South Africa’s education minister needs a history lesson

South Africa now has a new minister of higher education: Buti Manamela. That name is familiar, because in March 2015, during Israeli Apartheid Week, he authored an open letter drawing dubious parallels between apartheid South Africa and the situation in “Palestine”. He pledged unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian cause, and urged South Africans to emulate Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaigns against Israel, painting Israel as obstinate and uncompromising. That this same person now presides over the nation’s education portfolio is rich in irony – Manamela clearly dodged a few lessons in history.

Fast forward to May 2024. Deputy Higher Education Minister Buti Manamela told Al Jazeera that South African universities couldn’t “remain neutral on Palestine”. He insisted that institutions should mirror the tactics of apartheid-era boycott movements, and blasted campus neutrality as moral cowardice.

“We really want to see our universities … boycott it,” he declared. “Universities have been destroyed, and academics have been killed [in Gaza]. How dare we want to be neutral.” He said students and academics should become activists in solidarity, implicitly endorsing a political vision deeply hostile to Israel.

These latest comments reveal a troubling consistency. Manamela remains committed to defining Israel through selective narratives, casting it as fundamentally illegitimate and genocidal, while refusing to acknowledge Jewish historical suffering or legitimate state defence. His pronouncements go beyond academic opinion; they foment an ideological climate that endangers the Jewish community in South Africa.

His rhetoric has already catalysed a spike in antisemitic incidents. In December 2023 and early 2024, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies reported a near ten-fold increase in antisemitic incidents, attributing much of the rise to inflammatory political statements from senior leaders. These included those like Manamela, who openly endorse BDS and engage in anti-Israel hyperbole. When you couch such rhetoric in charged terms like “apartheid” and “neutrality is complicity”, it doesn’t remain confined to policy debates, it stirs discrimination, intimidation, and real-world threats against Jews.

Let’s be blunt, comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa isn’t just a gross distortion, it’s reckless. The apartheid regime denied black South Africans basic rights: voting; land ownership; and freedom of movement. In contrast, Arab citizens of Israel vote in national elections; serve in Parliament; own land; attend universities; and hold public office. Claiming equivalence between these vastly different realities erodes intellectual integrity.

But his miseducation isn’t confined to history, it bleeds into present-day geopolitics. By exhorting campuses to emulate apartheid-era BDS campaigns, Manamela is effectively urging institutions to adopt policies that discriminate against Israeli academics and Jewish students. That isn’t solidarity, it’s targeting and exclusion. That isn’t critique, it’s demonisation.

Education should be about facts, critical thinking, and fostering open discourse, not imposing ideological litmus tests. Yet Manamela’s leadership suggests something darker: a ministry defined by ideology, not inquiry. And when that ideology echoes genocidal slogans, when “From the river to the sea” sentiments find tacit elevation, this isn’t simply ignorance, it’s danger incarnate.

If appointing someone who cannot distinguish between apartheid and national self‑defence to oversee education doesn’t terrify you, then consider what it means for vulnerable communities when influential figures conflate Jews, Zionism, and Israel with collective guilt or moral depravity. That isn’t rhetoric, it’s incitement.

In short, Buti Manamela doesn’t belong in a ministry, he needs a library card. Because education should expand minds, not narrow them into ideological echo chambers. And when anti‑Israel fantasies morph dangerously into antisemitic realities, when political slogans translate into threats against a community, that’s no longer abstract dispute. That’s real danger.

• Byron Shepherd is the host of MorningShot, a YouTube news analysis programme with more than 145,000 subscribers and more than three million monthly views. He holds a law degree and a master’s degree from King’s College London. Byron is also an international entrepreneur with businesses in the finance and legal sectors.