The News
CAPE TOWN — Beauty pageant contestant Chidimma Adetshina officially withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition on Thursday 48 hours ahead of the event following a storm of controversy and public outcry questioning her citizenship.
Ever since the 23-year-old law student announced her spot in the contest in May, she has been the victim of brutal cyberbullying and xenophobic abuse, with online trolls saying she is “not South African enough” to compete.
Adetshina was born in Soweto, Johannesburg’s historic township. She had previously said that her father is Nigerian and that her mother is South African with Mozambican roots. South African law states that citizenship can be acquired if you are born in the country and at least one of your parents is a citizen or permanent resident.
The trolls zeroed in on her Nigerian heritage, but it is the dispute over her mother’s nationality that was the final straw. In response to a request from the competition organizers, a home affairs ministry investigation found early evidence that Adetshina’s mother have committed fraud and identity theft in 2001. It suggested that she might not be a South African citizen.
Marché’s view
The wave of vitriol directed at Adetshina highlights a very particular type of bigotry in South Africa: Afrophobia.
The furor began long before the investigation into her mother. It really grew legs after a video of Adetshina celebrating her spot in the finals with her Nigerian family members went viral.
Nigerian nationals living in South Africa have long been used as scapegoats by local politicians to whitewash their own failures. The prevailing myth propagated by several right-wing parties is that Nigerians are drug peddlers bringing crime into the country.
This dangerous rhetoric has led to waves of xenophobic attacks, most notably in 2008 where violence was perpetrated against African migrants countrywide. Since the dawn of democracy in 1994, these hostilities have led to the displacement of over 100,000 people and the deaths of several hundreds according to Xenowatch.
Three decades since the birth of the so-called “Rainbow Nation” and some leaders in the Government of National Unity (GNU) continue to proliferate Afrophobic messaging.
Minority parties like the Patriotic Alliance (PA) and ActionSA (holding nine and six parliamentary seats respectively) ran election campaigns on an anti-immigration ticket and the PA specifically promised mass deportations if voted into power.
These parties, that once existed on the fringes of South African politics, are conservative and populist in both ideology and practice. They have track records of weaponizing poverty and the legitimate struggles of millions of the country’s citizens to fuel their rise to power.
The fact that unabashed bigots now hold decision-making power within the GNU is scary and could, in all likelihood, exacerbate a scourge that has the country in a chokehold.
The Miss South Africa fiasco is not about the law. It is about the deep-seated contempt for African foreign nationals and the politicians using it to their advantage.
The View From NIGERIA
There’s been an outpouring of anger on Nigerian social media at the treatment of Chidimma Adetshina. It’s an especially sensitive topic because there have been multiple reports of xenophobic attacks and discrimination against Nigerians in South Africa for many years now.
In response to the news of her withdrawal from the Miss South Africa pageant the organizers of the Miss Universe Nigeria invited her to participate in their competition. “This is an opportunity to represent your father’s native land on an international stage, and we believe you would be an outstanding contender,” said national director Guy Murray-Bruce in a statement.
