Lt Gen Mkhwanazi didn’t just speak — he stood up.
Leadership like that is rare in SAPS: honest, bold, and unshaken by politics.
When the public sees a cop who tells the truth and stands firm, they listen.
We need more of that. 🇿🇦
@karynmaughan@News24@Abramjee@IOL
As a Zambian, I shall be supporting South Africa at the coming World Cup. From Lusaka, Ndola & all Zambian towns, we stand together to see South Africa succeed just like we stood together & welcomed them into Lusaka during their painful days against Apatheid. For SADC, Victory !!
THE BLOOD MONEY TEST
Mpho Dagada said “No”. To hate Malema.
Not because he hates money.
But because he understands: You cannot eat liberation and still be full.
They will come with suitcases.
They will come with “donations”.
They will come with contracts written in invisible ink to pay you to tarnish Malema/EFF.
Price: One speech. One silence. One betrayal.
Currency: Blood money.
Blood money is not just cash from evil men.
Blood money is any payment that costs your people’s future.
It’s the tender that feeds you but starves your township.
It’s the sponsorship that buys your voice but sells your child’s land.
It’s the cheque that fills your pocket today but empties your nation tomorrow.
@Mzanziawake
As a World Cup host, the U.S. shouldn't be flippantly barring officials from entering the country to do their jobs.
It's terribly backward.
It's also counterproductive.
Global sports competitions should improve international exchange and relations, not the reverse.
You allowed this to happen for too long. From taxi drivers deciding that e-hailing drivers, friends and relatives could not transport people, to this. Videos of non-state actors "enforcing" their jungle law on South African streets have been circulating for so long. These actors were proud of their "law enforcement" and actually recorded it. You and your government were spectators. It is a sign that you were absent or too scared to face the backlash should you act against South Africans breaking the law. It doesn't matter how valid grievances are, NO STATE should quietly watch a parallel state emerge, with non-state actors deciding who belongs snd who doesn't, who must live or die. Your government, led by you, did that.
This is why I said you are projecting self-hate. Helen Zille was born to German parents who came to South Africa, yet you never question her South Africanness.
However, Victoria Chitepo, née Mahamba, and Ruth Chinamano, née Rushipha, were born in South Africa to South African parents, and you question their South Africanness simply because they were black.
That is the true definition of self-hate. The standard changes depending on who is being judged.
When one rule is applied to white people and a completely different rule is applied to black people, it stops being a debate about nationality and becomes a reflection of internalised prejudice.
They called a Venda speaking provincial police spokesperson a kwerekwere because he can't speak their language.
They attacked a Tsonga speaking man at their march claiming he is a foreigner.
They told a Pedi speaking man to leave before the 30th June or else Ngizwe will bleksem him.
They attacked a Venda speaking man at their march claiming he is a foreigner.
Yet somehow we must believe there are no elements of tribalism 🤷🏽♀️
Africa Day: How can we celebrate unity while hunting each other?
As Africa marks another year of liberation and unity, South Africa’s hostility toward fellow African migrants lays bare a deeper continental crisis - one of failed governance, broken solidarity, and a founding dream at risk of collapse, writes Mbhazima Shilowa.
Monday was Africa Day.
This day is not just a celebration of liberation history. It is a test of whether Africans still believe in one another when economic hardship, failed governance and social anger collide.
Observed annually on 25 May, Africa Day marks the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 - the body that later evolved into the African Union (AU).
It was born at a time when much of Africa was emerging from the brutality of colonialism, racial subjugation, and foreign domination.
Across the continent, newly independent states sought to reclaim not only political freedom, but also African dignity, identity, and self-determination.
For generations, Africa had been spoken about largely through the language of conquest, extraction, slavery, war and poverty. Africa Day became a declaration that Africans would define themselves, govern themselves and shape their own future.
That vision mattered deeply.
The spirit of solidarity
From Ghana becoming the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence in 1957, to liberation struggles in Southern Africa decades later, the continent produced extraordinary stories of sacrifice, courage and solidarity.
African nations stood with one another in moments of struggle, often despite their own poverty and instability, and in the case of Southern Africa, raids by the apartheid regime that resulted in death of citizens such as those in Mozambique, Lesotho, Botswana, Zambia, Angola and Zimbabwe.
It was this spirit of Pan-African solidarity that sustained liberation movements, including South Africa’s own fight against apartheid.
Today, much has changed. Africa has produced some of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Its cities are expanding rapidly. Its young population represents enormous human potential. African innovation, entrepreneurship, music, literature, sport, and technology increasingly shape global culture and discourse.
Across many countries, democratic institutions - though imperfect - have taken root where authoritarian rule once prevailed.
Yet Africa Day also demands honesty.
Alongside the progress, there remain stubborn and painful realities - poverty, unemployment, inequality, corruption, weak institutions, political instability, violent conflict and poor governance.
Part of Africa’s tragedy is that continental accountability mechanisms, including the much-vaunted African Union’s peer review mechanisms, have too often lacked the political courage and consistency required to hold failing governments accountable before instability, poverty and migration crises spiral out of control.
Thus, millions of Africans continue to migrate - legally and illegally - not because they reject their countries, but because they are searching for safety, economic opportunities and dignity.
Economic migration within Africa is therefore not an accident, but the human face of governance failure.
Nowhere are the tensions arising from these realities more visible than in South Africa.
Uncomfortable contradictions
Every Africa Day arrives carrying another uncomfortable contradiction. While South Africans celebrate African unity and liberation history, many African migrants in the country continue to live under suspicion, hostility and, at times, violence.
That contradiction should trouble all of us.
South Africa owes a profound historical debt to the African continent. From Zambia to Tanzania, from Nigeria to Angola and many others, African nations opened their doors to South African exiles during apartheid. They provided shelter, education, military training, diplomatic support and political solidarity when our own country rejected many of its people.
