In 1988, as international pressure against apartheid rose to a crescendo, South Africa’s then State President Pieter Willem Botha allegedly said that Black Africans were incapable of governing themselves.
The statement, which was widely circulated but never verified in an official transcript, was blunt: “Black people cannot rule themselves because they don’t have the brain and mental capacity to govern a society. Give them guns, they will kill themselves. Give them power, they will steal all the government money. Give them independence and democracy, they will use it to promote tribalism, ethnicity, bigotry, hatred, killings and wars.” A longer version of an alleged 1985 speech described Black people as “a symbol of poverty, mental inferiority, laziness and emotional incompetence.”
Botha was the architect of “reform apartheid”, a policy that relaxed some racial restrictions and entrenched white minority rule.
He allowed interracial marriage, loosened the Group Areas Act and gave limited political rights to Coloured and Indian South Africans. But he drew the line at black majority rule, refusing to negotiate with the African National Congress or free Nelson Mandela for most of his tenure. His words, whether authentic or not, were the ideological essence of apartheid: that white minority rule was a must because Black Africans were incapable of self-rule.
That claim has re-emerged in public discourse more than three decades after the end of apartheid and the establishment of democracy in South Africa—not from white supremacists but from some Africans responding to a painful reality: the periodic eruption of xenophobic violence against fellow Africans in South Africa.
Since 2008, South Africa has experienced successive waves of attacks on African migrants. Shops owned by Nigerians, Somalis, Zimbabweans and Mozambicans looted and burned. Foreign nationals have been beaten, killed and displaced from townships. Hundreds had to flee as mobs targeted foreign-owned businesses in Johannesburg and Pretoria in September 2019. Similar violence erupted in Durban and Gauteng in 2021 and again in 2023, often justified by perpetrators as a response to unemployment and crime.
The victims are not Europeans and Asians. They are Africans, compatriots of the African Union, compatriots of the African Continental Free Trade Area, compatriots of a continent that preaches Pan-Africanism. The bitterness is bitter. It is the country that suffered decades of racial exclusion itself that now sees parts of its population excluding other Black Africans in similar ways.
This is the context in which Botha’s alleged statement is being remembered. Some commentators argue that the attacks are more than mere criminal acts. They are seen as symptoms of a deeper dysfunction, a failure of governance, social cohesion and civic responsibility that extends beyond South Africa’s borders, and into the broader African experience.
Africa is the world’s youngest continent, with 60 percent of its population under the age of 25. It is also the richest in natural resources, with 30 percent of the world’s mineral reserves and 65 percent of its arable land. Yet it remains the least developed continent on almost every index, from GDP per capita to healthcare, education and infrastructure.
It’s complicated and has to do with history. Colonialism destroyed local systems of governance, drew borders that had no basis in reality, and set up economies intended solely for the benefit of Europe. Many African states inherited weak institutions at independence, and were immediately faced with Cold War proxy conflicts, debt burdens, and the challenge of nation-building across diverse ethnic groups.
The result has been a pattern of instability: civil wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Sudan. Military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Guinea. Election rigging, corruption, and poor rule of law in many countries. Banditry and insurgency in Sahel and North-East Nigeria. These are not theoretical problems. They have consequences, on economic development, on migration, and on how Africans are perceived at home and abroad.
South Africa has not been spared. It has a highly developed infrastructure and democratic institutions, but suffers from inequality, unemployment above 30 percent and high violent crime rates. In this environment, foreigners often become scapegoats. They are blamed for taking jobs, running illegal businesses without permits and fuelling crime. The story is well known: when institutions cannot provide economic opportunity, the blame is cast on the outsider.
Botha’s argument, and the uncomfortable question it raises today, is about institutions at its core. Governance is not only about elections. It is about creating systems that protect property rights, enforce contracts, provide public goods and services, and hold leaders accountable. It is about a culture where the rule of law transcends tribal loyalty, where constitutional authority is respected and where citizens feel safe and included.
Those institutions remain weak in many African countries. Courts are slow, or compromised. Police are underfunded and often viewed as predatory. Civil Service is politicised. Corruption is ubiquitous. “Where the state fails to provide security and economic opportunity, informal power structures, ethnic militias, vigilante groups, and criminal gangs will step into the breach.
South Africa’s xenophobic attacks show the same deficit. The state has been slow to bring the perpetrators to justice. And at times political leaders have used anti-foreigner rhetoric for political gain. Communities don’t feel law enforcement is protecting them, and they take justice into their own hands. This results in a breakdown of social order that is analogous to the instability seen elsewhere on the continent.
To ask this question is not to endorse Botha’s racism. His worldview was one of white supremacy, of domination by any means necessary. History has proved him wrong in the most basic sense: Black Africans have ruled themselves since independence, creating nations, universities, businesses, and cultural institutions. Botswana, Rwanda, Ghana and Mauritius have demonstrated that it is possible to have stable governance and economic growth in an African setting.
But it is also true that self-government has not brought the prosperity and unity that the early independence leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere and Patrice Lumumba envisaged. Instead, many African states are caught in cycles of conflict and underdevelopment. The African Union’s Agenda 2063 talks of a “peaceful and prosperous Africa,” but the reality on the ground is often different.
South Africa’s xenophobic attacks spark a tough discussion. And if Africans can’t protect other Africans in their own countries, what does that say of the project of African unity? If economic competition among Africans results in violence instead of cooperation, how can the continent achieve meaningful integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area?
Botha’s statement was intended to deny Africans agency. The right response is not to embrace it, but to confront the failures that lend it superficial resonance. That means African governments need to do more to strengthen institutions, protect migrants and address the economic grievances that fuel xenophobia. It means civil society has to challenge hate speech and promote a culture of tolerance. It means citizens must hold leaders accountable for providing governance that works.
It means too, resisting the temptation to generalize. The attacks in South Africa do not reflect the views of all South Africans. Many South Africans condemned the violence, offered shelter to foreign nationals and called for solidarity. In the same way, not all of Africa’s 54 countries are plagued by governance problems. There are islands of stability and progress which offer a counter-narrative.
The real danger is silence, a refusal to acknowledge that something is broken. Africa cannot afford to normalize dysfunction or dismiss criticism as neo-colonialism. With self-determination comes responsibility: the responsibility to build societies that are just, safe and prosperous for all who live within them, regardless of nationality.
Pieter Willem Botha’s words were biased and aimed at continuing oppression. They should be thrown out as a rationale for racial exclusion. But the recurring xenophobic violence in South Africa, and the wider governance challenges across the continent, require some honest reflection.
The path forward lies not in proving Botha right, but in proving him wrong with action. That means building institutions that work, economies that create opportunity, and societies that uphold the dignity of every person, African or otherwise. Until then, the question of Africa’s ability to govern itself will remain open, not because of race, but because of the work of state-building that remains to be done.
Africa’s renaissance will not be achieved by ignoring its problems. It will come from confronting them, learning from them, and vowing to do better. That is the only answer befitting the future of the continent.
