---
title: "Mcebisi Jonas: Non-state actors’ hand in Afrophobia reveals deep governance failures"
description: "By fomenting violence towards our fellow Africans, non-state actors are dictating terms to a South African government that lacks courage or direction, former deputy finance minister and president’s special envoy, Mcebisi Jonas, has said, rebuking the state. He was addressing a packed room at the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation’s annual Winter Seminar, “Dialogue Among Equals”."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "‘POLITICS OF FEAR’"
author: "Diana Neille"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/diananeille/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-07-23-mcebisi-jonas-non-state-actors-hand-in-afrophobia-reveals-deep-governance-failures/"
published: "2026-07-23T21:47:33"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 695
---

# Mcebisi Jonas: Non-state actors’ hand in Afrophobia reveals deep governance failures

> By fomenting violence towards our fellow Africans, non-state actors are dictating terms to a South African government that lacks courage or direction, former deputy finance minister and president’s special envoy, Mcebisi Jonas, has said, rebuking the state. He was addressing a packed room at the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation’s annual Winter Seminar, “Dialogue Among Equals”.

By Diana Neille · Published 23 July 2026, 23:47 SAST

## Key points
- Mcebisi Jonas condemns the role of non-state actors in fuelling Afrophobia in SA, criticising the government’s weak response.
- He warns that the country has become a global pariah due to rising anti-immigrant violence, exacerbated by the June 30 deadline imposed by hate groups.
- Jonas emphasises that South Africa’s broader issues stem from governance failures, not migration, urging a redefined politics of inclusion.
- At the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation’s Winter Seminar, he calls for courage to confront fear-based politics that threaten social cohesion and democratic ideals.

## Content

In the weeks following the unprecedented and illegal June 30 deadline imposed by reportedly [foreign-funded hate groups](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-06-15-foreigners-first-ngos-next-the-buried-demand-inside-a-viral-constitutional-campaign/) like March and March, the afrophobia that South Africa has become a global pariah for has simmered on.

It was the urgent topic of this year’s Winter Seminar, organised by former president Kgalema Motlanthe’s foundation, titled “Dialogue Among Equals”. The event on Thursday, 23 July 2026 in Sandton, Johannesburg, was massively oversubscribed, indicating the level of interest in what SA’s leaders – Department of International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola, former deputy finance minister and president’s special envoy Mcebisi Jonas, Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi and Motlanthe among them – had to say in response.

“That the whole country, the whole state machinery, even the whole fiscal structure of government was redirected because a couple of populist non-state actors demanded that 30 June should be the deadline for foreigners \[to leave the country\], says something about the state of the state,” Jonas said.

On 22 June, Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia [announced that his department would redirect R600-million in state resources](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-06-22-saps-launches-r600m-operation-to-counter-anti-immigrant-unrest-ahead-of-30-june-deadline/) to countering anti-immigrant unrest in and around the false flag operation carried out nationally by the hate group, March and March.

### Violent incidents

By that time, several migrants had been killed and injured in afrophobic attacks, and many so-called foreign-owned businesses had been targeted. Over the following weeks, hundreds more violent incidents were reported, as mobs marched in townships and peri-urban areas across the country, in some cases moving door to door, harassing and displacing families.

“Citizens of a sovereign nation are entitled to expect that borders will be managed competently and fairly,” said Jonas. “\[But\] the deterioration of parts of our cities, the collapse of public services, persistent unemployment and an economy that has failed to generate enough opportunities are the result of policy failures accumulated over many years. They were not created by migrants. SA’s economic crisis is the product of weak growth, poor governance, inadequate education outcomes, infrastructure failures and structural inequality. If every foreign national left the country tomorrow, those problems would remain. In many respects they would become worse.”

He quoted the Hungarian academic Frank Furedi, who popularised the phrase the “politics of fear”, and its purpose of weakening social trust.

“When people see others primarily as threats – whether criminals, extremists, foreigners, disease carriers or sources of offence – social solidarity declines. The result has been a profound turn toward identity politics, in which tribe, religion, race, language and birthplace have become the boundaries of belonging. It is a politics that sorts people into competing camps of insiders and outsiders, and in so doing redefines the nation and challenges democratic ideals of diversity, inclusiveness and egalitarian societies,” said Jonas.

We must reinvent not only an economics of inclusion, but a politics of inclusion and a democracy strong enough to defeat those who traffic in anger and fragmentation. That is the SA our children deserve. That is the Africa we all deserve, and that is the future we must have the courage to build.

“Without courage, we will go down,” he said.

The Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation Winter Seminar has become a popular forum for dialogue about SA and Africa’s most pressing issues.

Speakers railed against the notion that belonging should be determined by tribe or birthplace.

“In SA we need to be alert to the dangers of a politics of ethnic and group division, when political identity is bound up with economic aspirations,” said Jonas.

### **Malign outside networks of funders**

“We are witnessing the operation of malign outside networks of funders, organisers and social media operators of bot farms. They bus protesters across provinces. They amplify outrage online. They manufacture narratives designed to pit neighbours against neighbours, communities against communities, and countries against countries.”

It was an indication that foreign intelligence agencies were becoming the most important authors of national histories, Jonas said.

“We do not know whether their agenda is to boost the prospects of local political groups, or just to destabilise SA and isolate us from our neighbours.

“What we can say is that these attempts to direct the blame for SA’s problems at foreign nationals are fundamentally mistaken.” **DM**