From Foreign Natives to Native Foreigners. Explaining Xenophobia in Post-apartheid South Africa: Explaining Xenophobia in Post-apartheid South Africa

Notes

Notes 1. The best source of empirical data on xenophobia by far is the Southern African Migration Project (SAMP) under Jonathan Crush at Queens University Canada (http:// www.queensu.ca/samp/). 2. Another developing ideology of exceptionalism is the one propagated in religious terms by Desmond Tutu inter alia according to which the world is praising South Africa for its successfulreconciliationbetween‘races’(whichinfactwasprimarilyareconciliationamong elites). This argument fits well within a constant celebration of South African democracy and its constitution, and not only contributes to a national sense of superiority, but also undermines a critical and objective assessment of this ‘democracy’ which is structurally limited by its liberalism. Of course it may be useful to recall the Christian basis of Human Rights Discourse as for both all men are equal before the Law/State/God. 3. A more apt title would have been: The Sociology of the Algerian Revolution, the original French title is L’an V de la Revolution Algerienne. 4. Commenting on post-colonial Africa, Mamdani (1991: 244) asks rhetorically: ‘What is the connection between cross-border migrants and refugees? That while both are either an actual or a potential source of cheap labour, both share that status of "non-citizens", a status tantamount to being without rights under the law’. 5. Mamdani’s argument regarding the political identities in Africa is not without its problems . I have argued at some length elsewhere (Neocosmos 2003) that it is in fact overwhelmingly state-centred. 6. These were the so-called TBVC (Transkei, Bophutatswana, Venda and Ciskei) states. The BLS countries refer to Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. 7. On the attempts by the apartheid state to regulate urbanisation through legislation see Hindson (1987). 8. ‘Section 10 rights’ referred to the appropriate section of the Urban Areas Act of 1952 which conferred urban residence on its holder. It was enacted by the state under pressure due to shortage of skilled labour, to enable the urbanisation of skilled labour primarily for the manufacturing sector of the economy. For details see Hindson 1987. 9. Resistance took many different forms and combinations of forms and not just trade unionism. So-called ‘millenarian’ movements, the setting up of African churches, women ’s movements were all different forms of resistance to local and colonial state coercion. See Beinart and Bundy (1980:276-98) for examples of these movements in the Transkei. For peasant movements in other parts of South Africa see in particular Hirson (1989: chapter 10), Delius (1990), Chaskalson (1987), Beinart and Bundy (1987). For a review of the literature on peasant movements in Africa as a whole (including Southern Africa) see Isaacman (1990). 10. See Lacey (1981: chapter 3) and Mamdani (1996:chapter 3) in particular. It is important to stress the absolutely fundamentally different conceptions on the ‘native problem’ held by 152 From 'Foreign Natives' to 'Native Foreigners' the colonial state in Southern Africa during the 1920s and 30s, from the views it held during an earlier period. For the 1932 Native Economic Commission for example, the basic idea was to strengthen an authoritarian form of ‘tradition’; for the South African Native Affairs Commission Report of 1903-1905 on the other hand, the idea was to let tradition gradually fade away (even to help it in that direction), thus: ‘the abolition of the tribal system and chieftainship is being left to time and evolution towards civilisation, assisted by legislation where necessary and administrative methods’ (p.42). 11. This statement should not be read as an idealisation of the ICU. The organisation was dominated by populist rhetoric and was riven with internal contradictions under the weight of which it eventually collapsed (Bradford 1987). Nevertheless, for the first time in South Africa, it succeeded in giving expression to the widespread nation-wide grievances of the rural oppressed (in particular) throughout the country, thus enabling the development of a mass country-wide social movement. By the 1930s, after segregation was firmly entrenched, such a ‘pan-ethnic’ social movement became no longer possible in rural areas. 12. Evidence shows that in Natal as elsewhere, the bourgeoisie’s conception of tradition was challenged; see McClendon (1992) for example. 13. In 1984 South Africa sent home tens of thousands of Mozambican miners as punishment for Samora Machel’s support for the ANC. The exception to the migrant-dependency rule is Malawi which deliberately embarked on migrant reduction policy in the late 1970s. 14. Lesotho Bureau of Statistics Household Budget Survey (1987). This does not rule out a possibility of rapid...