South Africa’s new scapegoats

In April 2015 another wave of
xenophobic violence swept over South Africa. Starting in Durban, the attacks on
foreigners spread to suburbs in Johannesburg and to Cala in the eastern Cape. Between
six and 15 people were killed. Thousands fled to makeshift camps and Zimbabwe
and Mozambique sent buses to evacuate their citizens.

The violence started after a
speech on 21 March by the Zulu king, Goodwill Zwethilini, in which he invited
“foreign nationals to pack their belongings and to go back to their countries”.
He claims to have been misquoted and refuses to apologise.

The president, Jacob Zuma,
condemned the attacks and assured neighbouring states that South Africa would
do everything possible to control the situation. But, with an eye to local
elections in 2016, he and other leaders of the ruling African National Congress
(ANC) stopped short of criticising the king. On 19 April, in front of thousands
in a Durban stadium, the king finally called for peace.

The situation in South Africa
is different from that in Europe. The European Union is separated from Africa
by the Mediterranean, making it difficult for asylum-seekers and economic
migrants to enter—albeit, out of desperation, many lose their lives trying to
cross this natural barrier. South Africa has a land border of 4,862km,
attracting migrants from the poor southern and central African states in their
thousands every month.

The United Nations Population
Division lists 2.4m migrants in South Africa in its 2013 global
dataset. But this does not include undocumented migrants, which a Wikipedia
entry estimates at 5m-8m. Some 1.5m-2m migrants are estimated to have come from Zimbabwe alone.

After the collapse of apartheid, South Africa promulgated very
progressive asylum laws: essentially the state cannot deny any migrant the
claim and temporary status of an asylum-seeker, which includes the right to
work. The liberal approach was supported by the ANC elite: when the
organisation was banned they experienced the positive side of political refugee
status during exile in countries like Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and
Mozambique. In February, however, the home affairs minister, Naledi Pandor, complained that “economic migrants are abusing the (act) in
order to have status in South Africa”.

Since migrants live in
townships and informal settlements, they are face to face with the poorest of South
African society—most of the latter internal
migrants, who have moved from the rural former homelands into the cities. This
creates tense situations which have exploded into fatal clashes.

Monthly attacks

The first such outbreak before
2015 happened during two weeks in May 2008, when 62 people were killed. Jean
Pieree Misago from the African Centre for Migration and Society has been
tracking xenophobic attacks since then. He says that almost every month there has been at least one
attack on foreigners and it is estimated that 357 have been killed over the
past seven years.

A study by the South African
Human Rights Commission found that 597 court cases were opened after the 2008 clashes.
Yet a year and a half later only 16% had resulted in a guilty verdict—nearly
all of these for theft and assault, and with the option to pay a fine rather
than face jail.

During the recent attacks on
foreigners in Johannesburg, a Mozambican was stabbed to death in front of Sunday Times photographers. The
murderers did not try to hide their faces. The fact that perpetrators enjoy so
much impunity sends the message that culprits have nothing to fear. Migrants thus
lose trust in the justice system and prefer not to report their cases.

Criminal?

The recent violence reopened
a debate in South Africa on whether this was xenophobic or criminal behaviour.
Foreign shops, mostly operated by Somalis, are important for the daily supply
of goods in townships. They are doing well and have displaced most of the
original ‘mom-and-pop’ shops run by South Africans. In foreigner-run shops the
prices of most items (rice, maize flour, milk, sugar, eggs, and cigarettes) have
been found to be slightly cheaper. Yet Soweto Business Access, an umbrella body
for small businesses, has opposed the reopening of foreign shops, looted during the
violence, because the interests of South Africans “must be prioritised”—foreign
entrepreneurs are supposedly “not ploughing money back into the township
economy” and “being rude and not paying taxes”.

The situation in South Africa is different from that in Europe.

One commentary even suggested that “the very presence of thriving Somali shop
owners insults unsuccessful, impoverished township dwellers” and that “envy
breeds resentment”. Yet the looters were reportedly more opportunist than ‘impoverished’: air-time
vouchers were particularly favoured and it seems most just seized the chance to
grab handfuls of free goods. The acts were committed in broad daylight,
sometimes in the presence of journalists and with police not far away.

Two factors seem of
importance: the climate of impunity when committing acts against foreigners and
a township environment in which public violence is highly permissible. Civil
society in townships has learned, for example, that service-delivery protests
only grab the attention of authorities if demonstrations become violent—it is
estimated that there are roughly 300 incidents of community protests a year and
at least 43 protesters have been killed by the police in this context in the
last ten years. It is thus to be expected that foreigners will continue to fall
victim to violence too.

Multi-ethnic

On a longer view, in the two
decades since the end of apartheid,
South Africa has absorbed, largely peacefully, migrants comprising more than
10% of its 50m population. In such a situation many other societies would have
developed outright xenophobia. The liberal climate in the multi-ethnic townships
and informal settlements contributed to the integration of migrants.

So why is this positive model
collapsing? Observers believe disappointment at the slow progress in public wellbeing,
given the overly-high expectations raised post-apartheid, has led to frustration and anger now directed against
foreigners—instead of questioning the performance and quality of South Africa’s
own leaders.

The liberal asylum legislation
of democratic South Africa is a valuable achievement and South Africa is a good
neighbour to Zimbabwe, allowing thousands of Zimbabweans to legalise their
status and extend their work permits. This policy is not well received by
everybody in a situation of high unemployment. But any criticism directed at
the government should be for supporting the dictatorial Mugabe regime—the main
cause of the exodus of so many Zimbabweans, who would prefer to go home if
conditions there would improve.

For South Africa, with its
open borders, it is impossible to control the influx of migrants from the poor
neighbouring countries to its north and east. South Africa does not have enough
jobs for its own population and it cannot provide decent sanitation, enough
clean water and electricity for its townships. But toughening of asylum and
immigration laws would not prevent illegal border crossings—rather, it would
only harm those who really need asylum and deter skilled immigrants the country
requires.

South Africa needs to do more
to punish perpetrators of violence against foreigners. An impression is left
that such violence is condoned in the hope that it deters further migrants. The
liberal Mail and Guardian commented that “representatives of the government and the
ruling party have spoken with forked tongues on the issue, tut-tutting about
violence while expressing a measure of understanding for the attacks”. The
newspaper called for a national platform from which all leaders would unequivocal
condemn xenophobic outrages.

President Zuma did condemn
the atrocities and he announced a series of consultative meetings to discuss a
new migration policy, but he stopped short of concrete measures. Indeed, the
pronouncements of South African politicians sound as helpless as those of
European politicians on the recent tragedies in the Mediterranean.

Both are caught between
deterring migration by the poor and dealing humanely with its consequences.

Like us on Facebook to follow the latest openSecurity articles, and tell the editors
what we should publish next.