South Africa: Xenophobia and Anti-migration Crisis

 When xenophobic violence escalated across South Africa this May, African governments did something that should not have been necessary: they sent planes. Ghana chartered a flight. Mozambique deployed buses. Nigeria negotiated waivers so its citizens could leave without being detained. Malawi bused 150 people home from camps in the Western Cape. This episode follows the crisis six weeks on — the violence that continued after the shutdown, the two presidential addresses that tried and partly failed to meet the moment, and what it means when the country that Ubuntu built starts telling Africans they don't belong. 

Transcript

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When I did the episode last month on xenophobia in South Africa, the May 4th shutdown was coming up. And I said that the continent would be watching. Well, the continent did watch. And here is what happened and what the continent did. My name is Amadou. This is Learning Africa. Six weeks ago I told you about the story that was at a turning point. Today I want to tell you which way it turned. And why one particular development may be the most important thing to understand about where this story is going. The May 4th shutdown happened. It was larger than many observers expected. The coalition, calling itself concerned citizens and voters of South Africa, organized demonstrations across the country, calling for the expulsion of foreign nationals, not just undocumented ones. And that distinction matters. The original rhetoric, at least nominally, targeted illegal immigration. What was demanded on May 4th was brother. It was the expulsion of all migrants, regardless of status. Human Rights Watch formally documented what followed: violent, sometimes federal attacks on African foreign nationals in Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Durban from April into May, and with law enforcement responses that the Human Rights Watch again called inadequate. A 43-year-old Cameroonian shop owner who had lived in South Africa for nearly 20 years described men associated with March and March breaking down the door of his locked shop during protest in Durban. He had turned the lights when the protest started, but the men came in anyway. And then on May 29th, something happened that changed the scale of the story. In Moselle Bay, about 400 kilometers east of Cape Town, violence broke out against Mozambican nationals. The Mozambican government said that around 800 of its citizens were caught up in the attacks. Several died, seven according to the Mozambican government, two according to South African police. But here is what is not in dispute it's Mozambican nationals sheltering in Western Cape Town, waiting for buses to evacuate them home because they no longer felt safe in South Africa. I want to stay with the evacuations for a moment because I think they are the most important thing to understand about where this story has moved. In 2015, when the last major wave of xenophobic violence swept South Africa, African governments began evacuating their own citizens. It was shocking then and it is shocking now. And the fact that it is happening again, the fact that a continent watched what happened, saw the pattern, saw what it cost, and is watching it repeat, that requires more than shock. It requires explanation. This time around, Ghana moved first. Around 800 Ghanaians had registered to go home, saying they no longer felt safe in South Africa. On May 21st, the Ghanaian government organized a state-chartered flight from Johannesburg. Around 300 Ghanaians flew home on that first flight. One of the returning Ghanaians who had built a salon in South Africa told journalists that when the attacks began, his salon was broken into and looted. He couldn't find a buyer for what was left, but he still left. As he put it, if you have life, you have everything. Mozambique bust out 545 of its nationals and confirmed readiness to evacuate a thousand more. Nigeria, which has one of the largest West African communities in South Africa, announced plans to repatriate between 2,000 and 4,000 of its citizens. Malawi has now begun repatriating its citizens. 150 Malawians were bust from temporary camps in Western Cape this week, with the government describing it as a coordinated humanitarian operation. Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho have all issued formal safety warnings to their citizens still in South Africa. In Durban, hundreds of nationals from DRC, Rwanda, and Somalia sought protection after locals had gone door to door telling them they have to leave by June 30th. I want to say what this is in no disguise whatsoever before we go further. This is African governments sending planes and buses to another African country to collect their own people from danger. This is the physical enactment of the sentence I used in the first episode. Africans being evacuated from an African country for their safety, not because of a war, not because of a natural disaster, but because of their neighbor, because of their African brothers and sisters. The countries that evacuated their citizens were acting on the African Charter on Human and People's Rights, on their constitutional duties to protect citizens abroad, and on something older and harder to name. The recognition that whatever is happening in Johannesburg and Durban and Moselle Bay is a betrayal of something the continent agreed to be. And so by now you're probably thinking, what has the South African government done? Because it is also a failure on their part if the people in their country don't feel safe because of their own citizens. Here is what President Seramafosa has done. In his speech at the National Assembly on June 2nd, he named what is happening as xenophobia. He said there is no space for it and acknowledged that the government had dropped the ball on migration management. He announced dedicated courts to process deportation faster, stricter border enforcement, and a new national approach developed by an interministerial committee. He said he would address the nation more fully on the government's plan, and he kept that promise. On June 7th, he delivered a national address on migration specifically. He announced what his government called a five-point comprehensive approach. Faster deportation, stricter employer enforcement, border security upgrades, a modernized identity system. He said he would act against forces using the migration crisis to further their own agendas. He warned that the government would not be influenced by social media campaigns spreading misinformation about foreign nationals. So the government had now acted. And so I guess now the question is does the framing of the response make things better or worse? Because what Brahmulfosa basically said was two things. First, he said we will not tolerate vigilante violence. The second thing he said is that we will move faster on deportation and crack down harder on undocumented migration. And when you place those two messages next to each other, they do not cancel each other out. The second message gives permission to the first. It says, You were right about the problem. We, the government, were just slow and we are catching up. It's almost as if Ramaforsa was acknowledging xenophobia with one hand and then feeding the myths that drive that same xenophobia with the other hand. He did not announce prosecution of the people who blocked a one-year-old Malawian child from accessing a clinic. He did not announce accountability for the police who failed to respond. The crackdown he announced was not on the vigilantes, it was on the people the vigilantes are targeting. The greatest threat facing South Africa is not migration. It is the growing willingness to blame migrants for problems the state itself created. The evidence consistently points to governance failure. The state fails to deliver, economic pressure builds, a political trigger comes, and violence against foreign nationals follows. Blaming a Zimbabwean trader for a failing hospital is not an explanation. It is deflection. The June 30th deadline has not gone away after Remoforsa's speech. The March and March leaders have announced a new shutdown if the government has not acted. The movement is demanding a declaration of a state of emergency on illegal immigration, a moratorium on all refugee applications, and corporate disclosure on how many foreign nationals major employers are currently employing. The government has said there will be no shutdown on June 30th. But the government had said that before. The truth is there are organized networks that have been building for six years, political figures from mainstream parties lending legitimacy, an election cycle approaching that rewards this kind of mobilization, and a government whose own messaging has given the movement room to operate. I am because we are. South Africa built its moral case for freedom on that idea. The liberation struggle was supported by the continent. Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, because Ubuntu was understood as binding. Your freedom is my freedom. We are made real by each other. What has happened in the six weeks since I last spoke about this is that the contradiction between that founding idea and the reality on the ground has deepened. It has not narrowed. The violence has continued, the political response has been equivocal, the institutions that are supposed to protect people have fallen short once again. But I want to say this. The 40 civil society groups who joined together in Cape Town to condemn the march. They are also South Africans. The lawyers filing urgent applications to protect migrants' rights, they are also South Africans. The researchers producing the evidence that contradicts the scapegoating narrative and the journalists following the money behind the movement, they are also South Africans. The country that Ubuntu built is still there. It is being fought over. June 30th is coming. I will be watching. And if something significant changes before you hear this, if there is a third shutdown, if there are prosecutions, if something breaks in a new direction, I will record another update. The news from this story has not finished. But the Ubuntu and the idea and what it stands for, that is at stake. And we will be watching.