But acknowledging that history should not mean dismissing the frustrations of ordinary South Africans. Those frustrations are real.
South Africa faces severe pressures from rising unemployment, deepening inequality, poor service delivery, organised crime, corruption and growing public perceptions that the state has lost control of immigration systems and border management, which are prone to corruption. Communities and citizens feel abandoned by institutions meant to protect them.
There are legitimate concerns around illegal immigration, abuse of asylum systems and failures of enforcement. Every sovereign country has both the right and the responsibility to regulate who enters its borders and under what conditions. No serious society can function without credible immigration systems and effective law enforcement.
Government must therefore act decisively, but lawfully. That means strengthening border management and ensuring that those entering the country comply with immigration processes. It means confronting corruption within immigration and law enforcement systems themselves. It means dealing firmly with criminal syndicates involved in human and drug trafficking, document fraud, and organised crime. It also means implementing and enforcing laws intended to protect vulnerable local enterprises and workers.
Crossing a line
But equally, crime must be confronted irrespective the perpetrators. A criminal remains a criminal, whether South African or a foreign national. Entire communities cannot be criminalised because individuals commit offences. This is where South Africa risks crossing a dangerous line.
Many of those leading anti-immigrant campaigns insist their anger is directed only at “illegal immigrants.” Yet the violence and intimidation frequently target all African and Asian migrants indiscriminately. Zimbabweans, Ethiopians, Somalis, Nigerians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis often become collective targets regardless of their legal status.
Mobs shouldn’t be allowed to conduct immigration verification. Once a society normalises targeting people based on nationality, language, accent, or appearance, it unleashes forces that quickly become irrational and uncontrollable.
Some voices also argue, correctly, that South African exiles during apartheid generally respected the laws of the countries that hosted them. That point deserves acknowledgement. But there is another important truth often ignored. Those countries maintained law and order through functioning state institutions. Immigration laws and public order regulations were enforced by governments and law enforcement agencies, not by vigilante groups deciding for themselves who belongs and who does not.
That distinction matters profoundly.
When citizens lose confidence in the state’s ability to enforce the law fairly and consistently, vigilantism inevitably emerges. But vigilantism never remains disciplined for long. It mutates into intimidation, criminality and collective punishment.
South Africa must therefore resist two dangerous extremes simultaneously. The first is the denialism that refuses to acknowledge failures in governance, immigration control, and crime prevention. The second is the politics of scapegoating migrants for every social and economic problem confronting society. Both positions ultimately deepen division without solving the underlying crisis.
The need for introspection
Africa Day should therefore not only be about celebration. It should also be about introspection. It should force African leaders to confront why so many citizens continue to flee hopelessness at home. It should compel governments to build capable institutions, create economic opportunity, secure borders lawfully and restore public trust in the rule of law.
It should remind ordinary Africans of something equally important - that our shared future on this continent cannot be built through hatred of one another.
South Africa must protect its sovereignty, enforce its laws, and secure its borders. But it must do so constitutionally, rationally and humanely.
Because the moment Africans begin hunting fellow Africans in the streets, the dream that gave birth to Africa Day itself begins to unravel.
Mbhazima Shilowa is the former premier of Gauteng and former general-secretary of Cosatu.
His Twitter/X handle is @Enghumbhini
You must not be shocked one day when it is eventually revealed that some of the forces funding this division against the Somali traders are large retail corporations such as Spar, Shoprite, and other big businesses.
They can't fathom the idea of foreign nationals controlling a significant share of revenue in townships dominating local economy
When Somalians are removed, Spar, Shoprite and many large corporations are going to expand and open more supermarkets in the townships.
I can guarantee you, none of you will benefit.
Why there hasn't been any genuine discussions about the ownership of these businesses when the Somali traders are removed?
-Start up Capital
-Supply Chains
-Bulk buying Power
Then it raises a very important question “who replaces them” ? 🤔
WATCH | As civic groups call for urgent government intervention on undocumented immigration, Professor Jo Vearey of the University of the Witwatersrand warns of what she describes as a troubling erosion of refugee rights.
In the topical immigration debates taking place in South Africa, many ignorant people have been manipulated by politicians and individuals with political ambitions who are exploiting that ignorance for their own agendas.
But not everyone is ignorant to the real issues at the heart of the crisis. Some voices within South African society, including from the white community, are now speaking openly and calling things for what they are.
The reality is that immigration in South Africa is not simply about foreigners. It is also about failed governance across the region, corruption, unemployment, economic collapse, weak border management, and political leaders who refuse to confront the root causes driving migration.
Increasingly, some South Africans are beginning to recognise that blaming migrants alone will not solve the deeper structural problems affecting the country.
But who cares about facts and accurate narratives when all that is needed are emotions to drive people into doing things they have been wrongly told will mitigate their suffering and the abject poverty in which they live?
The tragedy of populist politics is that it feeds on desperation, not truth. People who are struggling economically become easy targets for manipulation, especially when they are constantly told that vulnerable groups, rather than failed leadership and corruption, are responsible for their hardships.
Who cares about all the corruption coming out of the Madlanga Commission? Who cares that hospitals are being looted while billions that should have been used for healthcare, schools, roads, housing, and service delivery are instead being squandered on Ferraris and lavish lifestyles for politically connected elites? Nobody cares about those facts.
The public is deliberately distracted from the real criminals destroying society. Instead of confronting corruption, state capture, and political failure exposed before the Madlanga Commission, people are encouraged to direct their anger at the easiest and most vulnerable targets, foreign nationals who are themselves trying to survive poverty and economic hardship.
That is how populist politics works. It protects the powerful while turning the poor against one another manipulating their ignorance.