Evolution of Xenophobia in South Africa
Prior to 1994, immigrants from elsewhere faced discrimination and even violence
in South Africa.
After majority
rule in 1994, contrary to expectations, the incidence of
xenophobia increased.[1] Between
2000 and March 2008, at least 67 people died in what were identified as
xenophobic attacks. In May 2008, a series of attacks left 62 people dead;
although 21 of those killed were South African citizens. The attacks were
motivated by xenophobia.[2] In 2015,
another nationwide spike in xenophobic attacks against immigrants in general
prompted a number of foreign governments to begin repatriating their citizens.[3] A Pew Research poll
conducted in 2018 showed that 62% of South Africans viewed immigrants as a
burden on society by taking jobs and social benefits and that 61% of South
Africans thought that immigrants were more responsible for crime than
other groups.[4] Between
2010 and 2017 the immigrant community in South Africa increased from 2 million
people to 4 million people.[4]
Evolution of Xenophobia in
South Africa
Before 1994
Attacks against Mozambican and Congolese immigrants
Between 1984 and the end of hostilities in that country,
an estimated 50,000 to 350,000 Mozambicans fled to South Africa.
While never granted refugee status
they were technically allowed to settle in the bantustans or black homelands created
during the apartheid system. The reality was more varied, with the homeland
of Lebowa banning Mozambican settlers
outright while Gazankulu welcomed
the refugees with support in the form of land and equipment. Those in
Gazankulu, however, found themselves confined to the homeland and liable
for deportation should they officially
enter South Africa, and evidence exists that their hosts denied them access to
economic resources.
Unrest and civil war likewise saw large numbers of Congolese people
emigrate to South Africa, many illegally, in 1993 and 1997. Subsequent studies
found indications of xenophobic attitudes towards these refugees, typified by
them being denied access to the primary healthcare to which they were
technically entitled.
Xenophobia in South Africa
after 1994
Despite a lack of directly comparable data, xenophobia in
South Africa is perceived to have significantly increased after the election of
a Black majority government in 1994. According to a 2004 study published
by the Southern African Migration Project (SAMP):
The ANC government
– in its attempts to overcome the divides of the past and build new forms of
social cohesion. embarked on an aggressive and inclusive nation-building
project. One unanticipated by-product of this project has been a growth in
intolerance towards outsiders. Violence against foreign citizens and African
refugees has become increasingly common and communities are divided by
hostility and suspicion.
The study was based on a citizen survey across member
states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and found
South Africans expressing the harshest anti-immigrant sentiment, with 21% of
South Africans in favour of a complete ban on foreign entry and 64% in favour
of strict limitations on the numbers permitted. By contrast, the next-highest
proportion of respondents in favour of a complete ban on immigration were in
neighbouring Namibia, and Botswana, at 10%.
Foreigners and the South African Police Service
A 2004 study by the Centre for the Study of Violence and
Reconciliation (CSVR) of attitudes amongst police officers in the Johannesburg
area found that 87% of respondents believed that most undocumented immigrants
in Johannesburg are involved in crime, despite there being no statistical
evidence to substantiate the perception. Such views combined with the
vulnerability of illegal aliens led to abuse, including violence and
extortion, some analysts argued.
In a March 2007 meeting with Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe
Mapisa-Nqakula, a representative of Burundian refugees in Durban; claimed that immigrants could not
rely on police for protection, but instead found police mistreating them,
stealing from them and making unconfirmed allegations that they sell
drugs. Two years earlier, at a similar meeting in Johannesburg,
Mapisa-Nqakula had admitted that refugees and asylum seekers were mistreated by
police with xenophobic attitudes.
Violence before May 2008
According to a 1998 Human Rights
Watch report, immigrants from Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique
living in the Alexandra township
were "physically assaulted over a period of several weeks in January 1995,
as armed gangs identified suspected undocumented migrants and marched them to
the police station in an attempt to 'clean' the township of
foreigners." The campaign, known as "Buyelekhaya" (go back
home), blamed foreigners for crime, unemployment and sexual attacks.
In September 1998, a Mozambican national and two
Senegalese citizens were thrown out of a train. The assault was carried out by
a group returning from a rally that blamed foreigners for unemployment, crime
and the spread of AIDS.
In 2000, seven foreigners were killed on the Cape Flats over a five-week period in
what police described as xenophobic murders possibly motivated by the fear that
outsiders would claim property belonging to locals.
In October 2001, residents of the Zandspruit informal settlement gave
Zimbabwean citizens ten days to leave the area. When the foreigners failed to
leave voluntarily, they were forcefully evicted and their shacks were burned
down and looted. Community members said they were angry that Zimbabweans were
employed whilst locals remained jobless and blamed the foreigners for a number
of crimes. No injuries were reported amongst the affected Zimbabweans.
