SANJAY BALKARAN | Ideals of ‘I Am an African’ under threat

Nearly three decades ago, on May 8 1996, then deputy president Thabo Mbeki rose in the Constitutional Assembly and delivered what would become one of the defining speeches of democratic SA. It was not a speech about race. It was not even fundamentally a speech about politics.

It was a meditation on belonging. With those four words, he sought to weave together the fractured histories of indigenous peoples, settlers, slaves, exiles, freedom fighters and ordinary citizens into a single national story. He spoke of the Khoi and San, victims of conquest; of Malay slaves from the East; of migrants from Europe; and of liberation struggles that stretched across the African continent.

SA, he argued, was not an island. It was a chapter in a larger African narrative. The question today is unsettling but necessary: If Mbeki delivered that speech in 2026, would the audience still applaud?

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Or would some ask whether the African he imagined still exists? Recent months have witnessed renewed calls by various self-styled anti-immigration groups demanding the removal of undocumented migrants. In some communities, reports have emerged of door-to-door inspections, intimidation campaigns, and vigilante-style efforts to identify and expel foreign nationals.

Human rights organisations have raised concerns that such actions increasingly blur the distinction between lawful immigration enforcement and mob violence. Before rushing to moral judgment, however, we should acknowledge an uncomfortable truth.

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