S Africa's RAINBOW MARRED by anti-migrant violence

“We want the government to kick them out,” says Eugene Mgcina, a resident of the Jeppestown hostel in Johannesburg. “Those foreigners must leave our country alone. I want the people of South Africa to have decent pay,” boils the 31-year-old, noting the local unemployment rate of 25 per cent. 

Originally built to house 1,500 mine workers, the long brick dormitory was a main flashpoint of the xenophobic unrest that rocked the city – and also South Africa’s “Rainbow Nation” reputation – in recent days. Responding to calls for unity and restraint, some 30,000 locals and immigrants took part in a counter march on Thursday, bearing placards saying “Africa Unite” and “Welcome foreigners”. But, beneath their feet lay broken glass from the rampage in which dozens of foreigner-run shops were looted and many people injured by sticks and machetes.

At least seven people died in an eruption that sent around 5,000 immigrants from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Somalia and other African countries fleeing to refugee camps for protection. According to census data, South Africa has 1.7 million foreigners living within its borders, although the actual figure may be significantly higher.

“Their numbers are so huge,” says another hostel resident, Wiseman Ngobese, adding that enough people like him are ready to stand up against them. “That’s why we are now using force.”

“We don’t want to kill them, we just take care of their shops. Not all of them must go – some can stay,” says the 33-year-old, who shares a bare, 10-square-metre room in the block. He is one of the country’s dominant Zulu tribe. Like all the hostel occupants, he came from the southern province of KwaZulu-Natal to Johannesburg to seek work and a better life.

“Here we have so many people with skills, but the government does nothing for them,” says Manyathela Mvelase, the supervisor at the hostel. The trouble began in late March in KwaZulu-Natal, after the king of the Zulus, Goodwill Zwelithini, allegedly urged foreigners in a speech to “pack their bags and leave”, a claim since denied by royal household officials and the king himself, who said his words had been taken out of context.

Zwelethini has little formal power, but his words do, especially when touching on such an emotive issue as unemployment, poverty – and foreigners. Similarly, in the hostel, Mvelase’s word carries a lot of weight. Born in 1956, the Zulu tribe member has the role of a traditional leader, a so-called Nduna. He can shape the mood among the hundreds living around him. 

“The foreigners are only committing crimes,” he tells a recent visitor, while a skinned creature resembling a mongoose dangles above his head in the sun to dry before it is crushed in a mortar and used for traditional medicine.

 

Life’s a struggle

Times are hard, and perceived solutions worryingly simple: “The people are hungry, so we take from them,” he says of the foreigners. Anxious to avert a repeat of 2008, when more than 60 people died in similar unrest, police and troops raided the Jeppestown hostel in a mid-week night raid, arresting 11 residents and seizing illegal weapons and stolen goods, the news channel eNCA reported. 

South African President Jacob Zuma condemned the xenophobia. “No amount of frustration or anger can ever justify the attacks on foreign nationals and the looting of their shops.” Zuma also reminded his countrymen that South Africa overcame the apartheid regime and achieved democracy and freedom in 1994 after years of support from African countries like Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Tanzania, where many South Africans took refuge.

“We were treated with generosity, dignity and respect by our brothers and sisters from the rest of the continent,” he said. But at the same time, Zuma also pledged to boost measures to control the borders against illegal migration. Many people note the horrified reaction the violence would have drawn from the late Nelson Mandela, the country’s first freely elected president, who championed South Africa as a home for people of all races and ethnic backgrounds.

South Africa’s leadership role on the continent has been shaken by the events, while the economy, including the vital tourism industry, also stands to lose. Calm has been restored but root causes are simmering barely below the surface in Jeppestown and elsewhere, as jobless masses share the view that they should enjoy a better life 20 years after gaining freedom. 

Stirring words won’t change this, they say, only long-term solutions, economic growth, reduced unemployment and better paid jobs. “One of the reasons why we are fighting now is that the government does not do anything for us,” says Mvelase.