Every few years, anti-foreign-migrant sentiment explodes into widespread violence in South Africa.
Last week’s demonstrations against illegal immigration in Johannesburg, Durban and Pretoria rang an alarm that widespread anti-foreigner violence may recur.
The past week’s demonstrations could also signal that immigration will be a big issue in the local government elections in early November. While immigration is the sole responsibility of the national government, that might not matter for angry voters with no jobs and frustrated by poor service delivery.
In a poll conducted for the Social Research Foundation in March this year, about 23 percent of those polled identified illegal immigration as one of the most pressing issues for the country. The top issue identified by nearly 47 percent of those polled was unemployment.
The scale of illegal immigration into South Africa is unknown. Estimates of the number of illegal immigrants range between a million and around four million people. When violence breaks out, there is often no distinction between illegal and legal, and foreigner and local.
As in much of Western Europe and the US, immigration has been a mammoth issue largely neglected and dismissed by the elites. In SA, the issue can only get bigger and drive a lot more violence.
Even with improved technology to monitor illegal border crossings and track down illegals, we could face far greater numbers coming into the country. Fast population growth, negligible economic growth, and conflict across the continent are big push factors.
The losers on the immigration issue could be the ANC and the DA, who are seen as status quo parties. The DA holds the poisoned chalice of the Home Affairs portfolio in the government of national unity. DA Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber is doing a good job in ensuring a far more efficient department and stricter border control. He has managed to raise the number of deportations of foreigners by around 46 percent since coming to office.
But it is the DA that will have to take the blame for anything that is now perceived to have gone wrong on immigration. How do you persuade voters that matters are improving when they are out of work, but see foreigners working and running their own businesses, and ahead of them in queues at clinics?
Small parties that are seen to be tough on immigration like Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA and Gayton McKenzie’s Patriotic Alliance could benefit. But many who see nothing being done on immigration might just see this as another reason not to trust the politicians and to stay away from the polls. People who stay away from the polls might say to themselves that politicians can’t be trusted and they will have to take matters into their own hands.
Their own prize
The Economic Freedom Fighters, although often labelled as populist, have not joined in the anti-immigration hysteria, and they seem to have their eye on their own prize.
In a speech over the weekend, the party’s Commander in Chief, Julius Malema, said: “I don’t want the votes that say to me I must hate Africans for you to vote for me.
“Your problem is not Zimbabweans. You chase them out of the country. Do you have the land, do you own the factories?”
That is certainly a way of countering the hysteria, but there is a lure in easy solutions to problems.
Much of the anger at immigration should be directed at a government that runs services poorly and whose policies push up unemployment.
And there should also be anger directed at the many failed states across the continent from which most of the migrants come. Apart from Zimbabwe and Mozambique, there is a sizeable migrant community from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, as well as Bangladesh and Pakistan – all countries with deep problems, with millions ready to up and go.
One driver of the anger among locals is that the entire immigration system in SA, much like other government-run services, is seen as corrupt and hence lacking in legitimacy. The suspicion that even asylum-seekers may have bribed their way into the country means all migrants come under suspicion.
Life is a lot better in Johannesburg if you come from a failed state. As an immigrant, you see the opportunities and need to grab them as you have a family to feed back home. And a better education system in other African countries often means migrants are far better positioned.
Immigration does add to the pressure on public services. Four years ago, Limpopo Health MEC Phopi Ramathuba said that foreigners were “killing” the province’s healthcare system. She was widely condemned in the media and by doctors, but she had a point that the Zimbabweans were a burden on the budget, which was drawn up to serve locals. It would be a lot different if SA could pass on the bill for treatment of Zimbabweans to their own government.
Extreme libertarians argue that, ideally, people should be free to move to wherever they desire. But as Milton Friedman, the arch-libertarian economist, pointed out, that ideal collapses when the country to which a migrant wishes to move provides free healthcare and social security.
Whom to admit
SA does require skilled migrants and those who will set up businesses to create jobs. But most of our migrants are unskilled. With the problems of fraud and conducting due diligence, how do we know whom to admit?
Meanwhile, we can expect that violence will flare up periodically. This is a significant public order problem for the country, as this sort of public violence can easily take on its own momentum.
So far, the worst wave of violence against foreign migrants was in May 2008. The official death toll from the May 2008 riots was 62, and included 21 South Africans. Up to 150,000 people were forced to flee, and many ended up in tent camps set up by the government.
The symbol of that month of violence is a photograph of the “burning man”. Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave, a 35-year-old Mozambican father of three, was beaten and stabbed and then set alight by a mob in the Ramaphosa informal settlement on the East Rand.
Apart from the events of May 2008, serious mass anti-foreigner violence also broke out in 2015 and 2019.
Last week’s march in Johannesburg to protest illegal immigration went through some of the inner-city suburbs where there is a high concentration of migrants. The event was organised by March and March, which says it is a citizens-led advocacy movement for stronger immigration control. It was clearly designed to intimidate, with phalanxes of hostel dwellers brandishing fighting sticks and shields.
SA is now paying a price for the anti-immigration protests. Nigeria and Ghana have made their displeasure known to SA, and there is always the possibility that these countries could retaliate in some form.
The real problem is that even with improved immigration policies and enforcement, the public might still see immigration as the source of its most pressing problems.
[Image: Lucas Gouvêa on Unsplash
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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