Mashaba insults apartheid’s victims

Since bursting onto the national political scene a few years ago with the pledge to “cleanse Joburg of illegal immigrants”, Herman Mashaba has added two other issues to his thin political agenda: destroy the ANC and resuscitate the legacy of Lucas Mangope.

The threat against illegal immigrants, however xenophobic, secured him the mayorship of Joburg, while the threat to destroy the ANC has seen his party become the second most funded political party in 2024 after the DA.

Mashaba has no kind words to say about those who opposed the evil system of apartheid but waxes lyrical about its stooges and surrogates such as Mangope. In his article (Sunday Times, January 21), he implores readers to ignore the politics of apartheid but focus on the “amazing” work of its stooges and surrogates.

Mashaba is insulting the memory of all the people who were forcibly removed as a result of the legislation that created the bantustans and stripped black people of their citizenship rights. Mangope and other stooges never opposed this and instead warmly embraced it, fast becoming its chief enablers.

Not only are Mashaba’s views revisionist, they are intentionally dishonest. Mashaba doesn’t want us to talk about the politics of the bantustans because he knows very well that these were never sovereign countries. He knows they were decoys, ruses and deflections intended to dupe black South Africans into believing that “they had a country”.

Mangope will forever be remembered as a collaborator with the apartheid regime. There is no amount of revisionism that will change this fact.

Jackie Tebogo Makgobola, via e-mail