Rising tide of anti-migrant rhetoric mirrors South Africa’s shameful track record

Over the past fortnight, South Africans have been fixated on an extravagant distraction occasioned by Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s article that vilified members of the judiciary, trivialised the country’s Constitution and launched a cowardly attack on her fellow leaders in the African National Congress (ANC) and Cabinet.

When President Ramaphosa elected, after a meeting with Honourable Sisulu, to use the agency of his office to release a statement that purportedly conveyed her retraction of the offending aspects of her article, the fiasco was prolonged. An unrepentant Sisulu wasted no time in firmly rebuffing the president and in that act, let the universe know that she maintained her position that senior African judges are “house Negroes” and lickspittles who pass their court judgments for the benefit of foreign masters.

As the public continued in thrall of Sisulu’s sideshow, a surge of militant xenophobia was playing itself out across the land, with Gauteng its epicentre. Marches were staged against mostly African migrants living in South Africa.

In the glare of media publicity, one Nhlanhla Lux of Operation Dudula and his followers removed foreign traders from the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital taxi rank in Soweto. Pamphlets were distributed calling for a day of action against foreigners on 22 January 2022, and young people were called upon to “print their CVs or copy of their IDs and visit restaurants to peacefully sing and demonstrate that all low-skill jobs belong to South Africans.”

Anti-migrant videos went viral on social media platforms, one horrible video in particular, showing a ruthless young man, callously evicting a petrified old woman from her shack.

Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie visited the Johannesburg City Council building where he was quoted as having said “the City of Johannesburg is full of foreigners working there whilst we have unemployed graduates sitting at home.” He said much more, such as communicating that he had instructed some of his councillors to deal with the matter of African immigrants. “The Chief Whip has a Zimbabwean office manager,” he observed laconically. 

Banners aplenty called for the removal of foreign Africans living in South Africa. “One and all” were invited to join Operation Sepelang to reclaim the country from “illegal foreigners”.  One group declared 2022 “the year of the campaign against migrants working in South Africa and the businesses that employ them”.

Against this sound and fury, there was deathly silence — a squeaky pip at best — from the government and the African National Congress (ANC). Like Nero, they fiddled while Jozi was burning. Once upon a time, there was a National Action Plan to Combat Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance that was launched by the government in 2019 in the aftermath of the Johannesburg riots that resulted in at least seven deaths. A dedicated portal was to be set up for “non-South African nationals” to report on xenophobic incidents. It would cover provinces and rope in community policing structures as well.

This seems to have come to naught.

Let’s place the subject of refugees and asylum seekers in context. South Africa is a signatory to both the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees and the 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. As such, our country has an obligation to respect and uphold the letter and spirit of these conventions which, inter alia, contain certain rights provisions, such as protecting refugees and asylum seekers against unlawful expulsion or detention; the right to employment and education; access to the courts; and freedom of movement.

Sadly, South Africa has a dismal, and shameful, track record in managing migrant affairs. We lack empathy for people who are themselves by and large victims of intolerant, corrupt and incompetent regimes in their own countries. Many compatriots do not appreciate how much South Africa owes its freedom to amazing acts of international solidarity and sacrifices.