Date: 8 January 2026
For Immediate Release
Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia (KAAX) condemns in the strongest terms the reckless and dangerous statements made by ANC Youth League President, Collen Malatji, in which he threatens to “clean out” communities and “take up arms” against people he labels as “illegal foreign nationals.”
This language is not political rhetoric or legitimate policy debate. It constitutes an explicit incitement to vigilante violence. South Africa’s history demonstrates, with tragic clarity, that phrases such as “clean out” and calls to “take up arms” have repeatedly preceded deadly xenophobic attacks. Such rhetoric directly endangers lives, fuels lawlessness, and undermines the rule of law.
Mr Malatji’s statements are premised on a distorted and exaggerated portrayal of migration. According to the most recent Statistics South Africa data (2023), international migrants constitute approximately 3–5% of South Africa’s population. To blame this relatively small segment of society for a 42.7% youth NEET rate, rising crime, or economic decline is not only factually incorrect, but a deliberate misdiagnosis of South Africa’s deep structural crises.
This scapegoating serves a clear political purpose: to divert public attention from the real and well-documented causes of hardship in South Africa—chronic governance failures, corruption, economic mismanagement, extreme inequality, mass unemployment, and the steady collapse of essential public services.
This rhetoric represents a disturbing revival of apartheid-era “divide and rule” politics. Under apartheid, pass laws, Bantustans, and forced removals were used to categorise people, deny rights, and control Black labour. To resurrect this exclusionary logic under the banner of liberation is a betrayal of our constitutional democracy and of the pan-African solidarity that sustained South Africa’s freedom struggle. As President of the ANC Youth League, Mr Malatji should understand this history—and the grave dangers of weaponising nationality, poverty, and Black working-class desperation for political gain.
The South African Constitution, which Mr Malatji has conveniently disregarded, affirms that dignity, life, and security are guaranteed to everyone who lives and works in South Africa. Immigration governance is a complex legal and administrative responsibility of the state. It is not a mandate for political incitement, mob justice, or vigilantism.
Recent court judgments—including KAAX and Others v Operation Dudula and Others, and TAC and Others v The State and Others—have reaffirmed that political speech loses constitutional protection when it crosses into advocacy of hatred and incitement to violence. The courts have explicitly cautioned against dismissing such statements as merely symbolic, particularly in a society with a documented history of xenophobic violence triggered by similar language. Calls to “clean out” communities or to take up arms raise serious constitutional and criminal law concerns and may attract prosecution under existing legal frameworks. In a country scarred by repeated outbreaks of xenophobic violence, this language is dangerous and cannot be ignored.
KAAX urges the public to recognise this rhetoric for what it is: a cynical and desperate attempt to manufacture enemies and mobilise xenophobic myths in the run-up to local government elections, in order to obscure long-standing corruption and governance failures. It is deeply troubling that the ANC Youth League President is echoing the xenophobic politics of the United States and exclusionary migration practices in parts of Europe—politics that have deepened inequality and social fragmentation rather than resolved them.
Our collective struggle is for accountable leadership and a society grounded in shared humanity, not fear and exclusion.
As South Africa enters a year of local government elections, KAAX calls on progressive forces to mobilise and hold the state accountable for its failures. This includes supporting campaigns for a universal income grant, a wealth tax, and meaningful economic transformation. Young people—who bear the brunt of unemployment and exclusion—must organise to demand accountability from both the state and the private sector.
The state has failed in its constitutional obligation to transform society. Instead of addressing this failure, political leaders are scapegoating the most vulnerable, criminalising poverty, and criminalising the movement of predominantly Black African people.
Xenophobia is a sign of political bankruptcy, not a solution to it.
End
Issued by:
Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia (KAAX)
For media enquiries:
Mike Ndlovu
+27 68 552 2510
media@kaax org.za
