Across the world, the right has increasingly made xenophobia one of its central mobilising strategies. Migrants are blamed for unemployment, pressure on public services, crime, social breakdown and the failures of government. In many countries, particularly in Europe, this anti-migrant politics has become tightly entwined with Islamophobia. Migration is presented not only as an economic or administrative problem but as a threat to national culture, religious identity and civilisation itself.

South Africa’s anti-migrant politics is now following this path. The xenophobic project led by March and March and supported by other authoritarian and far-right forces is beginning to combine hostility towards migrants with hostility towards Muslims. The language has shifted from claims about migrants taking jobs and places in schools and hospitals to warnings about a Muslim “takeover”, Muslim “dominance”, an “Islamic invasion” and the introduction of Sharia law.

Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, the leader of March and March, recently asked on social media whether South Africans were wrong to oppose Muslim organisations that shelter or provide humanitarian support to migrants displaced by xenophobic violence. She claimed that foreign Muslims were seeking “dominance” in South Africa.

Speaking to the BBC, Ngobese-Zuma said that South Africa was undergoing a “very serious religious takeover”. Muslims comprise only around 1.5% to 2% of the population. The idea that such a small minority is taking over the country is plainly absurd. But the lack of any factual basis for Ngobese-Zuma’s claim does not make it politically insignificant. Far-right politics has never depended on an accurate description of reality. It works by identifying a vulnerable group, exaggerating its power and portraying its ordinary presence in society as a coordinated threat.

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Nkosikhona Ndabandaba, also known as Phakelumthakathi and closely associated with the same xenophobic mobilisation, has taken this language further. Responding to an image warning of an “Islamic invasion” and the introduction of Sharia law, he reportedly wrote: “Never ever, especially the terrorists!”

In the standard move of the right around the world, migrants, Muslims and terrorists are collapsed into one category. Muslim religious identity becomes grounds for suspicion, and the presence of foreign Muslims is portrayed as a security threat. This is a significant and alarming development in South African far-right politics. The migrant is no longer accused only of competing for jobs, using hospitals or operating small businesses. The migrant is now also presented as the carrier of a hostile religion and an agent of cultural conquest.

The expansion of the target is already visible. Xenophobic mobilisation is usually justified by saying that it is directed only against undocumented migrants. In practice, documented migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, foreign-owned businesses and South Africans who defend them are also threatened. The turn towards Islamophobia widens the target again. Muslim organisations, business owners, charities and South African Muslims who defend migrants can now be portrayed as part of the alleged takeover.

A recent post by the Pakistan South Africa Association described a visit to a church in Delmas, where it distributed food and grocery hampers to families in need. The initiative was explicitly interfaith and humanitarian. Yet some of the responses accused the association of trying to buy influence, gain control of the country or conceal predatory intentions. An ordinary act of solidarity was treated as proof of conspiracy.

The same suspicion is directed at Muslim organisations that defend migrants from unlawful arrest, exclusion or intimidation. When Muslim organisations call for due process or support migrant-owned businesses, their intervention is not treated as a constitutional position. It is presented as Muslims protecting “illegal foreigners” in pursuit of a larger religious agenda.

The argument is structured so that Muslims cannot answer it. If Muslim organisations remain silent, they can be accused of refusing to contribute to South African society. If they provide food, shelter or legal support, their assistance is described as an attempt to buy influence or impose religious dominance.

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The xenophobic and Islamophobic narratives strengthen each other. Xenophobia constructs the border as being under attack. Islamophobia constructs the nation’s culture and religion as being under attack. Ethnic nationalism adds a further claim that a particular community is losing control over territory, institutions and political authority. Together, these narratives allow a movement that emerged around resentment over jobs and public services to appeal to fears about identity, religion and national survival.

Democracy requires that questions of citizenship and legal status be decided through lawful procedures rather than by political movements, mobs or social-media campaigns. It protects freedom of religion and the right of civil-society organisations to offer humanitarian and legal support.

March and March’s politics increasingly challenge these principles. It claims the authority to decide who belongs, who may enter a hospital or school, who may run a business and which organisations may assist people under threat. Its leaders present migrants as people whose rights can be suspended and Muslims as a community whose motives are inherently suspect.

The growing danger of far-right populism extends beyond migrants and Muslims. Journalists, progressive lawyers, left learning trade unionists and radical grassroots activists are all coming under increasing attack. March and March has actively sought to delegitimise constitutional and humanitarian opposition to xenophobia.

The threat to South Africa does not come from Muslims or migrants. It comes from a far-right politics that turns the poverty, institutional collapse and kleptocratic politics that drive and justify public anger into hostility towards minorities, while leaving the political and economic forces responsible for the crisis untouched.

*Dr Buccus is an academic, political analyst and editor of Al-Qalam.

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Business Day has published a letter of complaint regarding Halal certification, which, apart from being contradictory, is deliberately conflated with what the writer refers to as “consumer awareness and transparency”. 

In addition to his attempt at mischief-making by hoping to provoke the ire of Christians through injecting a controversy on the Halal industry in South Africa, it will not be far removed to conclude that he does so in pursuit of Israel’s Islamophobic agenda.

That he represents an agency linked to the settler colonial regime which faces serious charges of committing genocide in Gaza, Daniel Jacobi and his outfit known as “South African Friends of Israel”, it does not surprise us that he would do so. 

Published on 6 August 2026, and titled “Religious certification’s role in consumer choice”, it is riddled with contradictions. 

For instance, his question about why Halal certified products have become the “default standard in so many supply chains” is explained and answered by himself. 

“Businesses are free to seek certification where there is consumer demand or export markets require it. For many manufacturers, halal certification is a commercial decision that opens access to local and international markets”, is his explanation. 

