10 Jun 2008: ISS Today: Who do we Blame for Xenophobic Attacks?

10 June 2008: Who do we Blame for Xenophobic Attacks?

 

Xenophobic violence in South Africa has made regional and international headlines bamboozling all and sundry - as only a favoured child can a loving parent. In the wake of violent crusade against African nationals in May, South Africans begin to ask ourselves, are we an inherently xenophobic society, or should someone else be blamed for this misfortune?

 

President Thabo Mbeki’s immediate response was to set up a task team to investigate this tragedy. Government officials in the past weeks have pointed at a possible Third Force exploiting the ignorance of poor South Africans. This has also extended to pointing the finger at “criminal elements” in communities.

 

Yet most of the broad analyses links the attacks to the stressful socio-economic conditions in the country, exacerbated by porous borders that allow for the country to be flooded with illegal immigrants. South Africans find it easy to use fellow Africans as scapegoats as a result of a lack of or perceived bias in service delivery. The poor South Africans perpetrating these violent atrocities on other African nationals do so in the belief that foreigners are either stealing their jobs or involved in crime, or both.  South Africans have been accused of indirectly bringing this upon themselves through laziness caused by an over-dependence on government handouts. While other nationals dare accept certain jobs, South Africans perceive these as being below their standards.

 

Intellectuals have kindly reminded us that this phenomenon is not particular to South Africa, suggesting that a way forward should be to look at the causes of such intolerance in other parts of the continent. It is then that we realise South Africans are neither inherently xenophobic nor are they inherently violent.

 

South Africans should wake up to the fact that the government made a number of promises with regard to employment, health, education and general poverty reduction and that delivery has been either slow or not forthcoming at all.

 

This has resulted in general feelings of frustration among those most deprived in our communities who perceive the presence of foreigners as threatening the very livelihoods that they are supposed to be improving with the assistance of the state. Our government then should be more dynamic in managing these new forms of violence through more adequate enforcement and implementation of the law – at least in the short term.

 

In recognising the state’s responsibility, we should not however underestimate private responsibility in the violent crimes that we have witnessed. Citizens in a participative democracy such as South Africa’s have a role, not only towards holding the state accountable, but most importantly towards holding themselves accountable for their actions. 
When a person sets another human being on fire, based on grievances not directly related to them, there are deeper issues that need to be tackled.  This clearly requires a total change in perspective. We all, as private individuals, need to apply our minds and consider options that would take us past the point of our frustrations into new and better lives. We, as Africans, are all our brother’s keeper.

 

Siphokazi Magadla and Nadia Ahmadou, Interns, Security Sector and Governance Programme, ISS Tshwane (Pretoria)

Â