SA’s Chinese-born MP: how surface-level xenophobia detracts from deeper concerns

Aah! Good old xenophobia!

That dwelling discontent in our country is strangely weaponised and manifests in obscure ways.

Look, it’s not every day you see an Asian lady in a doek, but far be it from me to cry out an accusation of cultural appropriation. That didn’t seem to be the thing upsetting many people in the zeitgeist at the accouchement of Xiaomei Havard’s appointment to serve as a member of Parliament (MP).

No, what was the real rain on their braai was that a Chinese-born, yet naturalised South African citizen, took a position that could have been held by one of the countless unemployed South Africans who are sitting with a BA politics degree.

Of course, the ANC had to defend their decision but in so doing may have pulled the doek over our eyes. By framing the issue as one of non-racialism and non-sexism, the ANC have conveniently not been compelled to discuss how she was on a list of candidates subject to the integrity committee’s findings on “corruption, management and other acts of misconduct”.

It’s frighteningly easy to divert attention from legitimate concerns when you can lump them into a singular concern and dismiss it as sexism/racism/xenophobia (take your pick) and subsequently allow free-range “politricking”.

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It’s becoming commonplace in politics nationally – but also internationally – this deflection to obscure scarier stuff.

More recently, Herman Mashaba’s call to confiscate Jacob Zuma’s passport was met by anger because, in part, he’s not spoken out against FW de Klerk. Those criticising Mashaba have effectively declared him a honorary white.

Yet this argument, while designed to shut Mashaba up, does not detract from the legitimacy of his concern. What it does do is disarm his ability to criticise to the point that even if Zuma were to skip the country, Mashaba wouldn’t even have an “I told you so” card to play, because nobody was questioning his criticism, they were going after his “right” to make it.

With the focus on Havard being a matter of whether Chinese-born people should be allowed to hold office, there can be little conversation on Havard as an individual, her strong ties to Chinese business, what influence she may have in driving policy through parliamentary committees, and what she’s likely to do with that influence.

Of course the influence factor is one that is philosophically important to Parliament, otherwise they wouldn’t have regulated international investment in political parties through the Political Party Funding Act.

I have no reservations on a nationalised, yet foreign-born, citizen holding office in South Africa. I actually welcome it in a country that preaches diversity.

Sure, we’re still a long way away from the likes of the Canadian cabinet, but if Arnold Schwarzenegger could be the governor of California after being a lukewarm, hardly present Republican, I think it’s fair that a person who has been active in the ANC since 2004 could be a candidate to represent them in Parliament.

2004 was so long ago that it predated 2008, when Chinese were declared to be reclassified as “black” for the purposes of black economic empowerment (BEE). Remember that? Sure there are caveats, as if anybody checks, but I digress.

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Yes, there are international economic threats coming to South Africa, from all angles. China is merely one of them.

Being upset that a Chinese person is in Parliament is akin to being having your blue-eyed spouse cheat on you and then hating all blue-eyed people. However, having a Chinese person in Parliament with strong ties to Chinese business could be as frightening as having a foreign-born person from any nation with strong business ties to that nation as an MP.

While the hatred towards a person because of their birthplace and ethnicity is unfounded, one should guard against allowing the use of that to delegitimise otherwise very legitimate questions.

What the outcry over Harvard has shown us is that many South Africans don’t really care about parliamentary structures and how they operate; rather, like many other institutions, it’s seen as a jobs programme. That absolutely cannot be the case.

Havard has every right to be an MP and that should not be questioned. What should be questioned is whether the debate on her right to be an MP impedes on our abilities to ask difficult and taboo questions.

Such is the shut out and distracting nature of South African political discourse. But what else can you expect from a country which hasn’t held a presidential debate since 1994?

Richard Anthony Chemaly. Entertainment attorney, radio broadcaster and lecturer of communication ethics.

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