Indeed, if it is understood in such logical terms, underlined by the fact that Halal certification is purely a dietary requirement, not a bogey of any sort, nor associated with what Israeli-inspired Hasbara (propaganda) peddles as “Islamist terrorism”, why then is it necessary to politicize it as Jacobi does? 

We are confident that the overwhelming majority of South Africa’s consumers respect and accept Halal as a matter of dietary choice, health standards, and consumer transparency rather than an ideological symbol. 

It is common wisdom that the guidelines for Halal certification share similar imperatives for Kosher certification. These are, amongst others, hygiene, cleanliness, ethical treatment of animals and quality control. 

Crucially, these practices ensure food safety, which benefits all consumers regardless of faith. 

While these facts are indisputable, Jacobi’s dispute lies elsewhere. It is to politicise an Islamic imperative, which he unashamedly does by injecting red herrings. 

His fake concerns must be rejected with contempt. 

Jacobi is the same person who, on the appointment of former Minister Naledi Pandor as chair of the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF), publicly alleged that it has been hijacked by “radicals”. 

He also led a group of South African members of parliament and religious leaders on a highly controversial trip to Israel during 2025.

Jacobi confirmed that the trip was made and described it as “a mission to discover historic facts to Israel.”

The confirmation took place after the Good Party raised questions about its “secret mission.”

At the time, Rebecca Davis (Daily Maverick) critiqued it by claiming that it seemed to have been “a very one-sided ‘fact-finding mission’”.

She correctly assessed that any of the nine South African MPs who visited Israel on a recent “fact-finding mission” will testify to the media that “there was no evidence of apartheid and, to the contrary, Israel is a vibrant progressive multi-racial and multi-ethnic society, in which the rights of all citizens are protected and upheld by the rule of law”.

Her conclusion was based on the claim of the group that organised the trip in its press statement: “All delegates observed that, and will confirm with South African media, that there was no evidence of apartheid and, to the contrary, Israel is a vibrant progressive multi-racial and multi-ethnic society, in which the rights of all citizens are protected and upheld by the rule of law.”

By all accounts, it is evident that Jacobi and his pro-Israeli aligned group are invested in promoting and defending the Zionist-apartheid regime. 

The issue of Halal thus becomes a convenient decoy to raise the ire of South African consumers against Muslims at a time the country is confronted with social issues related to foreign migrants, xenophobia and Islamophobia. 

*Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the Media Review Network (MRN)

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Across various parts of the country, self-appointed groups are entering businesses, questioning employers, inspecting workplaces, identifying foreign workers, and demanding to know who is legally employed. 

Regardless of the names these organisations give themselves, one question rises above all others: who has authorised them to enforce the law?

There is no denying that illegal immigration is a legitimate national concern. Every sovereign nation has the right, and indeed the duty, to protect its borders, regulate immigration, and ensure that those living and working within its territory comply with the law. South Africans are equally entitled to expect that these laws are enforced fairly and consistently.

Yet the responsibility for doing so has always rested with the state. The ANC government since 1994 has failed to adequately secure the country’s borders and enforce immigration laws. This has fuelled public frustration and a growing sense that the government has neglected one of its most fundamental responsibilities.

That failure is not an invitation for private citizens to become law enforcement officers. Border security, immigration enforcement, and the lawful deportation of undocumented foreign nationals are constitutional functions of the state. When government fails to act decisively, it creates a vacuum, and vacuums are often filled by self-appointed groups.

This is precisely where South Africa now finds itself. The grievances expressed by many of these groups are understandable. Citizens are concerned about unemployment, pressure on public services, crime, and the perception that immigration laws are not being enforced. These concerns deserve to be heard. But legitimate concerns cannot justify illegitimate methods.

When private groups enter businesses without lawful authority, interrogate workers, intimidate employers, and conduct what amount to their own immigration inspections, they move beyond civic activism into an area that threatens the rule of law.

The Constitution was never intended to permit citizens to appoint themselves as immigration officials or police officers. Our democracy depends upon due process, lawful authority, and equal protection under the law. 

Once those principles begin to erode, the consequences become increasingly difficult to contain.

Today it may be businesses employing foreign nationals; tomorrow it could be farms. The next day it could be factories, schools, shopping centres, or any institution targeted by whichever group believes it has the authority to intervene.

History shows that vigilantism rarely remains confined to its original purpose. Once groups become accustomed to exercising power without legal accountability, that power often expands.

An equally serious concern follows naturally. If businesses become accustomed to groups arriving unannounced and demanding access, what prevents future groups from demanding payment instead? 

What stops criminal syndicates from presenting themselves as community organisations? How long before intimidation evolves into organised extortion?

These are not hypothetical fears. They are risks that emerge whenever lawful authority is gradually replaced by informal power.

The silence from the government has only intensified public concern. Many South Africans are asking: Where is President Cyril Ramaphosa? During periods of heightened public tension, citizens reasonably expect visible leadership, clear communication, and decisive action. 

When that leadership appears absent, uncertainty grows, confidence weakens, and speculation inevitably fills the void.

Government now carries a dual responsibility. First, it must urgently restore public confidence by strengthening border security, improving immigration administration, enforcing existing laws, and lawfully deporting those who have no legal right to remain in the country. 

Secondly, it must make it unmistakably clear that no private group, regardless of its motives, may assume the powers of the state or take the law into its own hands.

South Africa’s Constitution protects the rights of businesses as well as individuals. Inspections and enforcement actions must be carried out by authorised officials acting within the law, not by self-appointed groups demanding access to private premises.

