Father Aldo Sierra: “On The crisis of Xenophobia in South Africa”

Dear all, I write to you from the town of Pietermaritzburg, in the South East of South Africa. As you may know, there is a current crisis of hate against foreigners in this country. Especially the civil movement “March and March, till we win” has been very proactive in demanding that all undocumented foreigners must leave the country by 30th of June of this year. The protest has created tensions, with many foreigners, especially from other African countries, who escaped poverty and tried a new life here, being harassed and forced to leave the country. Especially Kwa Zulu Natal, the province where our student house is, has become a battle field. Some confrontations have taken place, whereby both, local and foreign nationals have attacked or even killed each other.

The origins

“March and March” is not the first movement of the like in this country, before it, there were some others representing almost the same view that “illegal foreigners are the cause of poverty and collapse of public services in South Africa”. Movements like Dudula (push out) Operation and even official ones like Shanela (sweep), have been used to target poor foreigners and made them victims and escape goats of the general situation of social and economic collapse of this country.

The origins of Xenophobia, or better said, Afrophobia

It is well known that the Apartheid System that the facto dominated and ruled this country between 1948-1994, had a strategy to isolate Black South Africans from the reality of other African countries, especially when it came to freedom movements and achievements of independence. The isolation was so successful that even now, after more than 30 years of the end of Apartheid, Black South Africans know very little about the reality and culture of other African countries. This has led to the fact of regarding everything that comes from the rest of Africa as estranging or suspicious, setting like this the foundation of Xenophobia or better said, Afrophobia. That by the way, it is fuelled by few and extreme people with political interest which uses the tyred population of the country that is mainly jobless and in economic restrain.

A deadline

30^th of June is the deadline set by the leaders of the movement “March and March” for those without papers to leave definitely the country. “March and March”, led by extreme popular leaders like Jacinta Ngobese, has created a kind of promise and expectation, that once the country gets rid of undocumented foreigners, success and development will take place. The reality is that the problems of South Africa are much more complex than just the challenge posed by undocumented foreigners. Since the takeover by the ANC Freedom Fighters in 1994, with Mandela leading the change, the promise of a Rain Bow prosperous Nation has been only a dream; sad reality is that all these over thirty years that very promise vanished in a sea of administrative confusion, economic mismanagement, corruption and a general State Capture that has put South Africa in a very bad position in the international economic context with many companies and investments running away deepening the internal crisis of unemployment (among the highest in the world, currently at 32 %).

As the great Journalist Allister Sparks mentions in his memories, all this situation has created such an unequal system of a large poor population and a small privileged rich class to the extent that the country can be compared with “a double decker Bus occupied by two classes with no staircase in between”.

The escalation of the “March and March” protest

While the protest has legitimate demands, like the lack of action from the side of the Government to tackle illegal immigration, and the critique against the corruption of the officers at the borders, “March and March”, like other previous similar initiatives, has unfortunately being politically manipulated and used to exacerbate through hate speech the negative approach towards foreigners (especially from other African countries), to the point that that hate that has been spread (let alone the violent vigilant approach) and has now become almost unbearable and irresponsibly emotional in some corners of the country, which leads to such escalation that even to have a legal permit to stay in the country does not matter anymore: “you as a foreigner must go as you take away opportunities from South Africans”.

Many foreigners feel no longer safe. They also regard South Africa as a non-welcoming country, which has completely lost the sensitivity and humanity (by the way a great African value called Ubuntu) towards people just because they hail from a different country and speak a different language. It is heart breaking to see for instance Malawian people forced to leave the country piled in camps while they wait in the cold of these months for a transport possibility to go back to their home country where by the way, there is nothing left for them to start afresh. Among these groups one can find little babies and pregnant women suffering under the conditions of living in a refugee camp.

The Escape Goat

Foreigners will go and leave; yes, however a serious analysis will show that the problem of inequality and poverty will remain.

In short, foreigners became now an Escape Goat (denounced also by the Sothern African Catholic Bishops Conference) paying for the reality created by years of theft and corruption in the public administration. Many municipalities in South Africa will remain unfunctional, unemployment will remain high, investments will be rare and the general social and economic situation in the country, according to analysts, won’t improve at least in the near future.

Conclusion

Tension is in the air, as the 30^th of June gets closer. The government fears another wave of violence and even looting in the main cities of the country. Already an increase of police presence supported by the military, will guard the situation and see that nothing goes wrong on that day.

Here in the student house (scholasticate) where we reside, all of us are foreigners. Moreover, we live surrounded by poor compounds where already violence against foreign nationals has been noted these days. One of our students who comes from South Sudan, was recently harassed and assaulted with violence and even if everything points more at a simple robbery, the fact is that many take the protest and the confusion of these days like an excuse to commit crimes.

May the Lord bless and protect all vulnerable foreigners and create a heart full of compassion and patience within the local people and the Leaders of this great country where by the way there are also so many people of good will and with a total different approach when it comes to the matter , let it be so.

Father Sierra Moreno José Aldo, MCCJ in South Africa