Xenophobia keg smoulders
Aroad rage incident in the Eastern Cape’s Gqeberha in October last year ended up with several minibus taxis and shops on fire, following an accident between a taxi and a vehicle owned by a Somali foreign national. The taxi drivers had reportedly banded together and set the foreign national’s vehicle alight. What followed could have been straight out of a Hollywood action blockbuster: foreign nationals came brandishing all sorts of automatic weapons and set eight minibus taxis on fire.
Locals then set foreigner-owned shops on fire. Videos and photographs showing the foreign nationals brazenly walking the streets in broad daylight brandishing these obviously illegal weapons do not seem to have yielded any arrests or resulted in any court cases.
This incident in Gqeberha happened just three months after the looting that followed the incarceration of former president Jacob Zuma. Most analysts pointed out what was clear to many people at the time: this country’s security cluster is totally ineffective.
The most glaring truth that people avoided is that SA’s porous borders had not only allowed in economic refugees but also armed and dangerous people willing to go out on the streets and use those weapons.
The rumour mill at the time suggested there could be several armed organisations linked to the many foreigner-owned businesses that have mushroomed countrywide.
And then along comes operation Dudula, led by a young man wearing military fatigues in the style favoured by former liberation army veterans like the controversial Carl Niehaus. Nhlanhla Lux, Operation Dudula’s leader, does not carry any weapons that he brandishes publicly but he does have a manner of speech that suggests his members are ready for any type of confrontation in their crusade to rid SA of undocumented foreign nationals, accusing them of taking jobs from South Africans.
The anti-foreigner sentiment is slowly reaching fever pitch with several groups of foreign nationals organising themselves to counter the actions of Dudula. This past week, Zimbabwean and Lesotho seasonal farmworkers clashed in the Cape winelands. Dudula aimed to make Human Rights Day the day they intensify their campaign to get undocumented foreign nationals out of the country. And where is the government in all of this?
It is as though the government is waiting for a bloodbath before actively engaging those that are spewing antiforeigner rhetoric.
Government doesn’t seem to have a plan at all to deal with the easily ignitable situation which the likes of Lux and even ActionSA’s Herman Mashaba have created by constantly blaming foreign nationals for SA’s economic woes.
Where will they be when the situation turns deadly? The incident in Gqeberha has shown that some of these groups are heavily armed. Who will stop the carnage if all this talk results in war on the streets?
South Africa has an immigration problem, granted. South Africa also has the most unequal society in the world as recently confirmed by the World Bank, again. “The legacy of colonialism and apartheid… continues to reinforce the inequalities,” the report says.
It does not say foreign nationals are the cause of SA’s woes. Yes, they need to be documented and immigration controlled, but government cannot continue keeping silent while a war with foreign nationals is being fomented.