Every generation faces at least one defining, unavoidable question that shapes its legacy. Some generations have been called to defend freedom against tyranny. Others have been challenged to dismantle systems of racial oppression, root out systemic corruption, or push back against authoritarian rule. For our generation, the author argues, the question that may define our collective legacy is both simpler and far more unsettling: when African people are targeted for violence by their fellow Africans, who will stand up for the core principles of civilization?
The columnist clarifies a critical distinction upfront: this is not a debate about defending illegal immigration, nor is it a defense of governments that fail to enforce their own national laws. Instead, the core question centers on upholding one fundamental principle: no grievance, no matter how legitimate it may be, gives ordinary citizens the right to appoint themselves as police, prosecutors, judges, and executioners. This distinction, he emphasizes, is a matter of survival for functional societies. Societies do not typically collapse because they cannot tell right from wrong; they collapse when they lose the ability to distinguish between different degrees and types of wrong. Today, South Africa finds itself at exactly this dangerous crossroads.
Across multiple regions of the country, organized groups have taken it upon themselves to target, intimidate, attack, and displace migrants from other African nations. Local migrant-owned businesses have been looted, hundreds of migrant families have fled their homes, and a pervasive culture of fear has settled into communities that once stood as a global symbol of reconciliation overcoming deep-seated racial hatred. As expected, public discourse around the crisis has split sharply into two polarized camps.
On one side, activists and commentators argue that unregulated illegal immigration has reached an intolerable level, outlining a long list of social and economic harms linked to unmanaged migration and highlighting the South African government’s long-standing failure to address the issue. On the opposing side, critics of the violence condemn the attacks and call for expanded legal protections for all migrants, grounding their arguments in shared humanity and the lessons of South Africa’s painful history of exclusion. The author notes that both sides hold partial truth, but neither offers a complete, nuanced picture of the crisis. A mature, functional society must be capable of holding two separate, equally important truths at the same time.
The first truth is that every sovereign nation holds both the right and the inherent responsibility to control its own borders. No functional democracy can operate without clear, enforced immigration laws. One of the core attributes of national sovereignty is the ability of a state to decide who may enter its territory, who may work within its borders, and who is eligible for legal residence. South Africa holds this right, just as Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, the United Kingdom, and the United States all exercise this right routinely. The author points out a key hypocrisy: those who loudly defend strict border enforcement in Europe and North America cannot suddenly claim that borders are inherently unethical when the nation enforcing them is an African country. Regulating entry and residence is not xenophobia or extreme nationalism. It is the basic work of governance.
But there is a second truth that demands equal recognition: no democracy worthy of the name can allow armed mobs to take over the core functions of the state. The moment immigration enforcement shifts from formal public institutions to self-appointed vigilante groups, society crosses a critical, dangerous threshold. When this shift happens, the rule of law gives way to personal vengeance, national citizenship gives way to tribal identity, and open, impartial justice gives way to widespread suspicion. At that point, the foundational project of civilization begins to unravel.
This is why the current crisis in South Africa is not, at its core, an immigration crisis. It is a crisis of governance. Illegal immigration did not organize the violent mobs. It did not grant them legal or moral authority to attack other people. That failure stems from a different source: the collapse of core state responsibilities. One of the oldest, most fundamental duties of any government is to maintain a legal monopoly on the legitimate use of force within its borders. The state exists specifically to prevent private citizens from taking public law into their own hands. When a government abandons this core responsibility, an power vacuum emerges, and bad actors inevitably step in to fill it. That vacuum can be filled by organized crime, by unofficial militias, or by vigilante groups that cloak their violence in patriotic language.
History offers a clear warning: the slide from vigilantism to outright barbarism is remarkably short. Every lynch mob in history has claimed it was carrying out justice. Every pogrom against a marginalized group has justified itself as a necessary measure to protect the broader community. Every campaign of collective violence has found language to frame its actions as righteous. As the Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka has observed, the words used to justify violence change over time, but the dangerous logic behind it almost never does.
Of all nations, South Africa should understand this reality better than most. Its own history makes clear that the dehumanization of a group does not begin with mass murder. It begins with classification: neighbors are rebranded as “foreigners,” individual human beings are reduced to a collective “problem,” and once empathy is stripped away, violence becomes far easier to justify. This is why the stakes of the current moment extend far beyond immigration policy. The real question facing South Africa today is whether the rule of law still matters.
One of civilization’s greatest achievements was the gradual shift from resolving disputes through mob violence to resolving them through formal, impartial institutions. That ancient shift replaced vengeance with formal courts, private armies with professional police forces, tribal retaliation with constitutional law, and mob rule with democratic governance. It is easy to underestimate how profound that change was: it was not merely an administrative adjustment, but a moral revolution that took centuries to achieve.
Every time a society allows organized groups of private citizens to take the law into their own hands, it chips away at that centuries-long progress. Many argue that desperate people turn to vigilantism because the government has failed to deliver on its promises. That observation is understandable, but it is also deeply dangerous. If we accept that government failure is sufficient justification for private violence, no democracy anywhere in the world can remain safe. The solution to weak, ineffective government cannot be the total elimination of government. The only legitimate path forward is to demand better, more accountable governance.
Nothing should worry South Africans more than the growing public perception that organized violence can proceed with impunity, while the officials entrusted with maintaining public order appear hesitant, overwhelmed, or entirely absent. Another critical point is often overlooked: the authority of a democratic state does not disappear in one sudden, dramatic event. It erodes slowly, through a consistent, undramatic sequence. First, citizens lose trust in state institutions. Then, they stop waiting for institutions to act. Finally, they replace those institutions with informal, unaccountable groups of their own. That is the real danger facing South Africa today.
The danger is not only that thousands of migrant people now live in fear for their lives. It is also that ordinary South African citizens may gradually come to believe that political legitimacy comes not from the rule of law, but from the size of a crowd; that order and justice come not from a national constitution, but from mob power. History has shown us again and again where that path leads. It never leads to a good outcome.
Thousands of kilometers away from South Africa, one of Africa’s most globally recognizable and influential figures is watching these events unfold from a distance, shaped by his own experiences growing up in South Africa’s struggle against apartheid. His greatest contribution to the world has never been wealth or political office. It has been a far more powerful gift: the rare ability to help millions of people see difficult, uncomfortable truths with clarity, wisdom, wit, and shared humanity.
In the upcoming continuation of this column, the author will address this figure directly. This is not because one single person can solve South Africa’s deep-rooted crisis. It is because moments of crisis like this remind us that public influence is not merely a personal privilege. It is a profound responsibility. And there are times when remaining silent makes you part of the problem. This column will be continued in a subsequent publication.