The ongoing waves of attacks on immigrants in South Africa are a manifestation of an “us versus them” concept of society triggered by local unemployment in addition to a culture of resistance towards immigrants emulated from other regions of the world.
In South America, were I lecture on Africa and development issues, South Africa is perhaps the only country known on the African continent given its post Apartheid economic boom, evident in the recent purchase of the Colombian brewer Bavaria by Sab Miller.
Furthermore, infrastructure and economic leadership in SADC are viewed as being a beckon of hope for Africa and indeed for regional economic pacts in other developing regions. The end of apartheid heralded a period of positive regional and economic leadership in the continent, one now untainted by discrimination and promising a future to African throughout the continent in very much the same manner, the rest of the African continent inspired the majority of South Africans with freedom and supported the ANC irrespective of the forms of local governance.
A migration policy was adopted in 1994 but did not place emphasis on managing public opinion and the stereotypes that arise with immigration (Crush, 1994) In addition Perhaps, what was unforeseen was how an emerging Middle Income countries, or those classified as being more developed by the World Bank tend to emulate High Income countries or the developed countries in public opinion amongst the unemployed in regards to immigrants.
A study of the South Africa Media alludes to how the print media in South Africa has exacerbated sentiments of xenophobia towards immigrants (MacDonald and Jacobs, 2005). It was revealed that there were high tendencies to view immigrants as “job stealers” and perpetuators of crime. Much of these tendencies, as we have seen have been towards immigrants coming from other African countries such as Zimbabwe and Nigeria. Public opinion seems to have inclined to that of observed in the developed world, that which views the immigrant from other African countries as being a “flood of illegal aliens” who bring disease and crime to the country.
As South Africa has emerged into a regional growth pole, it has naturally evolved into a pull factor for Africans from other African countries who have earned lower wages or have been fleeing calamities in their own countries. Such calamities largely arise from exclusion which was largely the case of the majority of South African during the Apartheid era.
Those who were able to leave the country during this period were granted United Nations refugee status and were able to live in exile throughout much of the continent. While this may have not been statistically that significant in comparison to the recent waves of migration, its essence seems to be lost in the recent attacks on immigrants. Like attackers on immigrants in other parts of the world, there is a lack of education and a sense of the historical formation of regions of growth, resulting in scapegoating a political pathology similar to that of Eugene Terre'Blanche, the Afrikanner supremist leader. Such attackers tend to forget that they are fulfilling his dream of a chaotic South Africa after Apartheid.
Recently, I showed my students the 1980s highly acclaimed movie, "Cry Freedom" and they were quite impressed at how South Africans effectively organized themselves to combat the evils of Apartheid. Today, it seems that the causes of economic and social malaise are not all that clear, leading to an urban politics based on blaming the immigrant for economic problems brought about by more complex economic problems as has been the case in other countries with strong economies which attract immigrants.
The UN office for Humanitarian Affairs recently reported South Africa is highly attractive to professionals from other parts of the African continent give
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