Oscar The Shark Slayer🦈

Hi @GodPenuel, thanks for the intervention to this important regional debate. I think the biggest problem we have is that some people are taking political advantage of a genuine issue, which is illegal immigration caused by bad politics in Zimbabwe and other Banana Republics. They have realised that there is a captive market they can exploit to get into parliament and to form political parties built around an issue for which they have no solutions and no capacity to solve. The issue of illegal immigration in South Africa is a state-to-state matter. We all know that the problems mostly originate in Harare. The politics there has triggered Zimbabweans to move into South Africa. It is a natural survival reflex. If you are hungry and know there is food somewhere, you will naturally go there. If you are sick and know that you can get medical assistance somewhere, the natural instinct is to go there. No border can fully stop that. To begin with, South Africa and Zimbabwe are SADC countries. The SADC protocol allows Zimbabweans to come into South Africa, and South Africans to go into Zimbabwe, without first applying for visas at their respective embassies. Visas are issued at the point of entry, so stopping Zimbabweans entirely is impossible. On top of that, there is another layer of Zimbabweans who cannot afford passports and come into South Africa illegally. These people are often found working in big businesses like farms and other enterprises. That is why you will notice that parties like the DA never frame immigration in the same way that ActionSA or Patriotic Front do. They understand the consequences of going after immigrants, legal or illegal for businesses. Helen Zille addressed this, saying her best-case scenario was to legalise everyone through documentation. The DA is essentially a party of business, and these immigrants are working in businesses, not for poor black South Africans. The root of this crisis is the failed politics in Harare. As South African government records show, 70% of women giving birth at Musina Hospital are from Zimbabwe, reflecting Zimbabwe’s collapsing health sector. The rational solution is to fix Zimbabwe, but we all know the government there is run by crooks who loot public funds. Zimbabwe has the resources to fix its problems and keep its citizens at home. When a country works and its politics are sound, people do not leave. That is why South Africans do not flood into Zimbabwe in the same way Zimbabweans flood into South Africa. So Zimbabwe is no longer just a foreign policy issue for South Africa. It has become a domestic policy issue because those illegal immigrants live inside communities across the country. The real question is how to fix this problem genuinely and not public theatrics meant for votes when they know that they have zero capacity to fix the issue. And here is where the clash of ideas emerges, some of which are frankly useless. You do not fix it by stopping people from using clinics or hospitals. Diseases do not check your passport. If someone living with HIV is denied medication in South Africa and they infect others, it affects the entire community including South Africans. It is common sense that only someone without critical thinking skills won't get. The same goes for measles or other communicable diseases. To deny treatment is to create a public health time bomb. It will ultimately cost South Africa more to manage a pandemic than to allow access to healthcare. So this is fundamentally a political issue that manifests through an immigration crisis. It is not something that you can solve by policing schools or hospitals. It is about why these people are able to come in and why they are able to stay without legal status. Every time I am stopped by the police driving(and it is many times), I must show my passport because my permit is stamped in it. Yet many others come through by paying bribes to police officers and immigration officials. Buses with folks without passports are waved through at borders because of corruption. Those are the issues that must be fixed, and not chasing people from clinics. Those who insist on blocking immigrants from healthcare are playing cheap politics. They are doing it for optics to win seats in 2026 or 2029 so that they can go to councils or parliament and eat. Groups like Dudula have no capacity to solve anything. If they were genuine about immigration, they would be marching to Home Affairs, which is responsible for resolving this through political channels. They would march to the presidency, which has the capacity to address the problem. They would march to ANC offices, because ANC is the party that supports ZANUPF, the architects of this immigration crisis. So, Penuel, we have a choice to make. We can either flow with the usual populist rhetoric, which is cheap, simplistic, and solves nothing, or we can seek out the real solution to this crisis. Some say, “Deport illegal immigrants.” Yes, any government should deport illegal immigrants, but in the case of South Africa, that approach does not resolve anything. This situation is different from America. I have seen many South Africans making the mistake of comparing Donald Trump to the ANC leadership and their failures to deal with this crisis. Trump is surrounded by seas; he can deport people, and they cannot easily come back. But as we see on the American southern border, Trump also has a problem with Mexicans, because they still find ways of coming through. It is the same problem South Africa faces with Zimbabweans. No matter how many times you deport them, they still come back. The difference is that Trump at least shows the political will to deal with the situation. The South African government, on the other hand, has not deployed such will. Instead, it appeases the very regime north of the border that authored this crisis. Worse still, they revere that regime and do so publicly, even as ordinary South Africans bear the cost of its failures. South Africa is not surrounded by a sea on its land border with Zimbabwe. Its border with Zimbabwe is only a river, one that anyone can cross. So it becomes a revolving door. Deport an illegal Zimbabwean today, and tomorrow they are back in Joburg; often without a passport because, as I said earlier, government officials at the border are corrupt. They take bribes and let buses full of undocumented people through. So deportation is at best a short-term cosmetic fix. In reality, it fixes nothing. It costs the South African state more to arrest, detain, and deport, only for the same person to return the next day. It is money down the drain. This is not a purely immigration crisis; it is a political crisis manifesting through immigration that requires a political solution. The Zimbabwean government must be made to hear, and to be forced to act by fixing its hospitals and creating an environment conducive for businesses to create employment, but that will never happen so long as the South African government, led by the ANC, continues to fail to engage the ZANUPF regime honestly. We see ANC leaders praising Mnangagwa and ZANUPF on social media, instead of holding them accountable for creating this immigration problem. So we are left with two choices: to confront the real issue and push for real solutions, or to pretend we are addressing it while playing to the gallery, like Dudula and others, who are only using this issue as a ticket to parliament. If I wanted to be very popular in South Africa today, especially on social media, I would simply say Dudula is right to stop people from using public healthcare institutions. I would echo all the anti-foreigner rhetoric pushed by organisations like Dudula and March for March, and I would instantly gain popularity. But I refuse to do that. I choose to be reasonable and honest instead of chasing cheap populism. I am not a populist. I prefer that we examine the situation holistically and search for real solutions. Those solutions lie in the ANC being truthful with its own people and finding the political will to engage ZANUPF in Zimbabwe, to push them to do the right thing and end this crisis. If that does not happen, this crisis will continue to sink the ANC. In fact, part of the reason why the ANC is collapsing today is precisely because of these unresolved issues. The tragedy is that the ANC as an organisation does not even seem to care. Its individual leaders are selfish and are benefitting financially through kickbacks and corrupt dealings with ZANUPF. Everyone knows about the cosy ties between the ANC political elite and the ZANUPF political elite. It is not about solutions, it is about personal gain. That is why they turn a blind eye to the damage, failing to see that the ANC itself is sinking under the weight of these terrible decisions and its refusal to confront the Zimbabwean regime. That is my view, my brother.