The dangerous return of the loyalty test

A few weeks ago, I sat in a Johannesburg Council meeting, a space meant for public representatives to engage on the pressing issues facing our city. I raised concerns, as I often do, about governance failures and the deterioration of basic services. Hours later, during discussion of a completely unrelated item – one I hadn’t spoken about and in a committee I don’t even serve on – the chairperson looked across the room and said I should be grateful that my ancestors chose to live in a country with ubuntu.

He paused. Thought. Repeated himself. Then added, “Let’s just say, Councillor Schay should take up the offer Donald Trump has made.”

Let that sink in: a suggestion, in a formal council meeting, that I, a democratically elected public representative, should leave South Africa. Not because I committed a crime. Not because I’m corrupt. But because I spoke out. Because I’m white. Because I’m Jewish. Because, apparently, that makes my loyalty suspect.

This week, I found myself driving past Alexandra township. It’s a place every South African knows not from glossy brochures, but from the reality that spills onto our streets and into our consciences. Informal homes without title deeds stretch for kilometres. Children weave between sewage streams and illegal dumping sites. Infrastructure buckles, and yet life continues with grit and grace. Alexandra isn’t just a place. It’s a mirror.

And that’s when the news bulletin came through on SABC’s 5FM: “The first group of white Afrikaner refugees has departed for the United States.”

The tone wasn’t neutral. It wasn’t informative. It was suggestive: look, they’re fleeing. They were never really loyal to South Africa anyway, and anyone who looks or speaks like them is probably disloyal too.

That’s not reporting. That’s messaging.

And we’ve seen that message before.

In 1894, in France, a decorated Jewish military officer named Alfred Dreyfus was falsely accused of treason. Why? Because he was Jewish. Because, in the eyes of the state and its media, he couldn’t really be French. And for that, he was publicly humiliated, imprisoned, and cast out, until truth finally clawed its way through the lies.

The Dreyfus Affair wasn’t just about one man. It was about how quickly a country can turn on its own when loyalty is judged not by your actions, but by your surname, your language, or your skin.

South Africa mustn’t go down that path.

But as I looked out at the living conditions in Alexandra, the deeper picture came into focus. Why, in a place where sewage runs in the streets and infrastructure barely functions, does political loyalty remain so firm? It’s not because things work, it’s because people are holding on to a promise. Not one built on delivery, but one built on desperation. A promise fed by reckless politicians that one day, what others have will be taken and handed to you. A promise shadowed by fear that if the current leadership goes, the little that remains might vanish too. This isn’t governance through progress. It’s governance through delay, through the constant postponement of dignity. And in this vacuum of delivery, where hope is deferred, the ground becomes fertile for scapegoating those who demand accountability, particularly minorities whose loyalty can be conveniently questioned.

And that same strategy is used to vilify those who leave. Afrikaners and other minorities don’t leave because they are traitors. They leave because they see race-based laws that punish rather than uplift. They leave because of threats of expropriation without compensation, because their children are told they’re privileged for wanting to access opportunity, because the national narrative no longer sees them as South African unless they remain silent and grateful.

Yet today, there are hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of white South Africans and Afrikaners who could leave. Many have passports, skills, and family connections abroad. But they stay. They serve. They build businesses, teach in schools, raise children, fix potholes, and – yes – fight for a better South Africa, every single day.

So when state-funded broadcasters or private media houses like News24 turn around and frame their commitment as disloyalty or doxx citizens for quoting statistics and legislation, they do more than mislead. They divide. They vilify. They lay the groundwork for a country where some South Africans are more South African than others.

Enough.

We don’t owe this country blind allegiance. But we’ve given it blood, sweat, and belief, often without thanks. And no-one – especially not those funded by the public – has the right to question our place here based on race or language.

We need to raise the alarm unflinchingly because history has shown us where this path leads. And we won’t walk it again.

Because South Africa isn’t a house built by one people. It’s a home still being built, brick by brick, by many hands. You see it in the legacy of Nelson Mandela, who chose forgiveness over vengeance. In Helen Zille and Tony Leon’s fight for principled and honest governance. In Adrian Gore and Robbie Brozin, who built not just businesses but platforms of social and civic impact through Discovery and Jozi My Jozi, respectively. In Johnny Clegg, who used music to break barriers. And in Siya Kolisi and Rassie Erasmus, who together, led a fractured nation to victory, not just in sport, but in spirit. This is what loyalty looks like: building when it’s hard, believing when it’s unpopular, and staying not because you have to, but because you choose to.

Loyalty isn’t silence. Loyalty isn’t staying in line when things fall apart. Loyalty is choosing to speak, to stay, to build, even when the easier choice is to walk away.

So no, I won’t be taking up Trump’s offer. And neither should South Africa take up the offer to turn its minorities into suspects.

This is our home too. And we’re not going anywhere.

• Daniel Schay is a member of the City Council of Johannesburg, serving as the DA Shadow MMC of Development Planning and Ward Councillor for Ward 72.