The Freedom Charter envisioned a South Africa founded upon justice, equality, dignity, and the rule of law. Our constitutional democracy cannot allow parallel systems of enforcement to emerge simply because public frustration has reached breaking point.

South Africa stands at a defining moment. If we excuse vigilantism because we agree with its immediate objective, we may one day discover that the same methods are being used for very different purposes. 

The issue before us is larger than immigration. It is about whether we remain a constitutional democracy governed by law, or gradually become a society where organised groups exercise authority simply because they can.

Government must take responsibility for the conditions that have contributed to this moment. It must address the legitimate concerns of its citizens through effective governance, economic growth, secure borders, and the consistent application of the law. 

But it must do so within the framework of the Constitution, because once the rule of law gives way to the rule of the crowd, everyone, citizen and non-citizen alike, ultimately becomes less secure.

The choice South Africa makes now will shape not only its immigration policy, but the future character of its democracy.

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“The dismissal of Karim Khan as the ICC prosecutor is perhaps the most significant event in the 24-year-long institutional history of the ICC,” says Sergey Vasiliev, professor of international law at Open University in the Netherlands, “and the greatest setback to the Court’s efforts to pursue justice in situations implicating major powers and their allies not party to the Court, including the US, Israel, and Russia.” 

There cannot be any doubt that the credibility of international justice is measured not by how it treats the weak, but by what happens when it is manipulated by the rich and powerful. 

A close scrutiny of the Israeli-led campaign surrounding ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan exposes a familiar pattern. Institutions celebrated as guardians of the rules-based international order become targets of political pressure the moment they threaten the interests of states that enjoy Western protection.

Regrettably, absent from much of the media coverage is the chronology that transformed Khan from a respected international prosecutor into a political liability. 

The same can be argued about the absence of the global South to ensure an impartial probe, even at this late hour to determine what apparently is driven by a highly-charged Zionist political agenda. 

For years, the International Criminal Court was embraced when it pursued African leaders, Balkan figures and, more recently, Russian officials. 

That consensus fractured after Khan sought arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

From that moment, the court itself became the subject of sustained political attacks.

The allegations of workplace misconduct against Khan deserve to be investigated independently and fairly. No public official should be immune from scrutiny. 

Equally, those allegations cannot be used to erase the wider political context. Both realities can exist simultaneously. An investigation into personal conduct does not negate the documented efforts by governments and lobbying networks to obstruct the ICC’s Palestine investigation. 

Reducing the entire issue to Khan’s personal conduct conveniently diverts attention from the institution he represents and the cases it is pursuing.

The beneficiaries of this narrative are clear. Governments determined to shield Israel from international accountability have consistently challenged the legitimacy of the court whenever its investigations touched Israeli officials. 

Political leaders, influential lobbying organisations and sections of the Western media have increasingly portrayed the ICC as overreaching, despite previously defending its authority in other conflicts. 

The objective is larger than one prosecutor. It is to weaken the credibility of any institution capable of holding powerful allies to the same legal standards imposed on others.

This pattern is neither new nor unique. International law has repeatedly encountered fierce resistance whenever it challenges geopolitical interests. 

From Iraq to Afghanistan, from Libya to Palestine, the principle remains remarkably consistent. 

However, what we face is that accountability is welcomed only when directed at adversaries but resisted when it reaches allies. 

Double standards and hypocrisy is a blatant trademark for Western imperialism. 

The language of a rules-based international order becomes conditional, dependent not on law but on political convenience.

Media coverage has largely reinforced this selective framing. To any independent observer able to read between the lines, it is pretty clear that headlines have focused on Khan as an individual while giving far less attention to the sustained political campaign against the ICC itself. 

The real issue has never been Karim Khan alone. It is whether international law can survive when its reach extends beyond the politically expendable and touches those protected by geopolitical power. 

Hence the question: Does the legitimacy of the ICC depend on the identity of those it investigates? 

In pointing out the backdrop,  Sergey Vasiliev says is “US sanctions against ICC senior officials and its campaign to dismantle the institution, as well as the Israeli government’s long-term interference and its most recent efforts to exert influence on States Parties to oust Khan”. 

Vasiliev finds himself “truly worried about the future of the Court and whether States Parties will be willing and able genuinely to protect its independence and ensure its recovery after this ‘decapitation’,“ as he calls it.

*Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the Media Review Network.

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What we are witnessing in South Africa is not simply xenophobia, a general fear of foreigners. It is Afrophobia: hostility directed specifically at black African migrants from north of the Limpopo River, while white foreigners from Europe are often welcomed, celebrated, or viewed entirely differently. This selective hostility exposes something far more painful than economic anxiety: it is the symptom of a deep wound in our collective psyche, a self-hatred implanted by centuries of colonialism and apartheid, that we now turn outward onto those who most resemble us.

This is why Afrophobia cannot be explained away as nativism or economic concern dressed up in civic language. It is anti-black racism directed at fellow Africans, the internalisation of colonial and apartheid hierarchies of race and worth, now replayed by the very people those hierarchies were designed to crush. And to understand it, we must be willing to look into a mirror we have long refused to face.

What the mirror reveals, psychologists call self-projection: the unconscious process by which we take the parts of ourselves we have been taught to despise and cast them onto others, attacking in them what we cannot bear in ourselves. Three and a half centuries of colonialism and apartheid did not merely dispossess black South Africans of land, labour and dignity. They waged a sustained assault on black self-worth itself. Generations were told, in law and in liturgy, in classroom and in workplace, that blackness meant inferiority, backwardness, criminality. Steve Biko understood this when he wrote that the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. Frantz Fanon had diagnosed it decades earlier: the colonised subject, saturated in the coloniser’s contempt, comes to see himself through the coloniser’s eyes. This is self-hatred in its purest form, and self-hatred, left unhealed, does not stay inside. It seeks a target.

