In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

EPILOGUE May 2008 and the Politics of Fear We are the ones who fought for freedom and democracy and now these Somalis are here eating our democracy (NAFCOC – National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry – leader, Khayelitsha, Cape Town, Mail and Guardian, September 5-11, 2008) The police are making as if we are criminals. We don’t have firearms. We have babies and kids. Why are they so scared? (African refugee at the Blue Waters safety site in Strandfontein outside Cape Town, Cape Argus June 3rd , 2008). An action can be illegal. A person cannot be illegal. A person is a person wherever they may find themselves (Abahlali baseMjondolo, 'Statement on the Xenophobic Attacks in Johannesburg', 21/05/2008) The explosion that occurred in South African townships and informal settlements in May 2008 traumatised the country for a while. The fact that sixty-two people died as a result of pogroms in which apparent foreigners, primarily from the rest of Africa, were sought out and killed, were violently expelled from communities, and their belongings looted in an orgy of plunder and mayhem, left the country reeling under a number of questions. How could such a thing happen in the ‘rainbow nation'? How could Black South Africans act so callously towards their fellow Africans and brothers? How could people who have been living in the country for as long as 12 to 15 years be attacked by their neighbours? The public soul-searching lasted for a few weeks thereafter as the scale of the disaster sunk in. This phase of xenophobic violence displaced large numbers of people estimated between 80 000 and 200 000 (FMSP, 2009: 20). The number of people staying in shelters at their peak reached 24 000 in Gauteng and 20 000 in the Western Cape (loc. cit.). The 118 From 'Foreign Natives' to 'Native Foreigners' government found itself completely outflanked and unable to respond, blaming at times a 'third force', at other times 'criminals' and 'trouble-makers and opportunists' as it hesitated, lost as to what to do. Well known xenophobic politicians appeared on TV crying over the plight of injured Mozambicans, while others, who had been out of the spotlight for a while visited mothers and children to comfort them. Most national politicians appeared on TV condemning the violence and referring to the crisis in Zimbabwe and the lack of border controls, as well as to poverty and living conditions in informal settlements as the underlying causal factors of the violence. Most victims were sought out by their attackers (men, women and children) because they were deemed to be foreigners and massacred, robbed, raped and their belongings stolen and their houses burned. The violence was sometimes organised and at other times spontaneous. It is therefore valid to talk in terms of ‘pogroms’ of foreign residents during this period. The humanitarian assistance which followed was also largely both disorganised and coercive, the government deciding to reintegrate people into townships (often against the will of both sides) but also failing to ensure their safety. What most commentators stressed was the underlying economic causes of the problem, blaming poverty and deprivation, yet it requires little imagination to see that economic factors, however real, cannot possibly account for why it was those deemed to be non-South African who bore the brunt of the vicious attacks. Poverty can be and has historically been the foundation for the whole range of political ideologies from communism to fascism and anything in between. In fact, poverty can only account for the powerlessness, frustration and desperation of the perpetrators, but not for their target. Neither can it account for the violence of their actions. Moreover, blaming xenophobic violence on poverty, relative deprivation or uneven development, is to blame the poor. In other contexts, poverty has not lead to xenophobic violence, and we shall see below that in certain instances, even in South Africa it did not do so. Xenophobia as a practice of more or less open form of discrimination and oppression, as this book shows, is widespread in South Africa and not restricted to those living in informal settlements. It is also a widespread phenomenon among the middle-class and particularly among state employees , as is the expression of prejudices towards Africans from the continent. What needs to be done, I argue, is to explain xenophobia politically. The events of May 2008 were not a sudden unexpected occurrence. Obviously similar events, although not on such a scale, had been occurring since...

Share