Why are some South Africans angry at foreigners?

CERTAIN keywords and catchy phrases employed in describing certain events often obscure deeper issues worthy of exploration. That’s the case with xenophobia employed in describing the events in South Africa in recent times, involving the killings of foreigners.

There are three main groups of participants in the attacks. One group consists of gangs whose members depend on stolen goods and drugs for survival. Drug dealers-South Africans and foreigners, including some Nigerians-are their suppliers. A number of the drug dealers have legitimate shops used to mask their drug dealing business. Such shops are often included as targets of attack.

The immigrant community in South Africa peaked in the last 10 years, as the economy in other African countries began to decline. Between 2010 and 2019 the immigrant community in South Africa more than doubled from two million to over four million. Incidentally, such immigrants tend to be much more educated and more skilled than most of the jobless locals.

Let us now go beyond the attackers to further explore the main reasons behind their actions. They are mainly socio-economic issues. In the forefront is a combination of soaring unemployment, low wages, and job losses, which are blamed on foreigners, as the first poll figure above shows. A direct result of high unemployment is abject poverty, which is also high in South Africa. Poor South Africans cannot but be angry at Nigerians, when they see them on jobs they, too, could do. Poor people everywhere look for opportunities to make quick money and get food. Looting offers such an opportunity, which makes the urban poor ready accomplices in such crimes.

Ramaphosa himself has been blamed for contributing to xenophobic feeling, by indicating in a campaign speech in the May 2019 general election that he was committed to cracking down on undocumented foreigners involved in criminal activity.

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