In the last week of 2005 and first week of 2006, at least
four people, including two Zimbabweans, died in the Olievenhoutbosch settlement after
foreigners were blamed for the death of a local man. Shacks belonging to
foreigners were set alight and locals demanded that police remove all
immigrants from the area.
In August 2006, Somali refugees appealed for protection
after 21 Somali traders were killed in July of that year and 26 more in August.
The immigrants believed the murders to be motivated by xenophobia, although
police rejected the assertion of a concerted campaign to drive Somali traders
out of townships in the Western Cape.[18]
Attacks on foreign nationals increased markedly in
late-2007[6] and it is
believed that there were at least a dozen attacks between January and May 2008.[19] The most
severe incidents occurred on 8 January 2008 when two Somali shop owners were murdered in
the Eastern Cape towns
of Jeffreys Bay and East
London, then in March 2008 when seven people were killed including
Zimbabweans, Pakistanis and
a Somali national after their shops and shacks were set alight in Atteridgeville near Pretoria.
May 2008 riots
Spread of violence
On 12 May 2008 a series of riots started in the township
of Alexandra (in
the north-eastern part of Johannesburg) when locals attacked
migrants from Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, killing two people and injuring
40 others. Some attackers were reported to have been singing Jacob Zuma's campaign song Umshini
Wami (Zulu: "Bring Me
My Machine Gun").
In the following weeks the violence spread, first to
other settlements in the Gauteng Province, then to the coastal
cities of Durban and Cape Town.
Attacks were also reported in parts of the Southern Cape, Mpumalanga, the North West and Free State.
Popular opposition to xenophobia
In Khutsong in Gauteng and the various shack
settlements governed by Abahlali
base Mjondolo in KwaZulu-Natal social movements were
able to ensure that there were no violent attacks. The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign also organised
campaigns against xenophobia. Pallo Jordan argues that "Active
grass-roots interventions contained the last wave of xenophobia".
Causes
A report by the Human Sciences Research Council identified four broad
causes for the violence:
·
relative
deprivation, specifically intense competition for jobs, commodities
and housing;
·
group processes,
including psychological categorisation processes that are nationalistic rather
than superordinate[29]
·
South African exceptionalism, or a feeling of superiority
in relation to other Africans; and
·
exclusive citizenship, or a form of nationalism that
excludes others.
A subsequent report, "Towards Tolerance, Law and
Dignity: Addressing Violence against Foreign Nationals in South Africa"
commissioned by the International Organisation for Migration found that poor
service delivery or an influx of foreigners may have played a contributing
role, but blamed township politics for the attacks. It also found that
community leadership was potentially lucrative for unemployed people, and that
such leaders organised the attacks. Local leadership could be illegitimate
and often violent when emerging from either a political vacuum or fierce
competition, the report said, and such leaders enhanced their authority by
reinforcing resentment towards foreigners.
Aftermath
1400 suspects were arrested in connection with the
violence. Nine months after the attacks 128 individuals had been convicted and
30 found not guilty in 105 concluded court cases. 208 cases had been withdrawn
and 156 were still being heard.
One year after the attacks prosecutors said that 137
people had been convicted, 182 cases had been withdrawn because witnesses or
complainants had left the country, 51 cases were underway or ready for trial
and 82 had been referred for further investigation.
In May 2009, one year after the attacks the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (Cormsa)
said that foreigners remained under threat of violence and that little had been
done to address the causes of the attacks. The organisation complained of a
lack of accountability for those responsible for public violence, insufficient
investigations into the instigators and the lack of a public government
inquiry.
Refugee camps and reintegration question
After being housed in temporary places of safety
(including police stations and community halls) for three weeks, those who fled
the violence were moved into specially established temporary
camps. Conditions in some camps were condemned on the grounds of location
and infrastructure, highlighting their temporary nature.
The South African government initially adopted a policy
of quickly reintegrating refugees into the communities they originally
fled and subsequently set a deadline in July 2008, by which time refugees
would be expected to return to their communities or countries of
origin. After an apparent policy shift the government vowed that there
would be no forced reintegration of refugees and that the victims would
not be deported, even if they were found to be illegal immigrants.
In May 2009, one year after the attacks, the City of Cape
Town said it would apply for an eviction order to force 461 remaining refugees
to leave two refugee camps in that city.
Domestic political reaction
On 21 May, then-President Thabo Mbeki approved a request from
the SAPS for
deployment of armed forces against the attacks in Gauteng.[45] It is the
first time that the South African government has ordered troops out to the
streets in order to quell unrest since the end of apartheid in the early 1990s.
