Herman Mashaba’s Populist Anti Immigrants Rhetoric Potentially Genocidal

Herman Mashaba, a South African politician and business man as well as former mayor of Johannesburg who recently expressed his intentions of forming his own political party is purportedly on an opinion finding engagement mission with the people of South Africa.

Dubbed the People’s Dialogue, the purpose of his initiative is said to be on how to turn around South Africa’s economy but if you carefully look at his approach, this man may carelessly initiate the greatest genocide ever witnessed in Southern Africa.

By his anti-immigrant trump card and the LET’S BUILD A MOVEMENT THAT PUTS SOUTH AFRICANS FIRST mantra, one wonders if Mashaba is just trying to be a Trump copycat without carefully looking at the damaging genocidal impact of his ‘illegals’ utterances when politically illiterate youth that he is trying incite and excite gets charged into a xenophobic frenzy against black foreign nationals.

How should South Africa’s foreign policy shift towards countries that are sending their citizens here because of their failures? – Herman Mashaba – Facebook, 31/01/2020

Coming into South Africa is too easy. We have tens of thousands of kilometres of open border! I am considering a border barrier and more patrols along our borders to protect our country. Herman Mashaba – Facebook, 30/01/2020.

It is even disturbing to note that an award winning millionaire businessman and former Mayor of the Johannesburg metropolis like Herman Mashaba who is slowly turning himself into a ‘junior Donald Trump’ thinks that desperate job seeking and human rights surrendering black foreign nationals that come to South Africa are sent by their respective governments.

A man with business interests across industries and who sits in various boards of many companies should rather be knowledgeable enough to direct his discourse towards the leaders of the respective countries that have its citizens flocking into South Africa than to bad mouth desperate and vulnerable people of his own race and also subject them to further danger.

Just having a look at how he is alleged to have started making it in life as reported by Wikipedia, Mashaba who is said to be a strategic thinker who bought a car without having a licence, then drove it with having learned to drive is now a champion of formalities and legalities belittling and trashing those who find themselves trying to make it in a similar situation like he was in the apartheid era.

From a young age, he was a strategic thinker – he bought a car without having a license and drove out of the dealership without ever having learned to drive. He drove himself from one selling job to another, in the process confirming for himself that he was a natural salesman with an unswerving instinct for business. He started selling “SuperKurl” African hair-care products and became their number-one earner. He soon realised that these products excited him and that he wasn’t content to be just an employee. – Wikipedia

When he is comfortable with the Wikipedia narrative above, it means if he was a foreigner now in South Africa, years later, he would celebrate to be called a boarder jumper who built a multi-million business in a foreign land without proper documents.

Even though, here and there Mashaba has touched on this and that concerning South Africa’s wellbeing, his main rallying card is the sensational issue of illegal immigrants that he has found to resonate more with the economically desperate, easy to manipulate politically illiterate xenophobic and racist classes of South Africans.

Why can’t we have an honest discussion about ILLEGAL immigration? It is costing our country dearly and corrupt politicians are too scared to talk about it. Share your thoughts. – Herman Mashaba – Facebook, 26/01/2020.

Mashaba must be challenged to provide research based factual information on the extent of damage that immigration into South Africa by the blacks that he so much hates has caused whether they are illegal or not and those findings must be compared with other factors that have contributed to the downfall of the South African economy.

If there are serious major factors that have brought down the South African economy that Mashaba is not vocal about, well-meaning people must also start to question the justification of his passionate hate for black people that come to seek jobs in South Africa.

Herman’s description of the so called illegal black foreigners as ‘illegals’ is very disturbing. 

You can even imagine the expression on his face when he thinks, sees, imagines or even hears about these humans that he calls in a way that seems like to him they are trash suited for the dustbin.

If you carefully look at the photos above which he posts on his social media platforms, they are images of ‘black’ people only and one wonders if there are no illegal immigrants of other races in South Africa.

Based on Mashaba’s political and business track record, he cannot be excused for political immaturity and tactical bereftness in his anti-black immigrant political manoeuvring.

This is because, as a business and political strategist, he knows very well that to form another political party in a country that is already saturated with political parties, you may need to carelessly arouse the emotions and sentiments especially of two main classes of people in South Africa.

In this case, the two main groups that he seems to resonate with are the desperate and politically illiterate short term thinking groups of xenophobia charged and racist citizenry. 

Besides the anti-immigrant rhetoric, Mashaba seems to lack any other solid relevant approach towards establishing himself on the national South African political landscape except exciting the emotions of the desperate youths that he is also likely to quickly dump when he gets into power if his short memory of reality is to be carefully analysed.

The context of his short memory is that his so called illegals are mere victims of politics in their respective countries just like he was during apartheid.

These people are in his country to seek jobs of which he Mashaba as a business minded leader, he can mobilise his youths into productive entrepreneurs who can employ their fellow Africans than to merely consider them as virus invested people who needs to be quarantined.

This maybe the reason why Mmusi Maimane in a diplomatic way expressed his dismay at Malaba’s political choices. 

