South Africa Has An Anti-Immigration Problem, And It Looks A Lot Like America's
DURBAN, South Africa — The health minister claims they crowd hospitals. The largest opposition party promises to secure the borders against them
. Police stop them at random, demanding to see their IDs. And sometimes their own neighbors violently turn against them, looting their shops, stabbing them in the street, and even burning them alive.
African nationals living in South Africa — whether as undocumented migrants, asylum-seekers, refugees, or citizens — have long struggled for full inclusion in society. But advocates say that their situation has worsened as elections approach and that the rise of global nationalism, particularly in the US from President Donald Trump, is to blame.
South Africans will cast their votes on May 8 in the first election since a
massive corruption scandal took down the country’s last elected president, Jacob Zuma.
Immigrant rights advocates worry not only that politicians will continue to use Africans as scapegoats but that the acts of violence committed against them will get worse in the so-called Rainbow Nation.
Vusumuzi Sibanda is chairperson of the African Diaspora Forum, an organization that combats xenophobia by acting as a watchdog whenever public figures make anti-immigrant statements and by fostering dialogue between South Africans and other African nationals. Sibanda, a Zimbabwean who has been living in South Africa for the past 19 years, told BuzzFeed News from his office in downtown Johannesburg that
he believes South African politicians have been influenced by the growth of nationalist politics around the world, especially in countries like the US and the UK.
This populist mentality, combined with South African politicians’ refusal to take responsibility for
failing public services, has made the African immigrant community the target for all the country’s ills, he added. Just as Trump’s immigration policies have demonized people not born in the US under the guise of protecting Americans and giving them better opportunities, South African political parties are capitalizing on the chance to promote similar policies at the expense of Africans who weren’t born in South Africa.
During the launch of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party’s manifesto in Durban — a city on the eastern coast of South Africa — in January, President Cyril Ramaphosa talked about the importance of “effective border management” in order to ensure public safety, and promised to come down harder on illegal trading and the selling of counterfeit products, the latter of which is a commonly held perception about undocumented African migrants.
Two months later, two separate attacks on African migrants took place in Durban. At least six people were killed, and another 150 were forced to flee their homes until the violence subsided. Human Rights Watch and the African Diaspora Forum condemned the xenophobic attacks and argued that they were a direct result of Ramaphosa’s comments.
But throughout this campaign season, the Democratic Alliance (DA) political party — the official opposition party, with 89 of 400 seats in Parliament — has been the most vocal when it comes to taking a hard stance on immigration. Its posters promising to “Secure Our Borders” are seen throughout Johannesburg, and the current mayor, DA member Herman Mashaba, is notorious for the anti-immigrant statements he’s made in the past. In November, in an exchange on Twitter with someone over the potential risks of selling meat in the city, he wrote, “We are going to sit back and allow people like you to bring us Ebolas in the name of small business. Health of our people first. Our health facilities are already stretched to the limit.”
After his comments provoked a backlash, Mashaba
apologized the next day.
“The DA says they want the borders to be tight because they’re porous right now, but what are they thinking? Of building a wall? Putting an army at the borders? The US was at a standstill in January because of the money it would take to build a wall, so what can South Africa do?” African Diaspora Forum’s Sibanda asked, referencing the 35-day
US government shutdown that resulted from Congress's inability to agree on whether or not to fund a $5 billion wall along the US–Mexico border.
Conversations around African migration focus on those who embark on the treacherous journey from North Africa across the Mediterranean Sea and into Europe. But the truth is,
there is significantly more movement that happens within the continent than outside of it. And South Africa has historically been one of the bigger recipients of foreign nationals, beginning in the late 19th century, when people from Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Angola, Zambia, and Tanzania
came to the country seeking work as miners shortly after Dutch settlers discovered, and then exploited, gold there.
Like black South Africans, these migrants were also later forced into townships and bore the brunt of a violent apartheid regime that lasted half a century. More recently, political and economic instability and civil wars in countries as close as Swaziland (which is located inside South Africa, along with Lesotho) and as far away as Ethiopia caused citizens to flee in search of a better life — and for many of them, South Africa was the destination of choice. The multiculturalism that resulted from communities representing every region on the continent — along with those from Asia and Europe — led former South African president Nelson Mandela, echoing the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
to name the country the Rainbow Nation in a speech after the abolishment of apartheid.
Similar to the US paradox of the “melting pot,” South Africa’s history is interwoven with migration and multiculturalism, yet it still struggles to ensure equality not only among its own citizens but also for the immigrants who literally built the country. The reactions to and treatment of African newcomers have grown increasingly antagonistic in recent years and have gotten markedly worse during election season.
One of the biggest challenges African migrants face in seeking justice for mistreatment by South Africans is law enforcement itself. Migrants and human rights groups have reported instances of
officers simply looking on while foreigners were being assaulted in the streets. And the hope for protection shrinks even further when authorities publicly express their own feelings toward other African nationals.
In July 2017, Deputy Police Minister Bongani Mkongi claimed, without evidence, that foreigners made up 80% of the population in a Johannesburg neighborhood of Hillbrow, known for its high crime rates, and that
South Africans were surrendering their land to them. But the most recent census data is from 2011 and
provided only gender, race, and language statistics for Hillbrow. In addition, a provincial survey from 2016
gave the numbers only for foreign nationals in Johannesburg. While African migrants made up 80% of all foreigners in the city at that time,
they made up only about 14% of the total city population.
In November, South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said during a nurses summit that
foreign nationals were overcrowding hospitals. His statement was
proved false, but Sibanda said comments like that from officials fuel the dangerous stereotype that immigrants drain the country’s resources, and effectively put them more at risk for violence.
“The government knows people are frustrated,” Sibanda said. “Clinics are known for opening late and closing early, and employees take two-hour lunch breaks. It’s hard to get seen when you go in.”
Rather than address those issues, Sibanda added, officials blame foreigners, not only for taking space away from South Africans in public hospitals but also for the
trash that spills into the streets of Johannesburg townships, the
rise in crime, and the lack of jobs — despite evidence showing that
immigrants actually boost employment rates and economic growth in the country.
But this blame is not meted out to all of South Africa’s immigrant groups; it’s aimed directly at people from other African countries, not those who come from Europe, Asia, or North or South America. Because of this, many people reject the use of the term “xenophobia” in favor of a more specific one to describe the situation in South Africa: “
Afrophobia,” the fear of other Africans.
Daniel Dunia, a Congolese refugee who’s lived in South Africa for 13 years, has experienced the discrimination and violence directed at African nationals in his personal and professional lives. As secretary-general for the nonprofit Africa Solidarity Network, the 44-year-old facilitates conversations between South Africans and African immigrants in order to debunk stereotypes and build peaceful relations among them.
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