Several political parties blamed each other, and
sometimes other influences, for the attacks. The Gauteng provincial branch of
the ANC has alleged that the violence is politically motivated by a "third
hand" that is primarily targeting the ANC for the 2009 general elections. Both the Minister of
Intelligence, Ronnie Kasrils,
and the director general of the National Intelligence Agency, Manala Manzini, backed the Gauteng ANC's allegations that the
anti-immigrant violence is politically motivated and targeted at the
ANC. Referring to published allegations by one rioter that he was being
paid to commit violent acts against immigrants, Manzini said that the violence
was being stoked primarily within hostel facilities by a third party with
financial incentives.
Helen Zille,
leader of the official opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA), pointed to instances of crowds
of rioters singing "Umshini wami", a song associated
then-president of the ANC Jacob Zuma, and noted that the
rioters also hailed from the rank and file of the ANC Youth League. She alleged that Zuma had promised years
before to his supporters to take measures against the immigration of foreign
nationals to South Africa and that Zuma's most recent condemnation of the riots
and distancing from the anti-immigration platform was not enough of a serious
initiative against the participation of fellow party members in the violence. Both
Zille and the parliamentary leader of the DA, Sandra Botha, slammed the ANC for shifting
the blame concerning the violence to a "third hand", which is often
taken in South African post-apartheid political discourse as a reference to
pro-apartheid or allegedly pro-apartheid organisations.
Zuma, in turn, condemned both the attacks and the Mbeki
government's response to the attacks; Zuma also lamented the usage of his
trademark song Umshini wami by
the rioters. Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe called for the
creation of local committees to combat violence against foreigners.
Zille was also criticised by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel for being quoted in
the Cape Argus as saying that foreigners
were responsible for a bulk of the drug trade in South Africa.
In KwaZulu-Natal province, Bheki Cele, provincial community safety
minister, blamed the Inkatha
Freedom Party, a nationalist Zulu political party, for stoking and
capitalising on the violence in Durban. Both Cele and premier S'bu Ndebele claimed that IFP members
had attacked a tavern that catered to Nigerian immigrants en route to a party
meeting. The IFP, which is based primarily in the predominantly ethnically-Zulu KwaZulu-Natal province, rejected
the statements, and had, on 20 May, engaged in an anti-xenophobia meeting with
the ANC.
Radical grassroots movements and organisations came out
strongly against the 2008 xenophobic attacks calling them pogroms promoted by government and
political parties. Some have claimed that local politicians and police
have sanctioned the attacks. At the time they also called for the closure
of the Lindela
Repatriation Centre which is seen as an example of the negative
way the South African government treats African foreigners. Grassroots
groups like Abahlali
baseMjondolo and the South African Unemployed Peoples' Movement also opposed
the latest round of xenophobic attacks in 2015.
International reaction
The attacks were condemned by a wide variety of
organisations and government leaders throughout Africa and the rest of the
world.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees expressed
concerns about the violence and urged the South African government to cease
deportation of Zimbabwean nationals and also to allow the refugees and asylum
seekers to regularise their stay in the country.
Malawi began repatriation of some of its nationals in
South Africa. The Mozambican government sponsored a repatriation drive that saw
the registration of at least 3 275 individuals.
In late May 2009, reports emerged regarding a possible
resurgence of xenophobic related activity and the organising of attacks in the
Western Cape. Reports of threats and secret meetings by local businessmen
surfaced in Gugulethu, Khayelitsha and Philippi, Cape
Town. Samora Machel in Philippi once again emerging as a
flash-point.[62] In
Gugulethu, reports emerged of secret meetings by local businessmen discussing
'what to do about Somali shopkeepers'. The Anti-Eviction
Campaign brought these issues to the open by organising a
series of anti-xenophobia meetings attempting to find the root cause of the
crisis.
In November 2009, a community of 1500-2500 Zimbabwean
farm workers was forcibly evicted from their homes in the informal settlements
of De Doorns, a grape-farming town in the Western Cape. No persons were
physically assaulted but homes were trashed and looted and this led to the
biggest displacement of foreign nationals since May 2008. The Zimbabweans were
then housed in a displaced persons' camp where some remained for a year until
it was closed. Researchers identified the role of a ward councillor, Mpumelelo
Lubisi, in inciting the attack in possible collusion with informal labour
brokers who had financial interests in getting rid of their Zimbabwean
competitors. South African workers also accused farmers of employing the
Zimbabweans at less than minimum wage (farmers and Zimbabwean workers denied
this).