“To me, to add another political party to the plethora of parties that are available, would be to add party number 49 in the 48 that are there, and I am saying that’s not the immediate solution of our country. Actually, what we need is to ask the 18 million South Africans why they didn’t vote last year,” 

…..“The big distinction here is that we are not just saying we are a party for a party’s sake. I’m not here to contest 2021 or anything like that.” Maimane is quoted to have said in the Daily Maverick -22/01/2020.

At this point, it is critical to ask if Herman really believe that these ‘illegals’ have something to do with South Africa’s downgrade and the serious state of affairs at South African Airways, Transnet and Eskom that he doesn’t as much vehemently engage in as he does with the black foreigners in South Africa.

It seems like the ‘affluent’ Herman is trying to clean South Africa of the trash like black foreign nationals in order to create room for nationals of other races.

The man who claims to have struggled against poverty and the horrible apartheid regime has suddenly forgotten the effect of evil governments on people who are fleeing their countries and the impact of poverty among the African folk by choosing to spray ‘political Corona and Ebola’ ideological viruses on the sick African continent.

It is interesting to note that he does not even care to help his followers differentiate between an illegal and legal immigrant in the same way that he is not helping people to also understand that there are still some advantages associated with the presence of foreign nationals in South Africa.

If and when it is true that Mashaba genuinely believes in the power of education and entrepreneurship, why does he not concentrate on spreading the gospel of entrepreneurship to these desperate South Africans and seek to economically empower them so that they can also be potential employers to their suffering but hard working fellow Africans that flock into his country.

It is not just the illegal immigrants that are causing the problem – it is the employers who break the law to hire them! What can we do to encourage our business community to hire South Africans?! We definitely need to make it easier to hire them. – Herman Mashaba – Facebook, 29/01/2020.

If and when Herman is really serious about the development of South Africa, let him fundraise or mobilise resources for a research on how many entrepreneurship minded South Africans are prepared to hire their own South African fellows as permanent labour especially taking into consideration the work culture prevalent among the youth that he wants to incite.

Some responses by business minded people on his Facebook platform have already highlighted the major challenges affecting South Africa, but unfortunately such facts do not appeal to some politicians who want to rise to power through excitement rather than enlightenment of their fellow countrymen.

Responding to a news article that appeared in the Herald, a Zimbabwe newspaper that said Zim to verify SA cop killers’ nationality. Herman quickly responded on his Facebook page on 27 January by saying “Soon these cop killers will be back in our country committing more crimes. We NEED borders”.

This shows that to Herman, due processes are not necessary as long as the subject of discussion is a black foreign national in his country.

He forgets that these people he calls “illegals” may be suffering in their own countries but cold bloodied murders especially at gun point is something that they are not bringing to South Africa and if truth be told, it’s actually a phenomenon they are adopting in South Africa of which they are disturbingly likely to export back to their homes if and when their countries get right.

While responding to a news report by Xinuanet.com that said Tanzanian police arrested 27 Ethiopian illegal immigrants in transit to South Africa, Mashaba also as usual quickly reiterated his anti-fellow African vibe by saying “THANK YOU to the Tanzanian police for doing what our country is all too often unable to do!”

However, many entrepreneurial South Africans have clearly explained to him the challenges that business people in his country are struggling with, of which an immigrant whether considered illegal or not is helping to solve but the black hater, Mashaba has his mind made up especially about fellow Africans whom he considers as ‘contamination’ in his land. 

Below are some of the opinions expressed by people on his People’s Dialogue initiative:

TK Taki Vumbi: Finding productive workers in SA is a nightmare and one of the main reasons that manufacturers are leaving in droves every quarter. A number of us have tried incentives and it did nothing but backfire. Paying substantially more than the market-clearing rate did nothing but cause unions to become unmanageable and demand similar raises from entire bargaining groups before ending strikes. And the strikes happen for everyone in solidarity, regardless of how well you pay workers. And the well-paid workers are just as happy to burn tires and company property. The unions work their members up into a bloodlust and convince them that they should be paid the same as an accountant, so you can’t win no matter what you do. Unions see to it that you’re always the enemy.

Mikel Deejay: Economically South Africa benefits a lot from the failure of her neighbour’s economies. If SA shifts her foreign policy towards countries like Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique definitely the pain would be felt by SA than those countries. I think as citizens of Africa we need a strong body that holds corrupt regimes liable and have unified punishment. Also SA has a massive role to play but unfortunately these comrades have this awful brotherly code

Pinkie Honor: …This reminds me of Zimbabweans laughing at Zambians and Somalians in late 80s early 90s they thought they won’t be in those countries situations, look were Zimbabwe is today

Tebogo Leviticus Nehemiah: Truth is: our fellow South Africans they find reason not to come… To work. And most of the time this immigrants they very loyal to their jobs. I am not talking about theory, but I have seen it and still struggling with. South Africans brothers and sister mostly don’t value their jobs, maybe that’s why most employers prefer immigrants…..

I am yet to find if there is an English word that describes a serious incorrigible and inexplicable hate by a person of one race against those of his own race.

What boggles the mind is Herman’s absolute, boiling, hellish hate for Africans who are foreigners in South Africa as compared to all other races. 

Although it can be difficult to immediately confirm at the moment, but investigative journalism and independent research may end up proving that Herman is merely a voice of a hidden racist master who is behind the scenes judging from his subtle ‘apartheid’ language.