Who is my neighbour? The Bible tells us that in response to this question posed by a law expert trying to test him, Jesus narrated the parable of the Good Samaritan.
In this parable, a lone man travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho encounters robbers who beat him up and leave him for dead on the side of the road. He is then passed by three people – a priest who looks away, followed by a Levite who does the same without helping the hapless man. In the unlikeliest of circumstances, a Samaritan, regarded with disdain by the Jews, showed compassion towards the man by tending to his wounds and making provision for his upkeep until his recovery .
Christ then rhetorically asks the expert who should be regarded as a neighbour, to which he responds that it was the Samaritan. The Son of Man then orders him to go and do likewise.
This parable came to mind given the current impasse over the registration of the children of “illegal” foreigners at South African schools. In the midst of this crisis, the mayor of the Central Karoo District and president of the Patriotic Alliance, Gayton McKenzie, who is fast earning a reputation as a rabid xenophobe, made scathing comments to vent his disdain for foreigns.
“All children of illegal foreigners should not be allowed in our schools in SA. Home Affairs should visit all schools before we do. This is nonsense. We must now explain to South African parents why their children cannot be placed in schools. We warned you,” he barked in a Facebook post.
His rant elicited a sharp rebuke from education experts, with Faranaaz Veriava, the head of education at public interest law centre Section 27, stating that McKenzie’s remarks only worsened the discrimination felt by immigrant pupils in schools. “His statements are in contravention of the law and perpetuate the high levels of xenophobia that we face on a daily basis,” she said.
Not only is McKenzie a xenophobe, he is a legal ignoramus and delinquent too. Veriava went on to explain that sections 39 and 42 of the Immigration Act did not prohibit the admission into schools and provision of basic education for children who are in the country illegally.
Lest we forget, in 2011, the high court directed the minister of basic education and the Eastern Cape education department to admit all children without an official birth certificate into state schools in the province.
Considering his September 2021 rant that given the opportunity, he would turn off oxygen from a Zimbabwean or Mozambican if a South African needed such oxygen, McKenzie should be considered a calamity in waiting.
Offering welcome respite from McKenzie’s belligerence, a group calling themselves Zimbabwean Isolated Women in SA, has compiled a database of children living in inner city Johannesburg who do not attend school. In their estimate, close to 1,000 immigrant children from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Congo and Lesotho did not attend school due to lack of documentation.
The group works in partnership with that inveterate champion of human rights and protector of the underdog Paul Verryn, the Methodist Church bishop of Johannesburg. Their goal is to raise funds for a school for immigrant children.
“We will offer the University of Cambridge syllabus to cater for migrant children who do not have ID numbers or birth certificates. All children have the right to attend school,” said Verryn.
Should a new school be opened, a difference will be made in the lives of needy children. Verryn will be remembered for his activism against xenophobia and his clashes with the SA government over his accommodation of hundreds of refugees at his Central Methodist Church in the Johannesburg inner city.
For all his efforts to ameliorate the plight of the marginalised and downtrodden, Verryn deserves the title of mensch.
The final word on the rights of illegal immigrant children to schooling belongs to human rights lawyer Jos Venter, who wrote: “The constitutional guarantee of an unfettered right to an education must be realised to ensure that the self-esteem, self-worth and potential for human fulfilment of every learner, especially the most vulnerable and marginalised among them, are protected.”
In short, educating illegal immigrant children is the humane thing to do. The final question is, between McKenzie and Verryn, who should be regarded as a neighbour?
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