Africa, in the eyes of many South Africans, lies north of the Limpopo and south of the Sahara

For the fourth time since 2008, a section of South Africa rose against foreigners last week. Marauding gangs of youths burned shops owned by makwerekwere, the derogatory term used to refer to foreigners.

They were cheered on by some older South Africans, and by the end of the week of orgy of violence, seven people were dead and hundreds of others had moved to makeshift camps for police protection. Most, if not all, were from other Africa countries.

Questions have been asked, and rightly so, about how a people who suffered so much for decades under a draconian, racist apartheid system could so fast forget how other African countries supported thousands of their kin in exile.

The riots were allegedly triggered by the comments of the Zulu King, Goodwill Zwelithini, whom the media quoted as saying that “foreigners need to pack their bags and leave the country”. He was addressing a curiously named Moral Regeneration Rally in KwaZulu Natal a week before the riots.

African migrants are being accused of being behind all the problems facing the “Rainbow Nation”, such as unemployment, drugs, crime, gun running and immorality, and President Zuma’s son has come out to support the king’s comments.

While Edward Zuma went ahead to clarify that all foreigners — and not just those from African countries — should be investigated for various illegal activities, it was not lost to observers that whites, Asians and coloured South Africans were not targeted, leading to commentators describing the attacks as “Afrophobic” and not xenophobic, as the latter refers to intense irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries.

NOT IN AFRICA

Discussing the issue on Aljazeera TV last Saturday, Piers Pigou of the International Crisis Group observed that “white South Africans were excluded from this phenomenon”, but it was Mphuthi Nguthi from Zimbabwe who touched on an issue hardly discussed in the context of the riots: the perceived sense of superiority among black South Africans relative to blacks from other countries.

“We need to know that South Africa as a country considers itself better and different from the rest of Africa,” said Nguthi.

Zimbabwe has borne the brunt of the riots, probably because it has over one million migrants working in South Africa. Paradoxically, it also suffered greatly during apartheid years as a frontline country against apartheid.

However, Dr Peter Johnson of the Climate System Analysis Group, Cape Town told DN2 that black foreigners were primarily easy targets in South Africa because of their willingness to work for low wages, hence undermining the fabric of the labour movement that unions have fought for.

“The fact that whites and others are not in direct competition for these jobs and are employers means there is no real point of attacking them. The foreigners are easy prey because they usually live in poor informal settlements,” added Johnson.

While a major driver of the frequent attacks against foreigners is the harsh economic environment, people who have lived in South Africa confirm the snobbish attitude of locals towards other Africans.

This attitude is one of the offshoots of the apartheid system that kept reminding local blacks that they belonged to “Africa”.

In the film 'Cry My Beloved Country' — on Steve Biko, the anti-apartheid activist — a white torturer blurts out: “We (whites) don’t want you (Blacks) to make our country like Kenya or Congo.” It is no wonder, then, that a popular notion among South Africans — white, coloured and blacks alike — is that they are not from “Africa”.

To them, the place called Africa is somewhere between River Limpopo, South Africa’s northern boundary with Zimbabwe, and the Sahara (in line with the saying “north of the Limpopo, south of the Sahara”).

The overwhelming global empathy and attention accorded to South Africa during and after apartheid, as well as the Mandela phenomenon, may have led many southern Africans to think they were special and needed to be treated as such by other Africans.

“I think this mentality went into their heads,” said Kamotho Gachago, an industrial chemist.

SELF ESTEEM ISSUES

Mr Gachago used to be sent to South Africa frequently for work in the early 2000s by the company he was working for, and he remembers clearly “the resentment and animosity among black colleagues in the company” towards him.

“It was like the blacks were wondering; ‘who are you, another black man, to come here and address us’,” he said.

Mr Gachago said that at one time, black workers almost went on strike to protest the perceived preferential treatment accorded him by the company.

“Initially I was perplexed by this reaction. It seemed to me that the blacks suffered very low self-confidence, maybe because of the many years they suffered oppression,” he added.

Patrick Mutahi, who studied in South Africa for two years, doesn’t have fond memories of the place either.

“The hostility towards Blacks from other countries is all over the place. They go out of their way to show you are not welcome. Note, also, that their immigration policies have changed greatly recently in a bid to keep other Africans away from their country. I mean, you expect this in Europe or America, but surely not from black Africa,” said Mr Mutahi.

This hostility is also observed among the African-Americans, who, although at a higher, more complex level, are sometimes hostile towards black immigrants, especially from Africa.

The latter are seen to be joining hands with the “oppressor” to sustain a perceived repressive system that is biased towards minorities.

However, in contrast, unlike in South Africa, African-Americans hardly attack migrant blacks.

Many sub-Saharan African countries, especially those neighbouring South Africa, have reacted angrily to the latest spell of anti-foreigner violence.

Zimbabwe’s university student leaders have called for a boycott of South African goods while Malawi and Mozambique have gone a step further and asked South Africans working in these countries to leave so that people returning home can take over the jobs.

DIPLOMATIC TIFFS

However, other than Nigeria, most African countries have not reacted diplomatically to the attacks.

In Nigeria, the issue ended up in Parliament, which fell short of closing South Africa’s embassy in Lagos but gave Jacob Zuma 48 hours to end the attacks.

