Bheki Mtolo Blasts South Africans For Staying Quiet While Dragging Malema For Doing The Same

Former ANC KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Secretary Bheki Mtolo has accused South Africans of harboring profound public double standards, arguing that selective moral outrage dominates national political discourse and public commentary.

Addressing media personnel during a political briefing, Mtolo criticized the public’s widespread silence regarding former President Jacob Zuma’s presidential decision to grant medical parole and operational release to former Vlakplaas counter-insurgency commander Eugene de Kock. Mtolo pointed out that despite De Kock’s conviction for state-sponsored killings, torture, and apartheid-era atrocities, the public and political commentators remained notably quiet when the release occurred under Zuma’s administration. He contrasted this passive acceptance with the intense public scrutiny and moral condemnation routinely directed at current government actions, arguing that critics systematically alter their ethical standards depending on which political figures or factions are involved.

Expanding on his critique of selective commentary, Mtolo referenced recent public remarks by Duduzane Zuma concerning anti-illegal immigration protests across major metropolitan areas. Duduzane Zuma had publicly lambasted grass-root immigration demonstrators, accusing them of racial bias by exclusively targeting black African foreign nationals, informal traders, and gig-economy workers while completely sparing undocumented immigrants, business owners, and property holders of European ancestry.

Mtolo noted that Duduzane Zuma’s controversial statements passed with minimal mainstream backlash or structured political pushback. He asserted that had Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema uttered the exact same inflammatory racial comparisons, media houses, civil rights organizations, and political opponents would be up in arms, staging widespread protests and demanding immediate public retractions. Mtolo argued that this stark disparity in public reaction highlights a pervasive culture of hypocrisy, where identical political statements provoke radically different responses based strictly on the identity and political affiliation of the speaker.

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