In 2010 the press carried numerous articles claiming that
there would be massive planned xenophobic violence at the end of the 2010
Football World Cup. However this did not happen.
In July 2012 there were new attacks in parts of Cape Town
and in Botshabelo in the Free State.
"Fortress South Africa"
South Africa's borders have been militarised. According
to Christopher McMichael:
"This shared state-corporate project of building up
a 'fortress South Africa' also reveals a deeply entrenched seam of xenophobia,
in which undocumented migrants and refugees from African countries are painted
as a security risk akin to terrorism and organised crime. Parliamentary
discussions on border security are rife with claims that foreign nationals are
attempting to drain social grants and economic opportunities from citizens. The
packaging of illegal immigration as a national security threat, which often
relies on unsubstantiated claims about the inherent criminality of foreign
nationals, provides an official gloss on deeply entrenched governmental
xenophobia, in which African immigrants are targets for regular harassment,
rounding up and extortion by the police. This normalisation of immigrants as
figures of resentment may also fuel outbreaks of xenophobic violence."
Attacks in 2013–19
Attacks against Somali entrepreneurs
On 30 May 2013, 25-year-old Abdi Nasir Mahmoud Good, was
stoned to death. The violence was captured on a mobile phone and shared on the
Internet.
Three Somali shopkeepers had been killed in
June 2013 and the Somali government requested the South African authorities to
do more to protect their nationals. Among those murdered were two brothers who
were allegedly hacked to death. The attacks led to public outcry and
worldwide protests by the Somali diaspora, in Cape Town, London and Minneapolis.
South African Foreign Minister Maite
Nkoana-Mashabane expressed the government's "strongest
condemnation" of the violence which has recently seen looting and the
death of a Somali shopkeeper. Somali Prime Minister Abdi Farah
Shirdon has expressed concern for the safety of Somalis in
South Africa, calling on the government there to intervene to stop violence
against Somali people after deadly attacks in Pretoria and Port Elizabeth.
On 7 June 2014, a Somali national, in his 50s, was
reportedly stoned to death and two others were seriously injured when the angry
mob of locals attacked their shop in extension 6 late on Saturday. Three more
Somalis were wounded from gunshots and shops were looted.
After another round of xenophobic violence against Somali
entrepreneurs in April 2015, Somalia's government announced that it would
evacuate its citizens from South Africa.
April 2015 attacks
In April 2015, there was an upsurge in xenophobic attacks
throughout the country. The attacks started in Durban and spread to
Johannesburg. Zulu King Goodwill
Zwelithini has been accused of fuelling the attacks by saying
that foreigners should "go back to their countries".
Locals looted foreigners' shops and attacked immigrants
in general, forcing hundreds to relocate to police stations across the country.
The Malawian authorities subsequently
began repatriating their nationals, and a number of other foreign governments
also announced that they would evacuate their citizens. More than 300
people were arrested. On 18 April 2015 a photographer from the Sunday
Times, James Oatway,
photographed a brutal attack on a Mozambican man. The man, Emmanuel Sithole,
died from his wounds. Four suspects were arrested within days of the
publication of photographs in the edition of 19 April of The
Sunday Times of the murder of Mozambican street vendor
Emmanuel Sithole in Alexandra township
the previous day. Sithole's name is not included in the official list of
seven victims killed in the April 2015 attacks, including an Ethiopian, a
Mozambican, a Bangladeshi, a Zimbabwean and three South Africans who were all
killed in KwaZulu-Natal.
Despite the government's insistence that Sithole's murder
was not xenophobic, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was deployed
in Alexandra township following the publication of the images. On 23 April
several thousand demonstrators marched through central Johannesburg to protest
against a spate of deadly attacks on immigrants. They sang songs denouncing
xenophobia and carried banners that read "We are all Africans" as
migrant workers crowded balconies, shouting their support.
October 2015 attacks
In October 2015
there were sustained xenophobic attacks in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape. It as reported than more
than 500 people were displaced and more than 300 shops and homes looted and, in
some cases, destroyed altogether. In these attacks Muslims were specifically
targeted.
The Grahamstown xenophobic attacks that took place on 21
October 2015, and coincided with the FeesMustFall protest at Rhodes University, lasted for several
days.
The attacks were instigated by the taxi drivers'
protests, where the drivers' were protesting over the terrible state of roads,
the rise in crime and rumours of murders committed by foreigners. Their demands
were that the mayor ought to do something about their grievances. Their
grievances were not addressed by the mayor.
