South African Member of Parliament Mmusi Maimane has condemned anti-migrant violence and called for a regulated immigration system that upholds human dignity, in an Africa Day speech delivered at Constitution Hill on Monday, 25 May.
Addressing diplomats, media and guests, Maimane, who is Build One South Africa (BOSA) leader, outlined a five-point plan to strengthen immigration management and border security, while warning that xenophobia was “the language of fear, tribalism, and division”.
Quoting poet Ingoapele Madingoane’s 1979 work Africa My Beginning, Africa My Ending, he said: “They asked Mugabe, what do you want here, my brother? He said, ‘All Africans are my brothers.’”
“Note that he said all Africans. Not some Africans. Not Africans of convenience. But all Africans,” Maimane told the gathering.
He criticised what he termed “nefarious movements” that organise “not around building Africa, but around persecuting fellow Africans”, singling out March and March and Operation Dudula for “taking the law into their own hands”.
Maimane said the country had even seen sitting MPs suggest “turning off hospital machines because a patient is foreign”.
“Hatred of fellow Africans will not solve our healthcare crisis. Xenophobia will not create jobs. Violence against immigrants will not restore safety to our communities,” he said.
Maimane acknowledged South Africa’s “big brother effect” as the continent’s most industrialised economy, making it an attractive destination for migrants. But he said life was becoming harder for many South Africans, with growth “struggling even to reach 1%”, housing shortages, pressure on healthcare, rising unemployment and growing insecurity.
“Communities feel abandoned. South Africans feel economically cornered. Migrants often live in fear and exploitation. And government has failed to provide leadership,” he said.
He accused government of underfunding the Border Management Authority and failing to establish centres to register immigrants. “It suits government when we turn our hatred toward one another, for then we don’t hold it accountable.”
Turning to the continent, Maimane said Africa accounts for just 3% of global trade and its combined GDP remains smaller than that of some individual US states. He cited a Jubilee Commission study led by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and sanctioned by the late Pope Francis, which found nearly three in five Africans live in countries spending more on debt repayments than on education or healthcare.
“Africa cannot fully develop while chained to perpetual debt. The global West must support meaningful debt relief,” he said. “What we lack is execution.”
He argued that Africa’s demographic dividend — a growing working-age population while the developed world ages — could only be realised with functioning education systems, labour markets that absorb skills, and economies that grow at scale.
Maimane said South Africa’s immigration debate was “trapped between two dangerous extremes”: those who deny there is a crisis, and those who believe the answer lies in “hatred, scapegoating and violence”.
“Both positions are intellectually inadequate,” he said. “A mature response requires that we hold both realities at once: that migration must be regulated, and that human dignity must be protected without exception.”
Invoking Ubuntu, he added: “Xenophobia is the antithesis of Ubuntu, which is encapsulated as ‘I am because we are’. I am my brother’s keeper.”
“No grievance — economic or otherwise — can justify violence, intimidation, looting, or the dehumanisation of another African.”
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