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This afternoon the Democratic Alliance (DA) stooped to a new low in releasing an SMS broadly which sought to manipulate the pain of the recent events in Diepsloot.

The wording of the SMS can be read below:

“Populists like Mashaba are fanning flames of xenophobia, which could lead to a repeat of last year’s riots & chaos.”

The DA’s willingness to use the pain of the recent violence in Diepsloot and combine it with the excruciating memory that lingers with South Africans of the July unrest last year, only serves to demonstrate how tone-deaf the DA has become in repeating their ‘Phoenix Poster’ mistake.

It appears that the pain experienced by South Africans, especially those living in communities like Diepsloot where tensions from illegal immigration runs high, is nothing more than political fodder for the DA who has abandoned representing these communities.

This SMS is designed to do nothing more than invoke fear into what is left of the DA’s suburban support base by triggering the memory of a terrible time in our country where people lived in real fear. It is a demonstration of the DA’s increasing irrelevance in South Africa and their efforts to scare people to support them for lack of any other reason,

ActionSA is deeply committed to the rule of law, and we are not selective in our approach to which laws must be implemented in out country. We are on record calling for South Africans to not take the law into their own hands and to direct their anger at a failing ANC national government. We stand in solidarity with the victims of violence irrespective of the nationality of the perpetrators or the victims.

ActionSA has a clear policy position on immigration that has been stated many times on record. We want the people of the world to come to South Africa but, in accordance with the Immigration Act, they must come here legally and, once here, obey our laws. This position is consistent with every self-respecting country in the world.

We call upon all South Africans to reject the DA’s tone-deaf politicking on the real pain and tragedy that has unfolded in Diepsloot and to try and re-create the fear that terrorised South Africans during the July unrest of last year.

In times of difficulty, we need political parties that present solutions and that call for calm, not parties that want to control the behaviour of South Africans by manipulating their fears.

I call upon John Steenhuisen to issue a public apology for this SMS, not to ActionSA, but to those who are hurt by the painful memories the DA has shamelessly sought to capitalise on.

Issued by ActionSA