PEDDLING LIES : Let no facts stand in the way of fearmongers’ selfish ambitions

Oh, how history repeats itself for reasons of selfish economic interest. About 30 years ago, a prisoner and a prince, with his nation, were embroiled in a battle for control that would put South Africa on the brink of civil war.

The political theatre playing in 2026 around immigrants is a second season featuring the same leading characters and a similar storyline. Let’s go back to history for context and remind ourselves of the message that the prince of the Zulu nation and chief minister of KwaZulu, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, had for the Zulus in the 1990s about their land.

The release of Nelson Mandela from prison in February 1990 set the cat among the pigeons. It ignited the imagination of the public that yearned to escape the shackles of apartheid into the promise of a free South Africa, where not all people lived in harmony, but could live in prosperity.

Before 1994, the popularity of Mandela’s ideas of democracy and the liberation of the oppressed spread like wildfire among the South African population, reducing to ashes the power held by the leaders of the 10 Bantustans (homelands).

Buthelezi, sitting in his palace, KwaPhindangene, in Ulundi, witnessing the decapitation and capitulation of leaders – his peers who governed Bantustans like him – sought to preserve his political power and control over his subjects. Among other things, he told the Zulus a significant lie: that their land was about to be taken by Mandela’s ANC, which, he claimed, sought to undermine traditional authority and, by implication, his power as the supreme chief of the Zulu nation.

Ethnicity raises its head

During that period (1990 to 1994), it was clear to anyone paying attention that Mandela, an isiXhosa speaker from Qunu in the Eastern Cape, was going to become the first black man to preside over the republic.

The IFP-aligned Zulus, accepting and believing that land dispossession was imminent and traditional authority under threat, rose with war songs, spears, knobkerries and shields to unleash violence, murder, destruction and mayhem on a scale and with an intensity never seen in the post-democratic era.

A month before the watershed election in 1994, about 20,000 Zulu warriors, menacing and armed with firearms, pangas, machetes, battle axes and spears, marched to ANC headquarters at Shell House (now Luthuli House) to raid, ransack and possibly maim and kill the occupants.

It was later reported that Mandela had issued an order to the ANC security to shoot to kill to protect lives and property. Suffice to say, the march resulted in fatalities outside Shell House.

A new South Africa nearly did not come to be, and such was the resistance that many Zulus aligned with the IFP did not want to participate in the first democratic elections to be held in 1994. There were even fears that voting would not be possible.

A familiar tune

Fast-forward to 2026 and the same script is playing, and Zulus are at the forefront. It would be intellectually dishonest not to acknowledge that the proliferation of undocumented immigrants is a legitimate concern that has metastasised into a crisis, manifesting in increased pressure on public healthcare, education, housing and municipal services; labour exploitation and wage suppression; loss of tax revenue; and a threat to national security and border integrity, to name but a few.

The genesis and persistence of this crisis bear all the hallmarks of government failure to secure borders properly, enforce existing immigration laws and regulate the economic activity of immigrants. At the centre of this nightmare is corruption among officials in the Department of Home Affairs who are profiting from the sale of fake IDs, passports and visas.

It is worth noting that, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, South Africa has about 168,000 people in its asylum and refugee programme, which accounts for about 0.23% of the national total of 63 million people. According to the Stats SA migration statistics report drawn from its Income and Expenditure Survey 2022/23, which was released in February this year, the estimated total foreign-born population is at 3.1 million, representing 5.1% of the national total.

The number of undocumented migrants remains uncertain.

The 30-year-old lie

What have the Zulus and the broader South African public been told this time? It is the 30-year-old lie: you are losing your country. This time, it is not to Xhosas, the original culprits, but to undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers. The message is clear: the government only cares for undocumented immigrants. Consequently, the campaign is that all undocumented migrants must leave because once they do, more economic opportunities will open for all South Africans.

On the face of it, this looks like a plausible solution, but if you think deeper and consult books or talk to people who know economics, you realise it is another fallacy. This is because, in broad terms, what creates jobs and other economic opportunities for most citizens in any country is proper management of the economy.

In a climate saturated with lies and deceit, feeding the anger manufactured at imaginary enemies matters most, rather than seeking practical solutions. That anger, and the knobkerries, sjamboks, whips and shields, are out once more.

Undocumented immigrants are, in a sense, the new “k*****s” in South Africa, a term associated with the denial of basic rights to those labelled with that word. This is not meant as a pejorative against black South Africans, but rather to illustrate a point. Various dehumanising names have been crafted to refer to immigrants of ­African origin, like amakutshukutshu, amakwerekwere and amagrigamba. These names allow for this group to be humiliated, denied any assistance, harassed, beaten up and even killed, because they are not human, after all.

The humanitarian aid granted to undocumented immigrants, giving access to hospitals, education and other services, is perversely interpreted as the government not caring for South Africans. Even though the dissemination of services continues to reach South Africans, this fact is disregarded because it stands in the way of a good lie.

Sold an illusion

Thirty years later, Zulus haven’t lost a single plot of land they owned after Mandela and other ANC presidents who succeeded him took the reins of the republic. All this strife and conflict is based on an illusion, a lie that there is significant ownership of a country that ordinary South Africans are going to lose.

Far too few South Africans living in this land benefit in a just manner from its beauty, natural resources and wealth. The reason for this is not undocumented immigrants.

An ordinary South African is like a Kaizer Chiefs or Pirates fan who cheers on the side, believes the club is theirs, but has no financial stake or control over it. The illusion of ownership is created to make a South African believe they have something significant to lose, thereby making them a pawn. They are kept holding nothing but ready to fight on behalf of someone who wants control of resources.

I suspect the leading members of the anti-immigration campaign, like in the US, are using undocumented immigrants as a smokescreen and a mirror to hide real intention, which is to establish influence socially and politically to advance business and possibly political interests to serve their aspiration to join the 10% of the population that controls the wealth.

Accordingly, the primary task for economic scholars and rational-thinking South Africans is to address the big questions about how to regulate the South African economy so that it serves the many rather than the few. DM

Dr Njabulo Mnyandu is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Virology at the University of the Free State.

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R39. The e-edition of Daily Maverick’s weekly newspaper, DM168, is now free for readers who are signed into their Daily Maverick account. Click here to access the latest e-edition.