Just over 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela expressed his sadness and anger at the rising hatred of foreigners in South Africa. “We had a legacy of unity and solidarity here,” the president told an African National Congress rally. “We are not victims to the influx of foreign people.”
Since then, xenophobic violence has periodically erupted. In 2008, anti-migrant attacks killed at least 62 people. Now a new wave is sweeping the country. Thousands marched in the streets on Tuesday – the arbitrary “deadline” that campaign groups had set for migrants to leave the country. More than 25,000 people did so in the run-up, with some countries evacuating their nationals and individuals fleeing in fear. Mozambique says five nationals were killed in anti-foreigner violence in May, and Ghana says a citizen was killed on Monday, though South African officials have offered different accounts. Migrants have been systematically blocked from health and other services by the Operation Dudula and March & March movements.
Official statistics show that migrants make up less than 5% of the population, or around 3 million. Campaigners implausibly claim that there could be 10 times as many and say that they are targeting illegal migration. Migrants say that documentation, living in the country for decades and marriage to South Africans have offered no protection from intimidation and worse.
Faced with unemployment at over 40%, inequality, crime and overstretched public services, poorer South Africans especially blame migrants for taking jobs, breaking the law and burdening health and education systems. They are right to be angry at the state of the country, but wrong about who is to blame. These are problems of South Africa’s own making – the bitter legacy of apartheid, and subsequent corruption and mismanagement.
Jean Pierre Misago and Loren Landau, the founders of the Xenowatch monitoring platform, argue that anti-migrant mobilisation is not only about frustrated communities. It is “a political enterprise co-produced by vigilante groups and the state through acts of commission and omission” – including the failure to censure violence adequately. Ahead of municipal elections in November, it is fair to ask who benefits. Politicians from the opposition party ActionSA have said that citizens have no choice but to demand action against illegal migration. Associates of the former president Jacob Zuma have links to the March & March movement, with politicians from his uMkhonto we Sizwe party attending its events.
Cyril Ramaphosa, the president, has attempted to straddle political concerns by launching a crackdown on illegal migration while decrying “fear, anger, hatred or violence”. Yet the government has mostly tried to play down the xenophobic harassment and violence as an issue of law and order. Though some at the grassroots are speaking out, there is little moral clarity at the top.
The anti-apartheid struggle was an African struggle, hosted and supported by other countries and individuals. Now significant parts of the population seem to be pursuing the exclusion and oppression that people once sought to vanquish – angering politicians and the public across Africa. That’s bad for diplomacy, for sorely needed tourism, trade and investment, and for South Africa’s ability to attract the skilled and hard-working people that it needs. Forcing out migrants will deepen the problems so angering South Africans, not solve them.
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