Johannesburg MMC for Transport Kenny Kunene has been accused of fuelling anti-migrant sentiment after making dehumanising and inflammatory remarks about undocumented migrants.
Kunene made the remarks last week while inspecting roads and public infrastructure allegedly damaged by illegal mining. During the visit, he used offensive language to describe undocumented migrants as rats who needed to be poisoned with Rattex, and called for the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to use lethal force against them.
His remarks come as migration has become increasingly tied to arguments about crime and the decline of Johannesburg's inner city.
The anti-immigrant group March and March has recently led protests across the country and given undocumented immigrants until 30 June to leave South Africa. The widespread and increasing xenophobic rhetoric and incitement across the country has led to violence in Mossel Bay in the Western Cape in recent days, which has claimed the lives of a number of people including a Tsonga-speaking South African teenager and at least two Mozambicans.
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This comes after the government and the City of Johannesburg have stepped up inner-city enforcement operations targeting informal traders, undocumented migrants and so-called "hijacked" buildings. There has been an increase in raids and arrests on immigrants, fueled by comments by politicians such as Kunene and xenophobic vigilantes.
Those operations are unfolding in a city struggling with billing failures, collapsing infrastructure and weak administration. Critics say migrants are being cast as the cause of problems shaped by poor governance, corruption, poverty and inequality.
Kunene, who is the Patriotic Alliance's mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, made those remarks in his official capacity as MMC for Transport, but they further echo his party's hardline position on immigration, including its "Abahambe" message, loosely meaning "they must go".
Professor Tshepo Madlingozi, a commissioner responsible for the Anti-racism, Education, and Equality at the South African Human Rights Commission, told Our City News that he would not comment directly on Kunene's remarks because the commission could not prejudge a matter that may still come before it.
But speaking more broadly, Madlingozi said South Africa was seeing more rhetoric "full of hatred, full of scapegoating, and sometimes meant to demean".
Madlingozi said freedom of expression was protected by Section 16 of the Constitution, but that right did not extend to propaganda for war, incitement of violence or hate speech.
"While politicians must be robust, they can even offend sometimes. But there is a responsibility for them to be leaders in society, to be norm setters, to embody constitutional values, but most importantly, it's not a favour from their side, it is an obligation that they undertook when they took an oath of office," he explained.
He said South African law made a distinction between offensive speech and hate speech. Insulting or hurtful language did not automatically meet the threshold. Hate speech, however, involved the advocacy of hatred against a group or individual, linked to prohibited grounds such as race, nationality, gender or sexuality, with an intention to cause harm or incite harm.
He said scapegoating entire groups could move beyond stereotyping and, in some cases, become incitement. Claims that South Africa was being "flooded" by migrants when statistics did not support that formed part of a pattern in which disinformation could become the first step towards hate speech.
"Words matter," he said. "The first step is often in the narrative phase before there is clear incitement to violence."
Sharon Ekambaram, head of the Refugee and Migrant Rights Programme at Lawyers for Human Rights, said Kunene's remarks should be viewed seriously because they dehumanised people while calling for violence against them.
She said South Africa had legal mechanisms to challenge statements that spread hatred, harassment and discrimination. But she said the issue was not only a legal one.
"Yes, definitely," Ekambaram said when asked whether such remarks could meet the threshold for hate speech. "That would be grounds for concern because of the dehumanising of a person, let alone hate speech. We do need to call this out and take action against these reckless statements," she said.
She said public figures had to be held accountable when their words contributed to a climate in which migrants were blamed for South Africa's social and economic crises.
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"That is what our conversation should be about, not the lies and disinformation about foreign nationals in our country, but rather why our government is failing to transform South Africa," she said.
Professor Loren Landau, co-director of the Wits-Oxford Mobility Governance Lab (MGL), said the claim that migrants are responsible for crime, unemployment and pressure on public services is not supported by evidence.
"The numbers of immigrants in South Africa have not gone up substantially, but unemployment, crime and other social pressures have," Landau said, adding that anti-migrant politics often becomes more intense when politicians have few concrete answers to unemployment, crime and failing services.
"Politicians do not have much to offer in terms of resources, an economic development plan, or a way of fighting crime. So what they offer are excuses," he said.
Landau previously told Our City News that "anti-foreigner violence and intimidation" was something that's been seen across South African society and sectors.