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And the target it finds is close to home. The poison of internalised contempt does not evaporate with a new flag and a new constitution. It settles into the subconscious and waits. So when a wounded people encounters a stranger who looks like them, darker, perhaps, poorer, speaking an unfamiliar African tongue, the stranger becomes a screen onto which all that internalised shame is projected The Zimbabwean labourer, the Mozambican mechanic, the Malawian mu`adh-dhin and the Somalian shopkeeper: are attacked not because they are foreign, but because they are black and foreign. They embody, in the distorted mirror of the colonised mind, everything we were taught to hate about ourselves. The violence directed at them is, at its root, violence against our own reflection.

Once we understand this, the puzzle of selective hostility solves itself. This is why the European, American, and Asian migrant walks unmolested through our streets while the African migrant’s shop burns. Whiteness was installed at the summit of the colonial hierarchy of worth, and that hierarchy still governs the subconscious, even of those it crushed. To defer to the fair-skinned foreigner while brutalising the dark-skinned one is no coincidence. It is the colonial order reproducing itself through the hands of its former victims. Can black people internalise racism and despise their own blackness without even knowing it? The evidence burns in our townships.

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If the diagnosis is self-hatred, then for Muslims the cure begins with Divine revelation. The Qur’an, in Surah al-Rum (30:22), proclaims that “among the signs of Allah are the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of our languages and our skin colours”. Our different tongues and our different shades of skin are not accidents to be ranked, nor flaws to be despised; they are ayat, Divine signs. To celebrate this diversity is to affirm a sign of Allah in creation. To despise the darkness of another’s skin, or, through projection, the darkness of one’s own, is to turn in contempt from a sign of Allah in the universe. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, sealed this teaching in his final sermon when he proclaimed: no Arab has superiority over a non-Arab, nor white over black, except in God-consciousness (taqwa).

Healing, however, begins with honesty. We must find the courage to name Afrophobia for what it is: self-hatred turned outward. And then we must undertake the harder, slower work, decolonising our minds, reclaiming the dignity of our blackness as a sign of Allah, and rebuilding the Pan-African solidarity that carried us to freedom. The black stranger at our door is not our enemy. He or she is our brother and sister, and our mirror. Until we can look into that mirror without flinching, the fires will keep burning. When at last we can, we will see reflected there what Steve Biko declared in defiance and what Allah had proclaimed in revelation long before: Black is Beautiful, for black skin is among the signs of Allah, and every sign of Allah is beautiful.

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On July 15, 2026, my flow of birthday wishes was interrupted with news more consequential, but mournfully sad: John Louis Esposito, at the age of 86, was no more. Sombreness overwhelmed me, and I counted back the almost four decades since I first encountered him, as one of those who were curiously excited about the South African transition, the presidency of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu’s witness, and the prospects for a new future free from all discriminations following the travesty of apartheid.

In the last decade, I had the wonderful privilege and honour (for two years) to encounter him up close at Georgetown University in the USA. He had accepted to host me as Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Al Waleed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding (ACMCU), following my stint as South African Ambassador to the USA under President Obama. Up to that moment, we had encountered each other regularly across the world, in conferences and seminars, at think tanks during the halcyon years of the Arab Spring, and anywhere else where Islam and its shadow, islamophobia, were on the agenda. 

Most memorably, in 2012, John Esposito and I were two of probably only 15 participants in Doha with key leaders of the Arab Spring who were gathered to consider Constitution-Making and Statecraft in what we hoped would be a qualitative leap out of authoritarianism. He was the only one who was not Muslim among eminent scholars like Yusuf al Qardawi, Hassan al Turabi, Jasser Auda, Tariq Ramadan, Hashim Kamali, and others. While the Muslims were cautiously optimistic, Esposito doubted that the Empire and their minions could accept a Muslim world with an alternative liberatory statecraft, and without the confirmation bias of Muslims being – without cause – naturally extreme and therefore, in need of strong authoritarian law and order regimes. These were the critical informants to a pervasive islamophobia.

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It was this dual insight – the yearning of Muslims to live with dignity, as well as the fundamental, if not deliberate, Western distortion of Islam, Islamism, and the Muslim – that made John Esposito different. He was a different Christian, a different American, a different academic, a different human being! These identities did not make an aberration of John Esposito. He would insist that because he was Christian, American, an academic, and a human being, he needed to testify to the truth inherent in each of those identities: his own faith made him recognise the profound faithfulness of Muslims; his own Americanness made him desire freedom, democracy and rights for Muslims under authoritarianism or extremism; his academic training made him uncompromising on rigour and evidence; and his humaneness created in him a deep well of human empathy and compassion. By this definition, right-wing evangelicals were the aberration; American support for tyranny and warmongering was the aberration; moral clarity produced by academic scholarship without the requisite moral courage to act was the aberration; and human silence and complicity in atrocity were the aberrations in the human condition.

In his scholarship of Islam and Muslims, in his development and mentoring of Muslim scholars, in his friendship with Muslim leaders, in his writing of over 50 books about Islam and Muslims, in his activism against islamophobia, in his advocacy for a shift in policy and law about Muslims, and in his institution-building like the Bridge Initiative, John Esposito was neither oracle nor orientalist. He was neither our source of guidance and wisdom, nor were we the exotic other to study. He did not speak for us, or about us without us. But his scholarship gave him the insight and understanding of Islam and Muslims, the sincere representation of which gave him the credibility of an insider-outsider both for Muslims and most non-Muslims. Because he studied with rigour, he understood with empathy, and he could interpret with integrity, free of the emotion that comes too easily to victims of history. So, he did not infantilise Muslims. 

