“This is our only country, and foreigners are taking it away from us… We can’t take care of the whole world. We don’t even have enough for ourselves… People are not working, and jobs are being taken by illegal immigrants… Our first duty is to protect our women and children.” This sounds like a speech by British right-winger Tommy Robinson at a rally or a protest outside an asylum hotel. But anti-immigrant sentiment has also infected South Africa. In recent months, the country has been waging a brutal campaign against African immigrants, in which at least four people have been killed, thousands have been forced from their homes, and governments in many African countries have been forced to organize mass evacuations of their citizens from South Africa. In many places, protesters have gone door to door demanding that residents’ documents be checked. Hundreds of foreigners have been evicted, forced to sleep on the streets or in makeshift camps. Protesters have blockaded hospitals and health centers and banned all non-South African citizens from entering.
Most of the protests and much of the violence were organized by two groups. The first was Operation Dudula, which means “to remove by force” in Zulu. It emerged in the early 2020s by organizing attacks on migrant traffickers, and is now a registered political party. Another group is March and March which describes itself as self-grown (grass roots) a citizens' movement and uses Zulu nationalist symbolism. "Abahambe!" ("Let them go!" in Zulu) is the main cry of the movement. The protesters claim to be targeting only undocumented migrants, but in practice there is almost no distinction made between legal and illegal migrants. There have also been calls for the expulsion of South African women who are married to foreigners.
The anti-immigration movement has the support of the poor and the unemployed. South Africa is a country with probably the highest social inequality in the world, which has increased further since the end of apartheid. The Gini coefficient is a measure of income inequality in which 0 represents perfect equality and 1 represents maximum inequality. For European countries, this coefficient is around 0,25-0,35, for the USA 0,41, and for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole 0,58. For the Republic of South Africa, it is 0,63. The richest 10% of the population of the Republic of South Africa enjoys between 71% and 85% of the total wealth, while the poorest half struggles for only 4-7%.
The official unemployment rate is 32%, while the “extended” rate, which includes those who have given up looking for work and is therefore more accurate, is 43,7%. Among young people aged 15 to 24, more than 60% are unemployed.
One in eight households still live in “informal settlements” – shantytowns. More than half of households do not have running water, while 14 million people do not have a toilet connected to a sewage system. Research shows that “the percentage of the population with reliable access to a water supply is currently lower than it was in 1994,” when apartheid ended.
The plight of South Africa's working class, and their sense of the broken promises of the post-apartheid era, is very real. But it has very little to do with migrants. According to one estimate, even if all foreigners were expelled and all their jobs given to locals, the unemployment rate would still be 37,6%.
Inequality, as economist Kwezi Mabasa notes, is a product of policies implemented by the state and the private sector. Deindustrialization, trade liberalization, and financial market deregulation have contributed to the destruction of “sectors that historically employed large segments of the black working class.” While few workers enjoy standard labor rights, the majority “work in precarious jobs with minimal protections,” which facilitates “their exploitation through labor market flexibility.”
Austerity policies have further deepened poverty, while state corruption, often orchestrated through the African National Congress (ANC), has become so widespread and linked to organized crime, including a phenomenon known as the captured state, that it has undermined democratic processes and disrupted the delivery of basic public services, including water and electricity. This has created, as one report puts it, “a self-sustaining, self-defensive and growing criminal economy.”
Over the past 30 years, notes writer Duncan Northier, “South Africa has been very good at coming up with slogans,” but “fewer and fewer people feel that those slogans mean anything.” The moral authority that the ANC had gained through its role in ending apartheid has long since disappeared. Groups like Operation Dudula i March and March they give an opportunity “to those who felt neglected to do something, to participate in some tangible action, which is much more than broken promises.” This, Nortier concludes, is an example of “the mobilization of the marginalized against the marginalized,” while “those in power sit on the sidelines and smile.”
Many members of the corrupt political class have actively contributed to fueling anti-immigrant sentiment. The movement March and March is particularly close to the new political party The National Spear, now led by former President Jacob Zuma, who spent much of his life as a senior figure in the ANC and was linked to corruption scandals. Through this political agitation, foreign origin is, as political philosopher Anye-Nkwenti Nyamnyoh puts it, “presented as dangerous, destabilizing, burdensome and morally questionable.”
Local factors have undoubtedly played a significant role in fueling the xenophobic violence that is shaking South Africa today. But the same processes are being observed in Britain, the United States, India, and other countries around the world. South Africa is the clearest example of what happens when the anger of a disenfranchised working class becomes a tool used by certain sections of the elite to divert attention from their own responsibilities and to prevent the implementation of the political and economic policies necessary for real social change.
(Translated by Luna Đorđević)
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