Leaders’ ignorance feeds xenophobia
As a Nigerian who has lived in SA for more than 13 years, it is quite distressing having to write articles after periodic bouts of xenophobic attacks against African citizens.
These attacks — against Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Malawians, Somalis, Ethiopians, Nigerians and Pakistanis — reportedly killed 350 foreign nationals between 2008 and 2015. Poor leadership, incompetent governance and a lack of conflict-resolution skills have all resulted in a deadly cocktail of Afrophobia.
This time it was again the turn of the Nigerians, often stereotyped in the popular imagination, even by several academics, as drug-traffickers, who “steal” South African women. This despite the contributions of its citizens in sectors as varied as business, academia, media and the arts.
In the recent attacks, people burned and looted scores of homes and businesses in Rosettenville, Mamelodi and Atteridgeville that they alleged were drug dens and brothels. The evidence was similar to the witch-hunts of the medieval age. Such “mob justice” surely has no place in a constitutional democracy. Zimbabweans and Pakistanis were also accused of being involved in crimes, and accused of taking away homes and jobs from South Africans. The police have, in turn, been accused of corruption and not doing enough to protect foreigners.
The typical response to these attacks from South African officialdom — which sometimes fan the flames of xenophobia itself — is to engage in “xenophobia denialism”. Officials such as Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba have sought to portray rampaging vigilantes who are clearly targeting the homes and businesses of foreigners as mere “criminals”, while mouthing unhelpful platitudes about most South Africans not being xenophobic. As evidence, President Jacob Zuma also noted that there were no refugee camps in SA and that most foreigners were, therefore, integrated into local communities. That the xenophobic attacks have continued unabated over the past decade clearly confirms the abject failure of such integrationist efforts.
The joker in the pack has been Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba. SA’s own Donald Trump has played the role of buffoon-businessman to perfection, with an inability to grasp complex issues, let alone make reasoned arguments. Instead, he has thrived on spewing xenophobic vitriol and espousing a crass nativism.
Like Nero, he has fiddled while his megapolis has burned. Treating his job as if playing “cops-and-robbers”, he embarked on “operations” with his force in the South Rand. Mashaba has talked as if foreigners and criminals are synonymous, linked prostitution to Nigerians and complained that migrants were “messing up Joburg”.
He has engaged in the same “dog-whistle” politics King Goodwill Zwelithini embarked on in 2015. The attacks in Rosettenville, in which a dozen foreign homes were torched, followed Mashaba’s incendiary remarks. This prejudiced pseudo-philosophical politician has offered such gems as: “We are not xenophobic, but we work in the interest of South Africans. It is about national identity and pride. There is no nationality called African. You are either South African, Angolan or Ethiopian. My ID states that I am a South African, not African”. That such divisive rhetoric does not elicit more vociferous condemnation says much about the poverty of political and civil society leadership.
The response from the Nigerian government has been forceful, as it has been in the past. Abuja has called on SA’s authorities to stop the violence, protect its citizens, and threatened to go to the AU to protest. Nigeria claims 116 of its citizens have been killed over the past two years, though Tshwane has disputed these figures. Many Nigerians at home are also appalled by these xenophobic acts, which has resulted in the vandalism of the offices of MTN in Abuja. While South Africans seem to express hatred against Nigerian citizens, Nigerians have tended to direct their ire at South African companies.
SA and Nigeria are Africa’s two largest economies and among its most active peacekeepers. If Africa is to achieve peace and prosperity, both countries will need to work together as the engines of regional integration and prophets of Pax Africana.
How then can one justify these horrific attacks and a “March Against Foreigners” in a “rainbow nation” claiming to have one of the world’s most liberal constitutions?
● Prof Adebajo is director of the University of Johannesburg’s Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation.