The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) has expressed deep concern over the recent afrophobic remarks directed at Chidimma Adetshina, a contestant in the Miss South Africa 2024 competition.
The party said it had a long-standing history of opposing afrophobia and ethnophobia, recognizing these issues as stemming from South Africa's complex racial history and the structural violence that persists today.
Adetshina finds herself in the centre of a fierce storm with South Africans questioning her citizenship. The 23-year-old mother of one was born in Soweto to a Nigerian dad and a South African woman with Mozambican roots.
The Miss SA organisers have confirmed she meets all criteria for the beauty pageant.
In a statement, Azania Tyhali, Secretary for Publicity and Information for the PAC, said the attack on Chidimma was rooted in the anti-blackness prevalent in the South African political landscape, a legacy of colonization and the enduring white power structure.
"The world over, everyone hates black people, even black people themselves, and South Africa is no exception,“ said Tyhali.
"To be black in this world is to be available for scorn and ridicule,“ Tyhali said.
The PAC supports Biko’s analysis of intra-black conflict, viewing the afrophobic attack on Adetshina as a manifestation of white supremacy and a fear among colonized black individuals to confront the true source of their self-hatred.
"White supremacy has turned black people into fungible objects. The colonial structure of South Africa, which aimed to preserve white privilege, survives through the division of colonized African people,’’ she said
The PAC further asserts that the primary contradiction in South Africa has remained unchanged since 1652: the ideology of white supremacy and settler herrenvolkism.
‘’This ideology thrives when Africans are divided, allowing the appropriation and division of South Africa's wealth to continue among the white settler population,’’ said Tyhali.
IOL