Analysing xenophobia in South Africa

You know something is wrong with your society when you cannot tolerate people from other societies. But when this intolerance becomes violent, you know something is seriously wrong. The xenophobic attacks in South Africa are as disturbing as they are surprising. Disturbing in that one cannot imagine the violence and atrocities that may be directed towards foreigners in the country, and surprising in that one cannot imagine an African relating to a fellow African with hostility and suspicion.

But perhaps it is important to examine the root cause of this xenophobic violence. With this regard emphasis should be laid not on the direct triggers of the violence, but on the general composition of the society of South Africa. South Africa remains one of the most scarred African countries in relation to colonial exploitation. The settling of the Boers, as early as the seventeenth century, was itself a critical problem. Native populations were displaced, and many have never recovered their land. That notwithstanding, the discovery of gold, diamonds and other precious minerals spelt doom for the majority of native Africans. A huge labour force of mine workers had to be created among the populace, with many more being required to work in the factories. This led to the creation of an urban proletariat, a class of workers working and living under deplorable conditions. The Soweto slums, coupled with an upsurge of criminal violence in urban areas such as Johannesburg, were an inevitable consequence. As though this was not enough, South Africans had to put up with racist violence and oppression during the apartheid era, with many being massacred as their resources kept getting plundered by the repressive ruling class.

The combination of these factors thus created, on one hand, an extremely wealthy stratum of individuals who profit from the exploitation of the toiling masses of South Africa in the mines, factories and other industries, in collaboration with the international monopoly capitalists, and on the other hand an extremely impoverished and angry class of South Africans who live in poor conditions in the presence of superabundance. There exists, consequently, two antagonistic classes in the society of South Africa. The oppressed masses, as in any other society in the world, are subjected to brutality and terror from the state, which acts merely to protect the interests of the ruling classes. Thus, one must be able to recognize the presence of classes in order to analyze the problem in South Africa.

But why xenophobia? Why do these exploited and angry masses turn their frustration to foreigners? The answer to this question lies in the root cause of the problems of ordinary South Africans in the first place. Their displacement by the Boers, their colonization by the British and their general alienation from their own resources has made the ordinary South African skeptical of any foreigner, and tends to view them with deep suspicion.

So what is to be done? Just what is going to make the angry masses, the exploited class of South Africa, cease being xenophobic? Mass sensitization and movements pleading an end to xenophobia are clearly not the solution. The ordinary South African will still not understand why he shouldn't be hateful with regard to foreigners in South Africa.

Hence, the proletarian class in South Africa, comprising the miners, factory workers and all other toiling masses as well as the peasantry, must understand who their real enemies are. It is not the Zimbabwean, the Nigerian or the Malawian coworker in the mine, for example, who is the real cause of his misery, but the owner of the mine who will exploit his labour for peanut wages. The Gambian cleaner at a city hotel, or the Senegalese tailor, is merely a comrade in the struggle for a better system. The ordinary South African must understand that the person to whom all his energies and frustrations must be directed is the bourgeois industrialist working in conjunction with giant monopolies to exploit South Africa, the traditional chiefs inciting workers against each other in order to retain their place and the bourgeois politician anxious to maintain the status quo.