But neither did he idealise us. He was a witness to the battle for the narrative and interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah; for their appropriation either for the middle ground or the extremes; and for their application under conditions of minority or majority – believing firmly that application may change but the Maqasid, the intents, remain unshakeable! Because he applied academic rigour and stood on evidence, he could dispassionately critique Muslims about the management of our own unresolved demons and ambiguities ranging from the ‘other’ to gender to politics to sectarianism. But always as the sensitive and compassionate outsider-insider. 

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But he was also a thorough insider to all things Christian and American. He shared their rituals and celebrations, but he also knew their suppositions and presumptions about Islam and Muslims. The most pernicious of these excused occupation and genocide; gave license and arms to authoritarians; allowed islamophobia to fashion travel bans and unspeakable bigotry, especially after 9.11; and wage a forever war on the Muslim heartlands. All because the theory espoused was one of the modernisation of the Muslim ‘other’– which Esposito vigorously critiqued – because its corollary, secularisation, the stripping of religious sensibility from the Muslim, was not only misplaced, but would invite resentment and blowback, and thus breed the next generation of extremists. All of this made John Esposito dangerous to the empire and the superpower. He was constantly attacked by detractors in the Western conservative ranks for seemingly endorsing our fault lines and for acting as a Trojan horse for bringing Muslim scholars to the USA, where they flourished without the burdens of violent occupation, authoritarian surveillance, and stultifying orthodoxy.

Deservedly, tributes have poured in for John Esposito and messages of condolences for his beloved Jean and their dogs. All of these have fulsomely recognised his contribution to Islam, Muslims, and humanity. These have focused on his writing and his bridge-building. Muslim tributes have cautiously tried to manage the fine line between an instinctive desire to recognise in him one worthy of the highest honour in this world and the next while managing the strictures of soteriology – the theology of salvation – which inhibits us from showering even a fraction of our prayers on those imbued with absolute nobility and impact. Yet the tributes have touched the fine line: Many have invoked the Quranic formula that we originate with Allah and we return to Allah; Anwar Ibrahim describes him as a ‘true friend of the Muslim World’; Arsalan Iftikhar muses that John Esposito ‘… did more for educating the world about Islam than most of our two billion Muslims…”; and Jonathan Brown, who succeeded Esposito at the ACMCU, prays ‘May God grant his soul mercy.’

*Ebrahim Rasool is the Former Ambassador to the USA and Senior Fellow at Georgetown University.

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Islamophobia in South Africa can no longer be dismissed as the work of a few misguided individuals or isolated extremists. 

The evidence points to something far more organised. Anti-Muslim prejudice is being shaped by an ecosystem of media narratives, political opportunism, imported ideological networks and social media disinformation that increasingly defines Muslims as outsiders, regardless of their history, citizenship or contribution to the country.

The recent intervention by South Africa’s Film and Publication Board following the circulation of a grotesque Facebook post depicting the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, in a vile and hateful manner illustrates both the seriousness of the problem and the urgency of confronting it. The Board correctly recognised that the material amounted to advocacy of hatred based on religion and warned that it had the potential to incite harm.

The episode exposed more than one hateful individual. It exposed an environment in which anti-Muslim hatred has become normalised.

That environment was on full display following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet reshuffle, when Yusuf Cassim was appointed Deputy Minister of Higher Education. Within hours, a South African citizen whose family has deep roots in the country was being labelled a foreigner, terrorist, suicide bomber and associated with Boko Haram, Al Qaeda and Hamas simply because he is a young South African of Indian Muslim heritage.

Though Cassim belongs to a political party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), whose policies on Palestine we find reprehensible due to its bias in favour of the settler colonial regime, we find the abuse was not based on facts. It was based on identity.

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The campaign against Cassim demonstrated how quickly political appointments can become vehicles for racial, religious and ethnic scapegoating. What should have been a debate about governance became an attack on whether a Muslim belongs in South Africa at all.

Veteran journalist Max du Preez warned that the intensity of the hatred reflected levels of ethnic and religious bigotry not witnessed since the democratic transition in 1994. 

Absent from much of the public discussion was the fact that Yusuf Cassim is not an immigrant. He is a South African citizen who has participated in the country’s democratic institutions for years. Yet the facts mattered little because the objective was never accuracy. It was a narrative construction.

The architecture of Islamophobia depends precisely on this process. Muslims are first portrayed as perpetual outsiders. Once that perception takes hold, citizenship, history and constitutional rights become secondary to prejudice.

This process did not begin in South Africa.

Following the attacks of September 11, Muslims across the world became associated with extremism, terrorism and violence through relentless media stereotyping. Entire communities were judged through the actions of fringe organisations while the overwhelming majority of Muslims disappeared from public consciousness except when viewed through the prism of security.

These portrayals reflected more than poor journalism.

Israeli-aligned think tanks, lobbying organisations, intelligence networks and politically connected research institutions supplied narratives that were amplified by sections of the media. Anonymous intelligence briefings, speculative research and unverified claims became accepted truths through constant repetition. Those same reports were later cited as evidence to reinforce the original assumptions.

Manufactured consent evolved into manufactured suspicion.

South Africa has not been immune to these influences.

Years ago, sensational reporting claiming widespread ISIS recruitment in South Africa illustrated how irresponsible journalism can reinforce anti-Muslim prejudice. Emotionally loaded language blurred the distinction between criminal organisations and ordinary Muslim communities. The effect was to encourage readers to associate Islam itself with terrorism rather than to understand the complexities of violent extremism.

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The same mechanisms continue today.

