Entering a fierce dispute over a competitor of Nigerian descent’s eligibility to represent her country, South Africa’s minister of arts and culture on Friday challenged the contestant to provide proof of her nationality.
Since Chidimma Adetshina, 23, was revealed as a finalist in the national beauty fair in July, she has been the target of hateful, bigoted comments on social media, with many people casting doubt on her qualifications.
“Why can not she just produce (documents) and say she is South African?” Gayton McKenzie, the minister of arts and culture and a well-known politician with a strong anti-immigration attitude, told national network SABC.
“There are beautiful South African young ladies that might be robbed of this opportunity” .
According to the pageant’s organizers, Adetshina, a law student, “meets all the contestant eligibility criteria” because she is a citizen of South Africa and possesses “both a South African ID and passport”.
Adetshina, who will compete in the Miss South Africa finals the following week, has previously disclosed to the local media that she was born in Soweto to a Mozambican mother and a Nigerian father.
Citizenship by birth is granted to those born in South Africa after 1995.
However, her involvement in the contest has fueled anti-immigrant sentiment in the country, where there have already been violent and occasionally fatal attacks against immigrants.
On social media and talk shows, politicians, celebrities, and regular people have all weighed in on the discussion.
In a statement of support, the left-leaning Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party said that she was the victim of attacks that were “remnants of apartheid and colonization, where divisive ideologies continue to plague our society.”
“It is particularly troubling that previous contestants of foreign descent did not face similar scrutiny when they were white or Asian,” the party stated in a statement.
In recent years, hostility toward foreigners has grown as South Africans get weary of constant unemployment.
Millions of migrants, mostly from neighboring African nations, are drawn to the most industrialized country on the continent despite its sluggish economic progress.
“If she is from South Africa, I will be the first to apologize,” stated McKenzie, a far-right Patriotic Alliance party member appointed to a ministerial position in June, following the party’s entry into a coalition government.
McKenzie’s remarks on the issue were denounced by the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) as “xenophobic bullying.”
