South Africa is going to the polls on 8 May 2019. It’s economy is not performing well- Eskom, South African Airways (SAA), Transnet, high unemployment and crime levels.
The issue of state capture, informally called the Guptagate has led to a Commission of Inquiry being set up to try to unravel the extent to which government institutions have been corruptly infiltrated.
So much is being done to try to tame this rot and shore the economy.
Politicians promise heaven-on-earth in their bid to win votes.
However, it becomes reckless and immoral if sensitive issues such as high unemployment and crime levels are squarely blamed as being caused by immigrants.
These are issues which are so sensitive that they are the nerves which affect citizens at the lower end of the economic ladder- they feel helpless. Such reckless speeches by politicians lead to citizens taking the law into their own hands and attack the immigrants in their communities. They end up hating immigrants- xenophobia.
So much research has been carried out to determine the nature and extent of xenophobia in South Africa.
A pattern is developing where xenophobic attacks are carried out just after influential figures such as politicians or community leaders have made public statements insinuating that immigrants are the ones who are responsible for the economic and social ills that are befalling the country. Xenophobic outbreaks of 2008, 2013, 2015, 2017 and the current one come to mind.
Research carried out by Annah Moyo of the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) in 2013 revealed that xenophobia is institutionalised in South Africa.
I recall an incident which I experienced as I went through passport control at Beitbridge border gate in 2017. Travellers were being attended to at outside clearing points so as to decongest the main clearance hall. I was running late for an examination and I presented my case to the supervisor who was leading the shift on duty. He referred me inside to a specific lady officer. On hearing my case she almost refused to assist me on the basis that she was only attending to South African citizens. Upon plea, she agreed to serve me and that was when she told me that she was depressed because she had failed an institutional examination module. It turned out that the failed module was a module on Xenophobia. The irony of it could not escape me.
The 2015 xenophobic attacks were so severe to the extent that the governments of Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe had to repatriate their nationals who were victimised.
These repartriations were without their own challenges. Some families were broken up. The other spouse would have to leave while the other remains behind. It was not a smooth exercise. Some, especially South African female spouses, opted to accompany their husbands only to be turned away at the screening processes of the country of destination. Roles would have been reversed- they would be now undocumented so they would not be admitted.
To some extent, the repatriation exercise was an exercise in futile because most of the repatriated people ended up illegally crossing into South Africa back to their partners and homes.
The politicians never learn. Now that it’s the campaign season they repeat the same rhetoric that immigrants are the ones causing all the economic and social problems in South Africa. Are the immigrants the ones that run Eskom or SAA?
Research (Dunderdale 2013; Goredema 2008) has shown that local communities have internalised aggressive responses to people or things they dislike. Criminals take advantage of chances created during the mayhem and strike. Government view this as common crime yet it goes beyond that. Victims of xenophobia being victimised again.
South Africa must find ways of dealing with its economic and social challenges without putting the lives and livelihoods of other nationals in its territory under the bus for political expediency.
The Preamble to the South African Constitution made us to believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in their diversity.
This calls upon the South African government to deal with the crime of illegal migration. The government must not stoke embers of xenophobia during volatile periods like the political elections campaign periods.
If the community policing concept of SAPS is fully embraced and implemented then most of the illegal migrants would be accounted for.
The cultural-symbolic theory posits that xenophobia is anchored in early political and value socialisations.
A tolerant and prosperous South Africa is all we want. This tolerance begins by combating xenophobia and treating it as a dangerous crime too.
The Truth! 