During the recent surge in anti-immigrant protests, fuelled by economic hardship, unemployment and failures in border management, Muslim organisations appealed for calm, rejected vigilantism and warned against xenophobia, Afrophobia and Islamophobia. Humanitarian organisations provided emergency assistance to displaced migrants facing threats of violence, consistent with their longstanding charitable obligations.

Yet these humanitarian efforts were immediately recast by nationalist voices as evidence that Muslims were siding with foreigners against South Africans.

The accusation reveals how humanitarian action itself has become politicised.

Muslim organisations were criticised for assisting vulnerable migrants while simultaneously being accused of divided loyalties, foreign influence and hostility towards Black South Africans. Support for refugees was deliberately conflated with support for illegal immigration. Calls for peaceful and lawful responses were reframed as opposition to South African interests.

This narrative serves a broader political purpose.

It redirects legitimate public frustration over unemployment, crime, corruption and ineffective immigration policies away from state failures and towards visible minority communities. Muslims become convenient symbols through which wider anxieties are channelled.

History demonstrates the dangers of such politics.

Apartheid relied upon narratives that identified certain communities as permanent threats requiring exceptional treatment. Different populations were targeted, yet the underlying logic remains unchanged. Social problems are personalised, minorities are blamed, fear is amplified and discrimination is presented as common sense.

The beneficiaries of this process extend well beyond fringe activists. Political opportunists, media platforms driven by outrage, lobbying networks, ideological movements and foreign influence operations all benefit when society becomes polarised along religious and ethnic lines.

Once Muslims are portrayed as outsiders, the definition of who belongs continues to narrow. Today the target may be Muslims. Tomorrow it may be another minority community. The machinery of exclusion rarely confines itself to one group.

South Africa’s constitutional democracy was built upon the rejection of precisely this politics of exclusion.

Confronting Islamophobia, therefore, requires more than prosecuting hate speech after it occurs. It requires exposing the institutions that manufacture prejudice, challenging media narratives that normalise suspicion, scrutinising imported ideological campaigns that inflame division and refusing attempts to weaponise economic hardship against vulnerable communities.

The Film and Publication Board demonstrated that institutions can recognise explicit religious hatred. Equal vigilance is required against the more sophisticated forms of prejudice that operate through political rhetoric, media framing and digital disinformation.

The silence surrounding these deeper forces is not accidental.

It reflects an ecosystem in which prejudice is manufactured, misinformation is legitimised and political interests profit from keeping Muslims under perpetual suspicion.

*Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the Media Review Network.

The post Islamophobia in SA – When manufactured fear becomes political currency appeared first on Al-Qalam.

I have just returned from a three-country African Mission with the Humaniti International Foundation.  Zanzibar was our first stop, where we delivered paediatric cardiology equipment to detect and diagnose heart defects in children, and will now commence with the requisite training for optimal use. In Tanzania’s Mwanza City we visited a facility in which ‘born too soon’ premature babies (some as small as 800 grams) are given a chance at life;  while in war-torn Sudan we inaugurated 10 water distribution points for 5000 Internally Displaced Persons, while caring for orphans whose fathers perished in the war, and starting a process to rebuild the health system for mothers and children.

I provide this travelogue to contextualise, firstly, that I travelled through Africa in the aftermath of perceived xenophobic aggression against other fellow Africans in South Africa, and while Bafana Bafana was playing in the FIFA World Cup in North America.  Secondly, I explain my travels to highlight that much of the paediatric equipment and training provided were funded through a Ramadan Campaign conducted in South Africa by Humaniti, and thus South Africans contributed to such health in Africa.  

The juxtaposition of xenophobic aggression and humanitarian generosity was surprising, if not confusing, for many of the Africans we met:  from high government officials and NGO leaders; to veterans who knew the ANC in Morogoro, Tanzania – and possess memories of children attending a school in Dakawa gifted to Tanzanians by the ANC;  to ordinary citizens in a sports bar in Addis Ababa watching South Africa play in the FIFA World Cup;  to refugees/IDP’s in Port Sudan. 

It was confusing because here was a South African generosity at work – the South Africa many said they know historically – and yet, the images they carried on their devices showed fellow Africans being threatened, given ultimatums, sometimes assaulted, often blamed for South Africa’s problems, caricatured as drug dealers and criminals, and hounded out of communities.  This was expected of Donald Trump and his ICE, not the land of Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela.  What they expected of the inheritors of such great icons was human outrage, principled condemnation, political resolve, and legal protection – not moral equivocation, electoral posturing, and political fragility. 

And so, defeat to Mexico was deemed South Africa’s come-uppance for thinking we’re better than other Africans.  Some celebrated our defeat for forgetting the sacrifices Tanzanians made to accommodate us when white supremacists hounded us out of SA. Others wished our whole nation was red-carded for humiliating fellow Africans. There was little middle ground, but huge disappointment with great resentment. Other than blaming an impending election and the inevitable pack of populist hyenas who sense a feeding frenzy, what could SA have done better as the frenzy unfolded?

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This question made me think back to when I was Premier of the Western Cape and we had the initial sparks by local South Africans against other African Nationals, which by 2008 turned into a national onslaught against fellow Africans.  In 2008, the Western Cape had much displacement of African Nationals, but only one fatality, compared to other areas in South Africa.  What did we do differently?

Firstly, we were determined not to have intelligence failures, whether in picking up early the signs of disquiet and resentment against other Africans, or in identifying the causes, potential hotspots, or critical figures, while maintaining surveillance on all three.  

We convened the intelligence community regularly as an ANC-led Western Cape Cabinet to interpret the dangers in hate speech, the degree of mobilisation, the possibility of orchestration (domestic and foreign), and the probability of hotspots erupting.  The question today is how much of this is being done, with what urgency, is intelligence fed to the relevant Minister, and to what extent has the disquiet been placed before cabinet or the President for proactive defusing or real-time combating? But clearly, there has been intelligence negligence along this chain of command. 

