Hiiraan Online

Xenophobia as common as 'daily bread' for migrants to South Africa

Brendan Kennedy, The Ottawa Citizen
Saturday, May 24, 2008

Some South Africans accuse African foreigners of stealing jobs and fuelling violent crime. Such xenophobia has led to violent clashes that have left non-South Africans fearing for their safety. Photograph by : Siphiwe Sibeko, Reuters South Africa

"That's a daily bread," he says. "That's like coffee to us."

Mr. Benjamin freely admits to living in South Africa illegally, but says that given Zimbabwe's economic and political state, he has little choice but to eke out a living here with the hope that one day things will improve in his country. Still, he wishes more South Africans could empathize with his situation.

Last year, South Africa was the most popular destination for asylum seekers in the world, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. More than 53,000 new asylum claims were lodged in the country, one-tenth of the global total. But these numbers don't include the thousands of economic migrants like Mr. Benjamin, who are living in South Africa without any documentation.

While the South African government struggles to accommodate the massive influx of people in terms of services and administration, the people on the ground simply struggle to live with each other.

Despite the fact that during South Africa's fight for liberation, countries all over the continent provided support and asylum for its liberation leaders, South African citizens today are not showing the same kind of welcoming spirit. Foreign Africans are often blamed for spiraling crime rates, rising unemployment and even for bringing HIV/AIDS into the country.

Though the popular myth is that foreigners bring crime and corruption, the reality is that even when they have legitimate and legal documentation, they are usually the victims of it, through harassment by service providers, extortion from police officers and violence from South Africans.

This year, there have been incidents in townships in three South African provinces where Somali traders were violently attacked and had their stalls burned. The Somali Association of South Africa claims that more than 100 Somalis have been killed as a result of xenophobic violence since 1997, more than 30 of them in 2006 alone.

The increasing violence has intensified the fears of foreign Africans in the country. One Congolese man recently told a local newspaper that, "As soon as (Nelson) Mandela dies, they'll kill all the foreigners."

As the largest economy on the continent, South Africa has been a favoured destination of African migrants since the dismantling of apartheid in 1994.

In 1998, the African National Congress, South Africa's ruling party, publicly denounced xenophobia and, working with civil society groups, established the Roll Back Xenophobia campaign to educate South Africans against xenophobia and raise awareness about issues surrounding immigration.

However, attitudes haven't changed since then and the number of people entering South Africa is increasing.

More recently, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg have publicly committed to do more to combat xenophobia and protect non-nationals, documented or not.

Only a few months ago, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees commended South Africa's "progressive" policies on refugees and asylum seekers.

While the country is being applauded at the constitutional and legislative level, the reality on the streets provides a very different picture.

Recent surveys show that xenophobia in South Africa hasn't decreased at all. Vincent Williams, project Manager for the Queen's University-based Southern African Migration Project (SAMP), says SAMP's research shows that levels of xenophobia in South Africa are high and have remained largely the same since the late 1990s.

Mr. Williams, who works for SAMP in Pretoria, has led two surveys aimed at measuring xenophobic attitudes among South African citizens. The first survey was completed in 1999, and the second was concluded at the end of last year, but its results have not yet published.

"Our conclusion is that levels of xenophobia remain high and at largely the same level as before," he said. "We anticipated that it might be lower. One would have hoped that with more contact with foreigners, the assumption is that xenophobia would have decreased."

Mr. Williams said the government's attempts, particularly since the late '90s, to educate South Africans against xenophobia, "doesn't seem to have had any impact on citizens."

Zakes Mda, a popular South African novelist, playwright and academic, has addressed intolerance and tribalism in much of his work. "(Xenophobia) can't be eradicated while we have high rates of unemployment, high rates of poverty and thousands of people coming into South Africa," he said. "The situation on the ground is ripe for xenophobia."

Mr. Mda said xenophobia isn't a peculiarly South African phenomenon, but it becomes more pronounced in places where there is competition over scarce resources.

"The root of the problem is that the whole world is xenophobic," he said. "In Canada there is xenophobia, but in societies like yours where there is no competition over resources like in South Africa, it may not be so apparent except amongst some very bigoted people."

Joyce Tlou, co-ordinator for non-nationals at the South African Human Rights Commission, said xenophobia cannot be looked at in isolation, and that larger issues of migration must also be considered.

"You have to look at the bigger picture," she said, adding that xenophobia in South Africa is abetted by the legacy of apartheid, and the isolation of South Africa during that time.

Ms. Tlou also said that some South Africans feel that since they fought so long and hard to achieve democracy, they shouldn't have to share it now.

"A lot of the xenophobic attacks that have happened have been a result of a fight for economic space," she said. "The pie is just too small."

Citizen reporter Brendan Kennedy lived in Johannesburg for six months in the latter half of 2007.

Source: Ottawa Citizen, May 24, 2008