CLAIM: Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber is a Zimbabwean foreigner
SOURCE: Social Media
VERDICT: False
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a cabinet of his Government of National Unity on 30 June 2024. It is the first such arrangement resulting from the failure by any single party to gain the majority 50% + 1 from the elections.
His cabinet has 6 ministers appointed from the Democratic Alliance, one of them being Leon Schreiber.
Following Schreiber’s appointment, claims have surfaced alleging that he is a Zimbabwean.
One claim with over 109,000 views reads, ‘I am told the Nazi @Our_DA Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber is a Zimbabwean foreigner. I am loving how the xenophobs are being dribble (sic) 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
EFF this and that, now this
#CabinetAnnouncement’.
Two other claims also appear on X (formerly Twitter), one with 72,000 views and the other with 19,000.
The claims also appear on Facebook, here and here.
Although these claims might seem innocent enough on the surface, they are fueling the xenophobic undertones that have characterised debates on Zimbabwe-South Africa relations on social media.
The two accounts on X carrying this claim state that the proof is from Wikipedia, where his ‘place of birth was changed 5 hours ago from Zimbabwe to South Africa’.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia itself discourages users from citing it as a credible source; ‘Wikipedia is not a reliable source for citations elsewhere on Wikipedia, or as a source for copying or translating content. As a user-generated source, it can be edited by anyone at any time, and any information it contains at a particular time could be vandalism, a work in progress, or simply incorrect’.
It further states that ‘articles are only as good as the editors who have been editing them—their interests, biases, education, and background’.
While it is true that Schreiber’s birthplace was edited on Wikipedia, the facts lie in the sequencing of the edits.
Before 30 June 2024, only one edit had been made on his profile this year and 3 in 2023 compared to 26 in the last 24 hours.
At 23:40 on 30 June, his birthplace on Wikipedia changed from Borrowdale, Harare, Zimbabwe to Cape Town, South Africa.
This is the basis of the claims – that his profile read Zimbabwe before that change.
However, this does not tell the whole story. The first edit on Schreiber’s birthplace had been earlier than that at 21:12hrs.
This means that before yesterday’s edits, Wikipedia had his birthplace as Namaqualand, Cape Province, South Africa. At 21:12 hrs, someone changed this to Borrowdale, Harare, Zimbabwe. At 23:40, this was changed once again to Cape Town, South Africa.
To show how easy to edit Wikipedia is, another anonymous person on 1 July at 10:59 had put ‘Mukurazhizha’ as Schreiber’s native name before this was removed at 11:27.
Apart from all the Wikipedia drama, other sources put Schreiber’s birthplace as Namaqualand, Cape Province in South Africa.
Conclusion
The claims that ‘Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber is a Zimbabwean foreigner’ have been rated as false. While there is nothing wrong with being a South African born in Zimbabwe, or vice versa (Zimbabwean politicians who were South African born include Ruth Chinamano and former cabinet minister, the late Victoria Chitepo), in this case, the claims are being used to exclude Schreiber from being qualified to hold a South African cabinet post. He is not a ‘Zimbabwean foreigner’.
