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Alexandra Township cityscape with Sandton City skyscrapers seen in the distance.
- Anti-immigrant groups have held demonstrations in Johannesburg in recent months, demanding the mass deportation of foreigners.
- The Gauteng provincial government wants to pass a law to limit business ownership in municipalities to fully legalized South African citizens and foreigners.
- Some politicians have found that blaming foreigners for everything from unemployment to poor public services is a vote winner.
As the coronavirus outbreak hit the South African economy and pushed unemployment to a 17-year high, it has awakened a recurring social demon: xenophobia.
Anti-immigrant groups have held demonstrations in recent months in Johannesburg, the largest city, and in Pretoria, the capital, demanding the mass deportation of foreigners. The provincial government of Gauteng, the nation’s economic center, wants to pass a law next year to limit business ownership in low-income areas, known as municipalities, to South African citizens and foreigners who are fully legalized.
That threatens to turn upside down a convenience store industry numbering more than 100,000 nationwide with annual revenues of R100 billion, according to GG Alcock, a municipal marketing consultant and author of books on the informal economy.
“Every foreigner who came to our country since 1994 should be deported,” said Victoria Mamogobo, the president of the Primera party of South Africa, 34, as she demonstrated on November 27 with a group waving national flags and banners in the center. from the city. Johannesburg.
“There are people from Nigeria who are here to sell tomatoes on our streets. How does that help us grow our economy?”
Since the apartheid system of racial discrimination ended in 1994, Africa’s most developed economy has been a magnet for migrants from the continent and from as far away as Bangladesh. That sparked episodes of violence every few years, with mobs attacking and looting shops and killing foreigners; the most extreme case in 2008 left 60 people dead and another 50,000 displaced. Today, social media helps stoke hatred.
Barrage of criticism
A barrage of criticism following clashes between locals and immigrants in 2019 prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa to send envoys to other African countries to defuse tensions.
Many of the migrants are refugees, they are legally in the country and have permission to work. Some are economic migrants, many are undocumented, and others, including hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans, have obtained work permits. While it is unclear how many migrants there are in South Africa, estimates of the number of Zimbabweans exceed 2 million.
Still, with South Africa’s economy set to contract the most in nine decades this year, unemployment at 31%, and local elections scheduled for 2021, some politicians have found that blaming foreigners for everything from unemployment to services poor audiences, he’s a vote winner.
Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said in April that locals should be prioritized in post-pandemic recovery efforts. The Gauteng government has denied that its municipal development bill is unfairly targeting foreigners.
“Which part is xenophobic? Because what that bill says is that you must be South African, you must be in South Africa legally,” said Vuyo Mhaga, a spokesman for Gauteng Prime Minister David Makhura. “The bias will obviously be for South Africans.”
Loot, kill
Xenowatch, which collects information on xenophobic attacks, says that between January 2019 and November 2020, 1,376 stores were looted and 37 people died.
Immigrants, many from Somalia and Ethiopia, dominate the ownership of the municipality’s convenience stores because they are better equipped than South Africans to compete against formal supermarket chains, according to Alcock.
While South African store owners tend to operate themselves, Somalis and Ethiopians band together and buy in bulk, allowing them to offer prices similar to supermarket chains, he said. South Africans still own the property, and according to their estimates, immigrants pay R20 billion in rent in municipalities annually.
“The assumption is that if they stop illegal immigrants from trading, immediately those jobs will be taken over, or those small businesses will be taken over by South Africans,” he said. “That is not true.”
Court challenge
South Africa First and the Put South Africans First movement, founded in April, are demanding government interventions, including a citizenship audit, the introduction of a public service fee for foreigners and an end to the issuance of non-essential work permits.
The African Diaspora Forum, which campaigns for migrants’ rights, introduced the bill on November 25, saying it will challenge it in court if it passes.
While listening to Nigerian gospel music and eating tea-soaked bread in central Johannesburg, Ekechukwu Nnadi points to a nearby street corner where he was beaten up by anti-immigrant rioters three years ago. The incident has not prevented him from returning.
“This is where I manage to pay the rent and take care of my family,” he said.
