Gayton McKenzie speaks to The Citizen at Sandton in Johannesburg, 8 May 2023. Picture: Nigel Sibanda
The Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Gayton McKenzie, has encouraged South Africans to “find the Mandela” in them and to embrace forgiveness and equality.
The new minister reflected on his own personal connection to former president and global icon Nelson Mandela during the Nelson Mandela Memorial Lecture and Dialogue at Freedom Park Heritage Site and Museum in Pretoria on Wednesday afternoon.
“People have forgiven me because Nelson Mandela taught us forgiveness. I am the product of the kindness of strangers. I am what I am because there was a man who lived called Nelson Mandela,” McKenzie said.
He encouraged citizens to find Mandela in themselves because “we have failed Nelson Mandela.”
The minister said this because there are young people who call him a sellout.
“The word sellout and the word Nelson Mandela do not belong in one sentence. We have failed Nelson Mandela,” he said.
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McKenzie criticised the current state of South Africa, citing the unequal treatment of black, coloured, and Indian people.
He added that there are racist people in all racial demographics in South Africa, but each race should not be judged for the worst of them.
“We need to look in the mirror and fix it. We should not avoid the national question. We are one people. We fought one struggle. We went to one prison. We are the children of Mandela, and you cannot bring Mandela’s name into disrepute,” the minister said.
McKenzie addressed the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), asking him about removing the Afrikaans stanza of the national anthem, Die Stem, during his department’s budget vote in Parliament earlier this month.
McKenzie said he had to “dig deep to find the Mandela” in him to respond and reaffirmed that he has no intention of removing it.
“I said to them, I’m very proud of Die Stem, because it’s a testament to where we were and where we are today,” the minister said.
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The minister also spoke about how he was initially disappointed to be appointed Sports, Arts, and Culture Minister by President Cyril Ramaphosa in the government of national unity (GNU), but he now loves his portfolio because social cohesion is a part of it.
He used how beloved the Springboks are to the country as an example of how sport can be a nation-builder.
While addressing being called a xenophobe for his stance on foreign nationals, McKensie told a story about a Zimbabwean woman he sat next to on an airplane from Cape Town to Johannesburg.
The minister said the woman told him that she was scared of him because he hates foreign nationals.
“I explained to the lady that I am not xenophobic, but every country has laws that need to be followed, because when you kill somebody here, we want to be able to find you, but if you are undocumented, we will not be able to find you,” he said.
He added that there are other people who use illegal foreign nationals to remove the gains of freedom fighters because they exploit them for cheap labour.
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“They still want back the K-word mentality that they can lord over people with a darker colour than them. Hence, they act like they care for these foreigners, but they don’t. They are using them because they want to lord over them the way they lorded over us before we were released from the bondage of apartheid,” the minister said.
McKenzie also told the story of Ramaphosa inviting him to stand in for him at an event in France.
He said he was invited to big events that other ministers from other countries weren’t invited to, and it made him feel important.
“I realised that it has to do with the GNU. The presidents of other countries were curious about the GNU, and that is why they invited me,” he said while laughing.
The minister also hit back at EFF leader Julius Malema’s assertions that the GNU will not last. He said it will last the next five years.
“The GNU is going to last for the next five years, and we run the risk of loving this GNU so much that they give us another five years of GNU.”
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