Secondly, we deployed soft power into the hotspots of Masiphumelele, Joe Slovo, and others in Cape Town to obviate the later use of hard power.  We located this soft power into a Unit for Social Cohesion in my office to deal with both intra–South African tensions as well as inter- African ones.  The methods included dialogue to find a common definition of the problems and provocations, dealing with economic rivalry through workshops which shared retail insights and collaboration, managing social harmony by regulating the sale, for example, of RDP houses to foreign nationals. Again, these don’t require elaborate national dialogues – they require political will.

Thirdly, we set up early warning systems through our Bambanani EPWP workers responsible for safety in communities.  These Bambananis alerted us both to the flaring of hate speech as well as to criminality either by South Africans and other Africans, whether drug dealing or scamming, so that the rule of law could deal impartially and decisively with any crimes from any source to prevent the emergence of a culture of impunity. 

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Foreign nationals often follow the latitude in boundaries allowed for South Africans to determine their degree of adherence to, or compliance with, the rule of law.

Fourthly, when we were alerted to ‘xenophobic’ flare-ups, we could deploy law enforcement early to prevent rather than combat; to identify and harness the interim infrastructure for temporary shelter; and to ensure a cooling-off period, behind a law enforcement cordon, before attempting reintegration of communities.  This cooling-off period was also used to attend to ‘agitators’ who exploited the fears and anxieties of ordinary citizens and they were often working for local shopkeepers or taxis who were threatened by the success of other Africans in business. 

Today, we may have to ask more international questions about these hidden hands who have interests in SA being unstable, distracted, and fragmented, given that we are in the crosshairs of powerful forces.

Finally, we remained true to dignity of Africans, and resisted as much as what we could, when the DA-led City of Cape Town created secondary trauma for victims of these attacks and located them on the cold, wet, far-flung beaches of Cape Town, ostensibly for their safety, but certainly at the expense of their dignity and work opportunity. In such cases, ANC leadership had the guts to sit in the sand with fellow Africans as a sign of disagreement with their isolation and solidarity with their plight.

Displaying such moral courage may today be difficult for an ANC electorally besieged and compromised in a GNU. But if we cannot stand on principle in Africa, we accelerate the erosion of our standing in Africa, and we forfeit the trust of even more citizens in SA.  We must learn to apply the rule of law as the only antidote to criminality from whichever source.  Failure to do so enables the populist political hyenas, the unscrupulous businessperson who fails to compete, and ignites a fire that will consume us.

Ebrahim Rasool is the former ambassador to the U.S. and former premier of the Western Cape

The post Xenophobia – An African backlash to a populist feeding frenzy appeared first on Al-Qalam.

As justice-seeking people, we have a responsibility to raise concerns about exploitation, particularly of vulnerable groups, wherever in the world they are. The role of women in the Baloch insurgency has become one of the most contentious and emotionally charged aspects of the conflict in Pakistan’s southwest. While groups such as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and their supporters often present female participation as a symbol of empowerment and resistance, there is a compelling counterargument that deserves closer examination.

In recent years, the emergence of female suicide bombers and women in militant propaganda has been celebrated by some as evidence of women’s agency within the insurgency. Yet critics argue that this narrative obscures a more troubling reality. They contend that the recruitment and deployment of women in militant operations may reflect manipulation and ideological conditioning rather than genuine liberation.

This concern is not without precedent. Across numerous insurgencies and extremist movements globally, women have often been recruited not solely through ideological conviction but through a combination of social pressure and emotional dependency. Security analysts have long observed that militant organisations frequently exploit these vulnerabilities to advance strategic objectives.

Particularly troubling are allegations surrounding the disappearance, after recruitment, of young women from Balochistan. Families have periodically appeared before the media claiming that daughters or female relatives vanished and later surfaced in militant circles. While individual cases remain disputed and difficult to independently verify, the recurring nature of these allegations has fueled growing public concern.

Another issue receiving increased attention is the reported targeting of university students. Critics of the insurgency argue that educational institutions have become important battlegrounds for influence and recruitment. They allege that politically active and intellectually capable young women are especially vulnerable to ideological messaging that frames militancy as a noble cause. Supporters of student activism also argue that political engagement is a legitimate democratic right, but in this context, the coercion and manipulation is unacceptable. Nevertheless, the debate highlights the broader struggle over influence among Baloch youth.

The use of female suicide bombers presents perhaps the strongest challenge to the empowerment narrative. Suicide attacks are designed to maximise political and psychological impact. When women are deployed in such operations, questions inevitably arise about the extent to which coercion and personal agency intersect. To portray these actions simply as acts of liberation risks overlooking the complex mechanisms through which militant organizations recruit and retain followers.

Equally significant are allegations that women associated with militant networks may be exposed to various forms of exploitation and abuse. While many such claims remain contested and require rigorous independent investigation, they point to a broader pattern observed in conflicts around the world: women often bear disproportionate costs in environments dominated by armed actors.

The discussion should not be reduced to a simplistic choice between state and insurgent narratives. Human rights concerns exist on multiple fronts in Balochistan, and allegations against all parties deserve scrutiny. However, it is entirely legitimate to ask whether the glorification of female participation in armed struggle masks deeper questions about vulnerability and exploitation.

Ultimately, the women of Balochistan deserve more than symbolic roles in a protracted conflict. Whether one views the insurgency sympathetically or critically, the objective should be to expand opportunities for education, political representation, and personal security. A society that offers meaningful opportunities to women is likely to be far more empowering than one that celebrates their involvement in violence.

