The Zulu King, Goodwill Zwelithini, has addressed a meeting in a sports stadium to call for an end to violence against non-South Africans. This follows an upsurge in xenophobic attacks which Zwelithini, among others, has been blamed for stoking.
King Goodwill Zwelithini, traditional leader of the Zulu ethnic group, said African migrants should “take their things and go”, as they supposedly take the jobs and public resources meant for locals.
President Jacob Zuma last year said that South African blacks should not behave as if they were “typical” blacks from “Africa”. The African National Congress general secretary, Gwede Mantashe, blamed “foreigners” for stoking unrest in South Africa’s platinum belt.
In January this year, the small business development minister, Lindiwe Zulu, said the businesses of foreign Africans based in townships could not expect to coexist peacefully with local business owners unless they shared their trade “secrets”.
The xenophobic violence has much in common with the rise of right wing parties in Europe, increasing unemployment causing resentment against foreigners who are seen as taking locals' jobs. The two ends of the continent also share another factor - refugees fleeing war and violence in their home countries.
South Africa (and neighboring Botswana) has long been host to an estimated three million Zimbabweans fleeing a combination of economic hardship and the tender mercies of Robert "I am Hitler" Mugabe. Mugabe's tribally divisive policies, favoring his own Shona tribe (and particularly his own sub-tribal group) against the minority Ndebele. While cross-Limpopo (the river mostly marking SA's northern border) trade has long meant the actual border was fairly fluid, Mugabe's violent suppression of opposition led to a new exodus from the 1980s into the major South African cities, particularly Johannesburg. His disasterous and corrupt farming policies led to a decimation of the productivity in the main Ndebele area known as Matebeleland which was the "bread basket" of the region. These two factors pushing Zimbabweans into exile continue. Droughts in Matebeleland are extreme this year:
MATEBELELAND South provincial affairs minister Abedinico Ncube has warned of looming starvation in the drought prone region.
Addressing hundreds who gathered for the annual Governor's Ball- an Independence Day eve dinner meant to raise funds for charity-Ncube said poor rains had resulted in the wilting of crops across the province.
“Poor rains have resulted in the wilting of crops especially maize; people are on the verge of hunger but government will do everything to ensure no one starves and this will be done through ZimAsset,“ said the minister in Gwanda.
What to others seems incongruous - the announcement of a potential famine at a fancy dinner for Zim's political elite - is rather par for the course. Mugabe's birthday is an annual cause for excess in the Presidential palace in Harare.
His cronies of course deny that his policies are the reason for the exodus, preferring to blame western sanctions. Rumors of Mugabe's death earlier this year indicate an increase in inter-communal violence once he does die:
In a latest gulf, a Zimbabwean woman Patience Gumbanjera Mlauzi purportedly resident in South Africa, this morning shot through a shocker tribal comment castigating the Ndebele speaking people of the country over Mugabe’s death.
Reacting to a Bulawayo24 news opinion column “Mugabe’s death not regretted before Gukurahundi apology” by Ryton Dzimiri, Gumbanjera Mlauzi from nowhere uttered a shocking tribal slur at the Ndebele people.
In his article Dzimiri was calling on President Mugabe to apologise for the murder of more than 20 000 Ndebele people in the hands of Gukurahundi before he dies if his death is to be respected and regretted by the Ndebele people.
In her comment, Gumbanjera Mlauzi (pictured) says that the Ndebeles must not celebrate Mugabe’s death as it is a sign of lack of hunhu/ubuntu.
According to her the Ndebeles have not cried enough, they are yet to cry.
She envisages being the country’s head of state and if she gets the chance would “kill all Ndebele speaking lizards”.
We can also "look forward" to a power struggle between Mugabe's wife, (who
last year characterized Ndebele men as "lazy people who are only interested in sex and notorious for abusing women") and other high ranking officials in ZANU-PF. She is sometimes called "Gucci" Grace Mugabe after her shopping trips in Europe, courtesy of the Zimbabwe national coffers - a sort of African Imelda Marcos.
Zimbabwe is though only one of many countries from which South Africa draws migrants, either political or economic. Robberies in Cape Town are often put down to "the Nigerians". The situation though has been significantly influenced by the experience of Apartheid and the incompetence of post-Mandela governments. In a well considered opinion piece for the Guardian, William Gumede explains the deep veins of violence Apartheid has left but also highlights statements by SA President Zuma and others:
South Africa is facing two crises simultaneously: the government is not delivering effective public services to the poor, while the economy is in a slump with job losses in the private sector and increasingly in the public sector.
But democratic institutions, such as parliament, are also perceived to be failing poor black South Africans. Because of this, people increasingly seek answers in populist, tribalist, ethnic and fundamentalist “solutions”. They look for scapegoats, whether “capitalists”, “settlers”, “foreigners”.
The country’s existing party political system, its parties and leaders are not responding to the needs of the majority of voters. Many disillusioned citizens therefore increasingly withdraw from politics or stay away from voting. The ANC, despite the fact that it received 62% of the vote in last year’s national elections, is losing its hold over black society. There is nothing to replace it yet.
For those of us who remember heady days of the first OPOV elections with black and white, maid and mistress lining up to vote together, this is a sad but perhaps inevitable development. In some ways it is a characteristic of developing democracies but South Africans have been failed by the ANC molding the country as a near-one party state. That might not have been a problem if the last two Presidents were unifiers like Mandela. My own view has long been that it will take the post-liberation generation of politicians to cement the country as "the Rainbow Nation". We can only hope developments outside the country reduce the causes of xenophobia and the government can find an accommodation between the aspirations of the urban and rural poor and the stability of the economy.