Xenophobia rising in South Africa

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

We’ve heard a lot about European xenophobia )which is often directed against Muslim immigrants). Turns out that South Africa is having issues too.

Operation Dudula was set-up in Soweto two years ago, the first group to formalise what had been sporadic waves of xenophobia-fuelled vigilante attacks in South Africa that date back to shortly after white-minority rule ended in 1994. It calls itself a civic movement, running on an anti-migrant platform, with the word “dudula” meaning “to force out” in Zulu.

2

Ginning up hatred against migrants and other outsiders is a tried and true method of gaining political power with a long and inglorious history. Not surprising that it can gain traction anywhere in which there are people and morally bankrupt politicians who desire to exploit them.

3

I live in South Africa. Not in Gauteng, but I read the news most days.

This “party” has not registered on my horizon at all, and as a white male earning in the top 10% - and a foreigner (I’m Zimbabwean) I should be a top target for this group.

Xenophobia is nothing new here, unfortunately. And neither is immigration.

The hatred shown to foreigners, in my opinion, can be largely traced to two major causes.

  1. poverty is widespread, especially as unemployment is very high

  2. similarly to the USA, immigrants are strongly motivated to make money.

I’ve met immigrants who walked here (!) from the DRC (“Democratic” Republic of Congo), one of Africa’s several economic disasters, just to earn a pittance. But better than earning nothing at home. These people are strongly motivated to make money, hopefully to send some of it back to their families.

Naturally this work ethic in a country with large scale unemployment is going to raise issues of jealousy and territorialism. I also think the bland and unacted upon promises of “work for all” and “more jobs” which the ruling party (ANC) trots out all the time, coupled with a sense of “we suffered under apartheid, now we should benefit” appeals to many.

But in my experience (limited, of course, being white and male) the majority of people are OK with foreigners. Foreigners run the mini-markets where people buy their bread and cigarettes which would be too expensive if they had to pay for transport to a supermarket as well.

Foreigners (like in the US) make up a sizable portion of the low paid, low status jobs (cleaners, gardeners, etc) and are willing to work for much less, particularly if they are illegal and therefore cannot complain about minimum wage.

Market forces are going to favour well educated, desperate foreigners over comparatively poorly educated* locals.

If this “political party” does suceed in contesting the election, it will just be another tiny minority. But hopefully take some votes from the virulently fascist wannabe Julis Malema’s EFF.

* yeah, the RSA government does not win any points at all on a rating of their education policies. If such policies even exist, beyond political bullshitting.

4

Although if the person is too well educated then they run into other problems. I worked with an immigrant from Rwanda who had endless problems getting her work visa renewed. She was asked to prove that her Masters in Computer Science was from an accredited university. The really stupid bit? The university in question was South African.

She was also not given a job in line with her qualifications because her English, her third language, was not perfect. The fact that the company had plenty of French customers and maybe a developer fluent in the language would be handy didn’t seem to enter anyone’s head.