Statement by Senator David Coltart regarding Minister Moyo’s statement on SA xenophobic attacks
April 15 2015
I see that Jonathan Moyo has responded to ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe’s indirect criticism of Robert Mugabe’s racist statement against whites made on his State visit to South Africa last week. Mantashe said on Monday that the “ANC theorises colonialism differently to ZANU PF” and “has no desire to drive white people into the sea”. Moyo responded yesterday on Twitter to a story headlined “We differ with Mugabe on whites: Mantashe” saying “And we differ with the ANC on blacks!”.
Moyo was referring of course to the horrific outbreaks of xenophobia which have occurred in South Africa, which all people should rightly condemn. Moyo also rightly stated that “xenophobia can easily mutate into genocide tomorrow”.
However Moyo’s statements are hypocrisy of the worst order. One cannot pick and choose what types of xenophobia or racism are acceptable or not. One cannot say that it is fine to make inflammatory racist remarks against one race and then condemn xenophobia or racist behaviour directed against another group. Xenophobia and racism are evil – period. The xenophobic statements made by some South African leaders are wrong – period. ZANU PF’s policy of ethnic cleansing directed against whites in Zimbabwe is wrong – period. Mantashe has hit the nail squarely on the head when he talks of a policy employed by ZANU PF to “drive white people” perhaps not into the sea but certainly across the Limpopo.
Moyo’s comments are hypocritical for another reason – he makes them glibly ignoring the reasons why there are so many Zimbabweans in South Africa who are now bearing the brunt of these horrendous attacks. Most Zimbabweans I have spoken to in South Africa do not want to be there – they long to be back home but cannot return because there is nothing here for them. Most left Zimbabwe in the first place because of a succession of brutal and destructive policies implemented by Moyo’s party ZANU PF. In the 1980s thousands of young men fled the Gukurahundi from the very constituency Moyo now seeks to represent, Tsholotsho. If he is honest he will admit that. Since 2000 hundreds of thousands have left Zimbabwe because of the chaotic policies of ZANU PF which destroyed the Zimbabwean economy. Others left because they happened to disagree with ZANU PF and fled to save their lives.
The tragedy is that these Zimbabweans still cannot come home because ZANU PF continues to this day to implement destructive policies which have seen the loss of even further jobs. To this day ZANU PF is still kicking productive white farmers off land, simply because they are whites who do not happen to support them, in the process swelling the numbers of the unemployed. To this day ZANU PF turns a blind eye to rampant corruption perpetrated by senior Ministers and other government officials, bleeding the country’s economy to death. ZANU PF still pursues its ridiculous indiginisation policy which has starved the country of foreign investment. But perhaps the greatest irony is that President Mugabe still uses antediluvian language against minorities which will deter businessmen the world over from ever investing in Zimbabwe.
Until we implement sane policies in Zimbabwe our citizens living in South Africa will not feel it safe to return home. At the very core of those policies must be a commitment to a new order – a new vision of Zimbabwe which is not locked in our sad racist past, but guided by the principle that all people are of equal worth, irrespective of their colour or ethnicity.