Tendai “The Beast” Mtawarira, the burly Springbok and Sharks prop who is easily one of the most popular athletes in South Africa, is a Zimbabwean national. This has never raised anyone’s hackles in any meaningful way in the past. But suddenly South Africa’s Ministry for Sport, at the head of which sits Makhenkesi Stofile, has decided that The Beast’s presence in South Africa is not justified. According to an advertisement placed in numerous media sources:

“The officials of the Saru [South African Rugby Union] even inform us that Mr Mtawarira ‘is currently on an exceptional skills visa (work permit)’. If such a work permit has been issued on the basis of his skills as a prop forward, the concept ‘scarce skills’ was vulgarised. The Sharks or any provincial unit or professional club may motivate for the issuing of a work permit for a limited number of foreign players or administrators. Such application must be accompanied by a COMPELLING motivation.”

First off, countries play fast and loose with these sorts of rules all the time. When I was living in South Africa for the first time, a local minister practically begged me to stay, largely on these “special skills” justifications. I am a historian by training, hardly an essential skill that would require an American when there are so many South African historians available. But it is possible that I could have filled a special niche that no one in South Africa fit exactly. The point is that officials make these sorts of decisions all the time. And so it is hard to draw any conclusion other than that Stofile’s ministry is grandstanding (at a cost to the state of at minimum R100,000) while at the same time fueling the xenophobia that has been stirred in the country over the course of recent months.  It is all well and good to want to develop local athletes. But is the answer really to go after a popular black Zimbabwean with threats that would amount to an expulsion order back to Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe?