MICHAEL MORRIS: Rational leadership needed, not semantic perversion - Business Day

Michael Morris 
Thoughtful South Africans will have recognised last week’s masterclass in mythmaking, which contrived to show foreigners poisoning our children to death, as nothing less than evil deception.

Reliably, sport, arts & culture minister Gayton McKenzie seemed comfortable shrugging off any pretence of responsibility by impulsively recommending that we stop the discussion, close “all these shops” and arrest all of the owners pursuant to their summary deportation. “What more do we want to see?” he asked in a post on X. “More children dying?” 

There is nothing more disquieting than a politician who says just how he wants to get things done. And, no, minister, we don’t want to see more children dying — what we want is rational leadership supplanting recklessness.   

It’s not − it is never − just words. In a rare appreciation of the force of language, French philosopher Simone Weil observed poignantly in the troubled 1930s: “To clarify thought, to discredit the intrinsically meaningless words, and to define the use of others by precise analysis − to do this, strange though it may appear, might be a way of saving human lives.” 

It may not always be true, but I would guess that more often than not unchecked semantic perversion precedes atrocity. Some may dismiss McKenzie as being merely misguided in his customary — one might even say likeable — rambunctiousness. 

However, the truly dark arts of hidden persuasion in this affair are to be found in the chilling mythmaking that preceded McKenzie’s social media posts — worse, arguably, for having come from the very department we pay to be preoccupied with the public’s wellbeing. I am referring to the remarkable statement by health minister Aaron Motsoaledi on Sunday, October 20.

It began: “In the past few weeks SA has been bedevilled by a strange phenomenon of a spate of food-related sudden illnesses and deaths, especially in schools. Those affected have concluded that these ailments are a result of food poisoning emanating from food stuff, particularly snacks, sold by foreign-owned spaza shops.

“This has become the generally held view in the country, which prompted some people to take action based on this belief and understanding. These increasing incidents in black communities have led to an unfortunate and unsubstantiated perception that authorities are turning a blind eye to this crisis and seem not to care about what’s happening to the citizens.” 

In a little over 100 words the health ministry leads us from the somewhat mysterious conception of a country “bedevilled by a strange phenomenon” to “an unfortunate and unsubstantiated perception” not that foreigners might be unjustly targeted in yet another tragic and unfounded round of xenophobia, but that — heaven forbid — the “authorities are turning a blind eye ... and seem not to care”. 

Two things stand out. Getting to the bottom of tragic deaths — whether by poisoning from contaminated food sold by one or another shop, or infection from, say, toxic water emanating from chronically compromised infrastructure — calls for scientific expertise deployed by a state that really does care.

The other, beyond the unconscionable implication that foreignness in our midst is the real contamination, is that the whole procedure of governance and policy-making based on a rational assessment of facts is swept aside in favour of the expedient of ascribing a “strange phenomenon” to a “generally held” truth.

In McKenzie’s second post on X, the whole disgusting proposition is brought into perfect unity: “We as government should act and act fast before people wrongfully take law into own hands. What do we owe these illegal foreigners? Let them go.” 

• Morris is head of media at the SA Institute of Race Relations.

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2024-10-28-michael-morris-rational-leadership-needed-not-semantic-perversion/