The outcome of Nigeria’s past spats with South Africa has not been pleasant. When Pretoria recently denied Nigerians entry over missing yellow fever jabs, Nigeria hit back: for every visitor denied entry, the West African powerhouse roughly expelled 10 South Africans.

Pretoria quickly reversed its stand, but the tiff was largely seen as a rebuff over South Africa’s constant chest-thumping against other African countries. Nigeria, it is worth noting, recently overtook South Africa as the continent’s largest economy.

Unfortunately, the current attacks are of a different nature and diplomacy will not work. Xenophobia is driven by other push factors and is much more complex.

There is, of course, an economic angle, and post-apartheid South Africa has done little to address the structural flaws informing social problems inherited from the apartheid era.

What is happening in South Africa belies the failure of racial integration after apartheid and is a classic case of blaming the wrong — but convenient — causes of the problem.

The Azania dream as conceived by the anti-apartheid fathers and mothers is dead. It rested on a united Africa, a unity nurtured by the Ubuntu concepts of kindness and sharing that connect all humanity.

However, these are abstract things and are easily forgotten in the face of human greed and opportunity for power and its exercise.

Ubuntu did little to stop new South African black leaders from quickly adapting themselves to the apartheid system, prompting Bishop Desmond Tutu to quip that black (economic) apartheid is worse than white apartheid.

The reality is that South Africa’s black population remains as largely disadvantaged as it was during apartheid.

FIRST STONE

The human development indices remain low, in some areas lower than neighbouring countries.

Illiteracy is a major challenge and the country still requires skilled foreign labour to maintain its pace of economic development. That is why there many Kenyan engineers, nurses, doctors and other scientists working there.

The woes are endless: rural villages still stuck in the pre-colonial times, or townships that lack basic amenities like water, health, electricity and schools.

Crime is also rampant. Robbers in some South African cities don’t have the time to rob banks: they simply blow up ATMs and run away with the loot.

Black South Africans may throw out foreigners, but it is doubtful that this will solve the inequality and sharp social divisions.

The only option for South Africa to remain together was by demolishing the physical symbols of apartheid, but, like many other post-colonial African countries, all the economic structures remained in the hands of the dominant classes.

And from there, it is a familiar story. A class of blacks took over political power and were invited to join corporate boards of multinationals and big local companies. They invited their friends “to eat” together.

The majority remained largely where they were during apartheid and can only go as far as demolishing Boer memorial statues in the streets. 

Finally, lest we place ourselves on a moral pedestal and judge South Africans, we have been following that script at the local level. Haven’t we evicted, even killed, “others” for perceived hogging of jobs and land?

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HUNTED LIKE DOGS

Foreigners tell of flight from marauding death gangs

FOREIGNERS FLEEING xenophobic violence in South Africa told Tuesday of how they escaped marauding death mobs and vowed never to return to the country where they had sought a new life.

Holding her one-year-old daughter in her arms, Agnes Salanje from Malawi said she “faced death” during the wave of anti-immigrant violence that has claimed at least seven lives.

“We could have been killed as these South Africans hunted for foreigners, going from door to door,” Salanje, who was a domestic worker in the Indian Ocean port city of Durban, told AFP.

Nearly 400 Malawians arrived overnight in the city of Blantyre in the south of the country, where they were met by government ministers and officials.

BETTER POVERTY

The attacks on foreigners have sparked anger and protests against South Africa across the rest of the continent.

Salanje, who was paid $200 a month (about Sh18,000), said she escaped the attackers after being “tipped off by a good neighbour and we ran to a mosque to seek shelter.”

“I will not go back. It is better to be poor than be hunted like dogs because you are a foreigner,” she said. “I lost everything. I only managed to grab a few clothes for myself and my baby Linda.”

South African authorities have vowed to crack down on mobs who have been attacking foreigners from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique and other African countries in both the economic capital Johannesburg and Durban.

Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said Tuesday the army would be deployed in parts of Johannesburg to prevent any further violence.

Chisomo Makiyi, 23, who worked at a clothes factory in Durban, is still puzzled about why she was attacked.

“Had I not run away to safety, I would not be here,” she said on arrival in Malawi after a three-day journey from Durban that took six different buses.

“I just don’t know why all of a sudden they started hating foreigners and giving them two choices — be killed or go home. My life is more important than a good salary,” she said, vowing to never return to South Africa, despite being paid $280 (Sh26,000) a month there, “which back home would be a dream”.

SHOCKED AND DISGUSTED

Zimbabwe, which has at least one million citizens working in South Africa, said 400 arrived by bus at the border late on Monday after leaving camps in Durban, where they had sought shelter.

“Many of them were distressed when our teams went to the camps but they are now happy to be back home,” foreign ministry spokesman Joey Bimha told AFP.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has expressed “shock and disgust” at the violence, but those who return to the country also face a difficult future, given Zimbabwe’s moribund economy.

The first Mozambicans returned on Friday, with 109 people accommodated over the weekend at a transit camp where they were given tents, blankets and hot food.

They said that the unrest started when Zulus attacked “Shangaan”. The Shangaan tribe lives on both sides of the South Africa-Mozambique border, but “Shangaan” is also sometimes used by South Africans as a loose term for foreigners.

“They say we take their jobs, and that our men take their wives,” Victoria N’Gonhamu, 29, who worked in Durban as a maid, told AFP.