an attack on migrants, it is a ticking time bomb for national unity.
History teaches us what happens when leaders whip up hatred for political gain.
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The late former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe started with the Gukurahundi atrocities against the Ndebele-speaking people in the 1980s.
Then he turned to the political opposition, silencing dissent with arrests, violence, barbaric beatings and even murder.
Finally, he targeted white farmers in a chaotic land reform programme that destroyed Zimbabwe’s economy.
His government’s path of scapegoating and division left nothing but poverty, fear and international isolation.
McKenzie is now walking a frighteningly similar path.
He may wear the colours of South African nationalism, but his politics echo the same old populist playbook, distract from economic failure, lack of service delivery, and corruption by blaming the “other.”
This must be a wake-up call. South Africans, look around.
We are a nation that has survived the cruelty of apartheid, a country that has shown the world how forgiveness and reconciliation can be stronger than revenge.
Are we now willing to throw it all away by following a man who wants to define who “deserves” to be South African?
The real enemies are poverty, inequality, and poor leadership, not foreigners selling tomatoes or working in restaurants.
If McKenzie truly cared about the people, he would fix schools, clinics, water and housing, instead of stirring hatred on social media.
A growing number of artists and civil society groups are speaking out, as seen in the recent “Not in Our Name” statement.
They are right. Silence is complicity. We cannot let populism destroy the hard-won gains of our democracy.
South Africa is for all who live in it, black, white, Indian, coloured, Zimbabwean, Nigerian, Somali.
The Constitution says so. Our humanity says so.
Let us not repeat Zimbabwe’s mistake. Let us stand up now, not when it’s too late. Hate, once unleashed, is hard to contain.
Where will McKenzie stop? Only we, the people, can decide.
Engineer Jacob Kudzayi Mutisi
