We must question who benefits from black people turning against one another

27 JUN 2026, 00:00

7 min read

A few weeks ago I asked a pertinent question: Why do we never ask white people whether they are South African? It elicited quite a response but it was nothing in comparison to the reaction I received when I asked the question again this week. No doubt this was because of the looming supposed 30 June “deadline”.

Immigration has become a tricky topic but my stance and the stance of my party, has always been clear: we must make it easy to enter our country legally and nearly impossible to enter illegally. Yet, for many years we have faced the opposite situation. And my question is all the more relevant in this context.

At the same time, application processes for deserving refugees, asylum seekers and visa applicants also face delays, with people often left in limbo for weeks, months or even years. Many of the undocumented foreign nationals in our country face documentary challenges even before they come to our borders. They are not here out of malice; they are victims of weak administrative systems in their own countries, where obtaining a passport or travel document is expensive or nearly impossible.

And yet, more than 75% of tourists visiting — with valid documents — and spending money in South Africa are from Africa. Our tourism industry, a significant part of our economy, is built on fellow Africans. Imagine how much more we could benefit from proper integration with our African brothers and sisters if our systems worked as they should.

Over the past two years, parliament has been working through the One-Stop Border Post Bill, which is aimed at making our borders more efficient, easing congestion, enabling faster trade and enhancing South Africa’s competitiveness in the region. We have seen similar developments that have improved the situation. However, in the absence of strong regulations and effective enforcement, which uphold security and human dignity at our borders, it remains difficult for goods and people to enter South Africa legally. For many, only one avenue then remains: to enter illegally.

We have also seen story after story of Home Affairs officials selling South African passports and travel documents for a quick buck. There is a reason why our passport is known as the Green Mamba — the ease with which you can illegally acquire one undermines the trust that other countries have in its legitimacy.

We must acknowledge that it is a small minority of foreign nationals that do so and that South Africans have also taken advantage of the system.

South Africans rightfully feel abandoned by the state, in more ways than one. One of the comments I received on social media said: “I’m too scared to ask them, because I’m poor”, which is at the root of the problem. We should be asking the question because too many South Africans are poor. Our government’s failures mean that there is a smaller pie of public resources available to the most vulnerable — a pie that is funded by the taxes we all pay and the contributions we all make to the economy — South African and migrant workers alike. A pie that could have been much bigger if we were not losing billions to corruption, incompetence and tax evasion by corporations and wealthy individuals.

That is why I ask the question. I do not ask it to incite against white people. The vitriol and questions that I, a dark-skinned African man, have received in 2008, 2019, 2022 and this year, show that nobody deserves to have their dignity and human rights undermined in such a manner. I ask the question because we must question who benefits from black people turning against one another.

Who benefits from us harassing the Malawian factory worker instead of fighting the factory owner who makes millions from exploiting their workers? Who benefits from us chasing away a Zimbabwean pregnant woman seeking healthcare instead of asking why there are not enough clinics and hospitals for us all? Who benefits from us fighting over the little available public housing instead of opposing the European-based property owners who make private housing unaffordable? Who benefits from us competing over the scraps that are available to us instead of joining hands to ask why the pie is so small?

With this deadline looming, I am acutely reminded this is an election year. It is easy for political actors to score cheap points by blaming the real challenges South Africans experience every day on a class of people that cannot defend themselves at the polls. It is easier to turn you against your neighbour than it is to point the finger at the root cause of your entire community’s troubles. There is a difference between calling on the government to fix its own systemic issues, including the broken immigration system and violating our fellow Africans’ human rights by assaulting, harassing and even murdering them.

It is the responsibility of every political party and every South African to denounce and condemn violence at every opportunity. It is also our responsibility to correctly diagnose the cause of our challenges and not to allow blame to be shifted to a convenient scapegoat.

If we do not, we will see the same threats and violence in the lead-up to the 2029 election. We will once again see born-and-bred South Africans being questioned for their very right to be in their country of birth. We will continue to be divided instead of being partners in growth for our entire continent.

Makashule Gana is a member of parliament for RISE Mzansi