The central question is therefore not whether women can participate in political struggles. It is whether militant organisations are genuinely advancing women’s interests or merely using the language of empowerment to serve broader strategic objectives. That is a question that deserves far greater public debate.

The post Exploitation of women and the cost of the Baloch insurgency appeared first on Al-Qalam.

Muslims and politics is often a vexed topic, maybe because it is often misunderstood. In my recent presentation at The Muslim Association of Canada Convention, I addressed the issue, ranging from socio-political activism to political governance and policymaking, and how Muslims play differential roles across various political scenarios.

Necessarily, the need for Muslims, wherever they are, majority or minority, to understand what politics is, to understand the imperative of power, to ensure that management of power should lead to development, rights, inclusion, and, therefore, the betterment of society. The injunction is Quranic (11:61) in that we are obligated to cultivate the earth on which we dwell and from which we emerge.

But the uneven, even conflictual, understanding of politics in a global Muslim community reflects a fraught relationship with politics. Muslims are largely victims within states that have perfected the art of surveillance, exclusion, and autocracy. Sometimes elections could lead to illiberal outcomes, and yet others face a reality of a minority in ambiguity – embracing political democracy, but often subjected to Islamophobia, demands of secularization and assimilation, and suspected of subversion.

Amidst such mixed experiences of politics, South Africa, because of the favourable political condition Muslims are under, are expected to draw on a 350-year evolution from victims of colonialism, segregation, and apartheid to beneficiaries of democracy, human rights, and freedom, to help navigate such conundrums.

However, to avoid simple replication, it is necessary to frame my analysis by probing the common Arabic or Muslim vocabulary for politics, political participation, political governance, and policy development. Drilling down into the word Siyasa, into the etymology of Siyasa, becomes crucial to reorient the Muslim approach to politics.

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Siyasa emerges from the practice of animal husbandry, managing livestock as the key to food security, and in turn, as the key to securing livelihoods in fragile and sensitive ecosystems. The practice of shepherding livestock as the precondition for the well-being of people thus lends its name to the very notion of politics! And therefore, the political practitioner is akin to the shepherd with the responsibility to carefully manage a sensitive and fragile resource.

Furthermore, previous conversations with Hassan al Turabi, who is, par excellence, a master of Arabic linguistics, deepen this concept of Siyasa. He adds the dimension of rotation and circulation. Livestock do not graze at the same place – they need to be rotated to prevent overgrazing and the depletion of feed. And therefore, if circulation and rotation are germane to Siyasa, then very clearly they should be germane to the socio-economic and political sphere because you require the circulation and the rotation of wealth, and not its monopolization, as well as parties, political leaders, politicians, governments, and those charged with managing the politics and policies of a country, a community, a nation, and a polity.

The next proposition to be made is that there is not a singular, undifferentiated idea of Siyasa, or political governance, and political activism in Islam. It is largely contextual. Siyasa takes a different form and shape, based on different imperatives at play in different contexts. For me, there are four basic contextual scenarios that shape the objectives and practice of Siyasa, all reinforcing the ultimate objective: The well-being of people, the development of society, the assurance of food security, and the development of the community. The 4 scenarios expand on the metaphor of livestock management.

1.     Keep the Wolves Away! The fundamental task of a shepherd is to protect the flock from aggression, imbalance, anything that disrupts the just interaction amongst different elements of the ecosystem. Any greed of the wolves cannot lead to the decimation and insecurity of the livestock. Therefore, when there are threats to the livestock by the wolves, then the responsibility of Siyasa rests on 2 R’s: Resistance, and when the threat is endemic, Revolt, both requiring political activism against injustice, exclusion, autocracy, denial of rights, undue surveillance… through forms of mobilization and organization.

2.     Restock and Sow! The transition from conflict creates the imperative of fundamentally restoring the grazing fields and husbanding the new generations of livestock, after the wolves were fought and hopefully defeated. That means that the R’s of providing Relief and starting the Reconstruction are crucial to meeting the challenge of post conflict stabilization and development as the imperative of Siyasa.

3.     Cultivate the Land! The transition development is the imperative scenario of Siyasa, where restorative justice starts to take shape, and therefore the cultivation of society needs to take place, institutional resilience against the wolves put into place, and the systemic wherewithal for food security and development instituted. The institutions and systems of governance manifest as Siyasa, whether as majority countries or minority communities, where the R’s of securing Rights, ensuring Representation, and assuming Responsibility for development. The character of Siyasa means its ability to respond contextually and, therefore, to manifest as out and out socio-political activism, to transitional management, where new shoots are being sprouted, to making society work through institutionalization of rights and responsibility for development.

4.     Rotate the Shepherd! This fourth scenario emerges out of the third where the institutions and democratic practices are in place. But there may be the need to circulate and rotate the shepherds, as germane to Siyasa. Shepherds have lapses, temptations, are prone to corruption, and can become tone-deaf to the very vulnerable and the very poor. Therefore, there is a need for activism, electoral campaigning, judicial intervention, media investigation, and civil accountability to change the shepherd. The system may not qualify for a revolt or a resistance, but certainly for the R’s – Renewal and Reform.

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For a community alienated from politics, the very origin in the Muslim imagination of politics, in the notion of Siyasa, provides a set of metaphors that allow us to understand that not all politics has the same form. We can err when we misidentify the juncture we’re in; but are we confronting wolves or a tone-deaf shepherd? Must we revolt or reform? Is our justice in a transitional or restorative phase? Each choice has an implication for the way Siyasa is practiced.

*Ebrahim Rasool is the former ambassador to the US and former Premier of the Western Cape

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