Mbalula’s Human Rights Hypocrisy

African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General Fikile Mbalula has published an editorial in ANC Today, the party’s weekly newsletter used to communicate its political views and policy positions, in which he argued that South Africans should use this year’s commemoration of the Sharpeville massacre to recommit themselves to the defence of democracy, human dignity, and the country’s constitutional sovereignty.

In the editorial, titled “Defending Our Sovereignty and Democratic Gains”, he invokes the memory of the Sharpeville massacre (the 66th anniversary of that event will be commemorated later this month).

He said, “Human Rights Month draws its historic significance from the tragic events of 21 March 1960 in Sharpeville, when apartheid police opened fire on peaceful protesters opposing the unjust pass laws of the apartheid regime. The blood of those who fell in Sharpeville became a turning point in the struggle for freedom, justice and human dignity in our country.”

He added, “Across the country, communities in various provinces will gather in solidarity to celebrate our democratic achievements and reaffirm the values of justice, equality, human dignity, constitutionalism, and national sovereignty.”

The Sharpeville massacre refers to the events of 21 March 1960 in the township of Sharpeville, in the Vaal Triangle south of Johannesburg. On that morning a large crowd gathered outside the local police station to protest the apartheid government’s pass laws, which forced black South Africans to carry documents controlling where they could live and work. The protest formed part of a campaign of mass civil disobedience intended to challenge the pass system by presenting people without passes for arrest. Instead, the confrontation ended in tragedy. Police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69 people and wounding more than 180 others, many of them shot as they fled. The killings sent shockwaves through South Africa and the world and became one of the defining symbols of apartheid repression, helping to intensify both domestic resistance and international opposition to the regime.

It should be noted that the protest that day was organised by the Pan Africanist Congress under Robert Sobukwe, not the ANC.

Standing on its own, the sentiment expressed in Mbalula’s editorial is one few South Africans would challenge. The remembrance of Sharpeville remains central to the country’s democratic tradition.

However, Mbalula’s call to commemorate Sharpeville does not stand alone.

Just weeks ago, Mbalula’s party faced a real-world test of the human rights principles he now invokes. Beginning in late December last year, millions of Iranians took to the streets across the country protesting decades of religious and political repression under the country’s theocratic rulers. The Islamic Republic responded with lethal force. Security units were ordered to “shoot to kill,” and troops opened fire on crowds of demonstrators.

Thousands of civilians were killed, many of them young protesters, while thousands more were arrested, tortured, or disappeared into detention. Hospitals were overwhelmed with gunshot victims and the regime imposed sweeping internet blackouts to prevent images of the crackdown reaching the outside world.

Against this backdrop the ANC-controlled Department of International Relations and Cooperation said it was “following the developments in Iran with concern” and called on “all parties to exercise maximum restraint”. At the United Nations Human Rights Council shortly afterwards South Africa again urged “restraint and dialogue” and called for an investigation into the deaths.

The violence unleashed by the Iranian regime against its own citizens in recent protests occurred on a scale that few South Africans may fully appreciate.

Documentation by Iranian human rights monitors places protest-related deaths above 4 500 people, with broader estimates suggesting between roughly 3 000 and more than 7 000 killed. Even using the lower number of around 3 000 deaths, the crackdown would equal more than 40 Sharpeville massacres. Using the verified figures of more than 4 500 people, the scale rises to roughly 65 Sharpevilles, while estimates closer to 7 000 would equal more than 100 Sharpeville massacres.

Accurate figures are difficult to establish because the regime imposed sweeping internet blackouts and tightly controlled information during the crackdown. Some reports suggest the real toll could be far higher still, with figures in some analyses reaching as high as 30 000 deaths, which would represent more than 400 Sharpeville massacres.

Yet even after this crackdown, Mbalula has continued to express support for the leadership of the Islamic Republic.

Mbalula has praised the leadership in Tehran, reminding South Africans last week that “WE KNOW WHO OUR FRIENDS ARE!” In one such post he shared an image of Nelson Mandela meeting Ali Khamenei, the late former Supreme Leader of Iran, presenting Iran’s leadership as a principled ally of the ANC.

The contradiction could hardly be clearer. On one hand Mbalula invokes Sharpeville, the Bill of Rights, and the sanctity of human dignity. On the other he romanticises a theocratic death cult that has systematically crushed protests and ruled through fear, repression, and violence against its own citizens.

It is difficult to imagine any South African invoking Sharpeville to defend a regime responsible for violence on that scale.

More troubling still is the moral logic behind this narrative. In his editorial, Mbalula argues that Human Rights Month is a time to recommit South Africans to dignity, justice, and constitutional democracy. But those principles cannot be invoked selectively.

The ANC increasingly finds itself in this kind of bind, where the echoes of the honourable parts of South Africa’s liberation history clash uncomfortably with the tenor of its present-day behaviour and diplomacy.