Facing up to the real causes of xenophobia

Few of these analyses have dared confront the central issue: the raw prejudice of South Africans against foreigners.  Yet is has been there for all to see. Take, for example, the ticker tape that runs under SABC’s Interface programme on Sunday nights. Last week the question was “will South Africans ever except foreigners?” Two thirds said no, and augmented their vote with lines like: “They should go home!” and “South Africa is for South Africans!”

 

This week the question was should foreigners be reintegrated into society? Again, two thirds said no, and the raw emotions- “no they must go back”- continued to flow. 

 

The people sending these messages are not poor township dwellers. They are middle class South Africans, black and white. To say that poverty is the cause of xenophobia is like saying that poverty, not HIV, is the cause of AIDS.  Scarce resources exacerbate any kind of human conflict or ailment. But they are seldom the root cause.

 

Somewhere in the volumes of coverage, the Sunday Times quoted a World Values Survey showing that South Africa is, officially, the most xenophobic country in the world, with one third of all South Africans stating that the government should deport all foreigners living in the country. The country’s wealthy, not the poor, were exposed in this survey “as one of the groups most hostile to foreigners.”

 

Xenophobia, like homophobia, sexism, and racism has its roots in the failure to accept “otherness” mixed with misguided notions about the superiority of self. That fragile self is constantly threatened by the potential power of the other, whether numerical; social, political or economic.

 

Periodically the fragile self rises up and exerts itself and its power over the less powerful other; often in brutal and violent ways. Witness the brutality of whites during apartheid. Or the violence perpetrated by men towards women in the new South Africa. Or the violence now of South Africans towards foreigners.  

 

As a South African born in Zimbabwe of South African parents, I have come to the painful conclusion that South Africans are more likely to accept a traitor like Craig Williamson or a right wing demagogue like Eugene Terreblanche than they are a South African who claims such status through descent or naturalisation; let alone through being here as an economic or political refugee.  

 

My ID document reads, South African citizen; place of birth: Zimbabwe. Yet when I am stopped by a police officer I am asked, “Oh, so you are a Zimbabwean.” I reply I am a South African. “But you were born in Zimbabwe,” the police officer insists.

 

Little wonder that these officers have offered scarce protection to foreigners under siege. CNN’s Robin Kerno has highlighted images of police more concerned to block the media from a bleeding man than to offer him a helping hand. To do so would be like asking apartheid forces to control the violence unleashed on the ordinary people of South Africa not so long ago.

 

So what is to be done? South Africa’s view of its superiority is tied up in its past. For centuries South Africans were cut off from the rest of Africa, and from the world.  White settler colonialism thrived on false notions of white superiority as well as the supposed barbarism of those “up north.”. South Africans of all hues have internalised these notions. This is not new. Zimbabweans, let it be said, similarly looked down on Zambians and others when the country gained its independence in 1980.

 

Ex South African exiles have been at the forefront of pointing out just how much African countries sacrificed for South Africa’s freedom. But they are numerically few. The only other kind of South Africans who know anything about Africa are the business buccaneers who foray into pristine beeches and virgin forests to make a quick buck or colonise the rest of Africa with retail shops with quick turn around but little development impact.

 

Take a trip to the new Accra mall, where Broll rents out the shops; Pick and Pay runs the groceries; Game advertises new toys for the kids and Nandos is the latest craze. If ever there were evidence of what benefits Africa brings to South Africa, this must be it.

 

Few South Africans get to know Africa in more than superficial ways. As a journalist for many years covering east, southern and west Africa from Harare, I often shared contracts with South African journalists going to African countries for the first time. I have a particularly vivid memory of the letter I got from Mbeki’s biographer, Mark Gevisser after he visited Ghana for the first time in the late 80’s;  an experience of warmth and vibrancy that only his superb turn of phrase can describe.

 

The problem with Mbeki’s African Renaissance is that it has been sung from ivory towers. It has not emerged from meaningful contract between people.  Add to that the particular vengeance of violence in South Africa – where else do xenophobic eruptions include burning people alive? – and the scene is set for deep and bitter hatred.

 

If there is one lesson we need to take from the frightening events of the last few weeks it is that being a rainbow nation demands a lot more than delivering basic services; important as that may be. It means celebrating diversity; in all its forms. This is what is meant by the “human rights” culture in our Constitution. It is something money alone can’t buy.