On 21 October 2015 taxi drivers attacked spaza shops owned by Pakistani,
Somali, Bangladeshi and Ethiopian residents of Grahamstown. There was a
mobilisation of people by the taxi drivers, with the aim of attacking and
looting shops owned by foreigners. There was a rumour that insinuated that
foreigners were responsible for the rampant murders in town: that an "Arab
man had killed and mutilated women" around town and that the police had
not done anything to address these rumours. Grahamstown residents in the
townships were angry at the police for not doing anything to dispel the
rumours, despite having been warned by the councillors that the residents might
end up taking the law into their own hands. Thus, it was these rumours that
incited the attacks on foreigners.
On 23 October, the Makana Municipality held a town
meeting at City Hall. The meeting was focused on how the municipality and the
South African police would pacify the residents and address the situation.
During that meeting, there was no representative from the police and one of the
ward councillors further legitimized the attacks through xenophobic sentiments
centred on not giving foreigners a platform to have their own shops. The
attacks continued, with taxi drivers transporting looters for free, according
to the residents of Grahams town.
Reports from the residents allege that the police's
attitudes were that of indifference, with some participating in the
looting. The policing of the attacks was elitist as there was a line on
Beaufort street which pointed out where looting would be tolerated and where it
would not be. Thus, looting was allowed in the township and not tolerated in
town. The police only pacified the situation and restored order after a
week of attacks and looting. The xenophobic attacks in Grahamstown differed
from the usual xenophobic attacks in South Africa as the ones in
Grahamstown were mostly targeted at Muslims. The main reason why Muslims were
targeted was mainly due to the rumour that an Arab man was responsible for the
murder of women in the town.
2016 Tshwane riots
From 20–23 June 2016 a wave of riots hit the City of Tshwane. Although the riots were sparked by political
discontent within the ANC, Somali, Pakistani and other foreign
owned shops and micro enterprises were targeted for looting and a number
of foreigners were attacked.
2017 Anti-immigration Protest
On Friday 24 February 2017 a large scale and officially
sanctioned anti-immigrant protest was organised and held in the Pretoria. Protesters marched to the
Foreign Ministry and handed a petition to government representatives.
Protesters accused immigrants of taking jobs from South Africans, causing
crime, and complained that "they are arrogant and they don't know how
to talk to people, especially Nigerians." 136 protesters were
arrested during the march.
2019 Durban riots
On the 25 March 2019 xenophobic riots targeting African
immigrants broke out in Sydenham, Jadhu
Place and Overport areas
of Durban. Around one hundred people attacked businesses owned by foreign
nationals resulting in around 50 people seeking shelter in a local police
station and mosque. Three people were killed in the riot. A speech
given by President Cyril Ramaphosa at
the ANC's election manifesto for the 2019 South African general election was blamed for
contributing to xenophobic feeling wherein Ramaphosa committed to cracking down
on undocumented foreigners involved in criminal activities. The attacks on
foreigners was criticised by both the South African government and
political parties amidst calls to ensure that xenophobic sentiment was not
exploited for electoral purposes.
2019 Johannesburg riots
On 1 September 2019 riots and looting targeting shops
owned by foreign nationals broke out in Jeppes town and Johannesburg CBD following the death
of a taxi driver. By
the 3 September police had made 189 arrests for looting. Around 50
businesses predominantly owned by Africans from the rest of the continent
were reportedly destroyed or damaged during the incident. The riots
coincided with a nation-wide truck driver strike protesting against the
employment of non-South African truckers. In September 2019, 640 Nigerians
signed up to take free flights to Nigeria amidst attacks on foreigners.
Reactions
South African Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe
Zulu said that foreign business owners cannot expect to co-exist peacefully
with local business owners unless they share their trade secrets. According to
Zulu, foreign business owners had an advantage over South African business
owners due to marginalisation under apartheid. "They cannot barricade
themselves in and not share their practices with local business owners,"
Zulu said. The comments were met with widespread criticism.
An inquiry by the Competition Commission – the country's
anti-trust regulator, has indicated that a difference in performance between
foreign and local business owners has created a perception that foreigners are
more successful than locals. While there is nothing wrong with examining the
dynamics of competition, the insinuation that foreign business owners were to
blame for the decline of South African-owned small business was worrying.
Vanya Gastrow, a researcher from the African Centre for
Migration in Johannesburg, published a case study on the economics of small
traders in South Africa. The study titled "Somalinomics", outlined
the trade practices of Somali traders in South Africa. According to Gastrow,
most small foreign retailers set a low mark-up to make a high turnover, they
locate their businesses in highly trafficked pedestrian areas, they open early
and close late and have a wider product range.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation conducted an
interview with social media analyst Preetesh Sewraj which warned of the impact of fake news stories which were being
used to create panic amongst South Africans.
REUTERS
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