REUTERS BACKLASH: A group of foreign nationals defend themselves as police get between them and South Africans after a peace march in Durban this week. At least four people have been killed in anti-immigrant violence. REUTERS/Rogan WardThe king’s words may have sparked the fire, but many among the angry poor waited for any trigger to justify Afrophobic violence, writes Victor Kgomoeswana.
Johannesburg - Forget the rest of Africa and its business headlines this week; there is a stench of self-hatred in the air, fuelled by yet another surge of attacks directed against fellow Africans in South Africa. The scale and tenacity of these attacks calls for drastic action. Sadly, even the discussion that is happening lacks the requisite focus and insight.
I travelled to Durban on business on Thursday morning. My airport shuttle driver helped me come to terms with the looting, the assault and killing of foreign nationals from African countries.
KwaZulu-Natal, the tourist mecca of our country, witnessed a surge of Afrophobic violence against children, women and men who should be expecting protection from us. The reason?
There is no straightforward answer, because statements by King Goodwill Zwelithini cannot be the sole reason for what happened.
However, it must be acknowledged that someone in his position of power and influence should have known better. I looked up clips of the speech.
What I found sounded like a king exhorting his subjects to take more responsibility for their destiny. I heard in his words what anyone in my village could have said at a graduation ceremony, a community meeting or even a family reunion to challenge the youth to “wake up” from their proverbial slumber.
This is normal in private conversations, not those that are being broadcast.
Often, to make a point strongly, I have been warned by my own children that I sound like I am attacking them, when all I think I am doing is make them aware that they are going to lose the battle for global competitiveness unless they up their game on diligence.
These private conversations can, to an external observer, sound too heated. Why were those in the audience applauding the king?
Listen to the original sound clip and judge for yourself.
Respectfully, he should not have made the statement. Certainly, many people of a lesser stature say exactly what he said in bars or taxis – even churches. And that’s the gist of everything – they are private conversations; not by the traditional and cultural head of a group as massive as the Zulu community.
My shuttle driver was a man from Verulam, about 30km north of Durban; his surname, Shabalala. I provoked him by asking why the people of KwaZulu-Natal were attacking fellow Africans. I was deliberately stirring, expecting the “these-foreigners-are-taking-our-jobs” refrain. Way off the mark.
“For every South African I transfer from the airport there are three clients from all over Africa, more interested in seeing the rest of the province, so I end up doing more business showing them around.”
His business and humanity, he added, left him with no time for Afrophobic violence. He said something else; what I already knew, but had not quite looked at it his way.
“If all the attackers wanted to do was to drive the foreign nationals away, they would leave their shops and property alone; so, most of the people involved cause a commotion purely to clear their way for their criminal schemes – to loot and enrich themselves or even buy drugs,” he concluded. This was confirmed by my shoe-shine maestro at the airport on my way back.
This slick operator managed to persuade me to use his services although I did not need to.
He looked at my shoes and said, “Yes they are shining already, but I can turn them into a mirror.” That won me over; and while he was delivering on his promise, he let me in on his perspective.
“I get up at 3am, while most of my fellow South Africans are still sleeping, only to return after they have gone to bed. I have tried to hire some of them here, but they tell me straight that they are not willing to work so hard if they can make money more easily.”
This could be what the king meant when he said that South Africans should avoid inviting outsiders to come to the country to “eat their lunch”.
Afrophobia has an economic face as well. There is no way to justify attacking another human being. The quality of our debate on the issue is often unbalanced because it is either elitist or survivalist. We are either condemning the violence without trying to understand what is behind it, what my radio producer called “the thinking that is perched in our position of privilege”, or generalising by creating the impression that all foreign nationals are thieves, drug pushers, criminals, hijackers and rapists worth nothing short of expulsion or extermination.
It happened in Soweto, Cape Town, now Durban, Benoni, Diepsloot and many other hot spots in South Africa.
In places such as Sandton, Melrose Arch, the Cape Town waterfront, La Lucia, Menlyn and other upmarket suburbs of South Africa, foreign nationals abound. They ply their trade as merchant bankers, stock market analysts, economists, academics, medical specialists.
We have not witnessed any attacks there because South Africa has a shortage of the skills these foreign nationals possess.
It is when they threaten those survivalist sectors of the economy, such as housekeeping, waitressing and gardening, that trouble erupts. Mainly employers prefer foreign nationals because of their work ethic and lower wage expectations.
Logically, if one has travelled from Somalia, Zimbabwe or the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), they would be more focused and diligent. Theirs is a race against time to survival, with a one-way ticket. Better a lower wage than no income at all, so far from home.
The question: why are employers getting away with this violation of the basic conditions of employment and collective bargaining legislation? Who is tackling that?
The Free Market Foundation and its sympathisers will say that our labour laws prescribe impossible minimum wage standards. As a result, they will argue, employers by default will prefer cheaper labour for their businesses, especially the smaller enterprises such as restaurants. This makes as much irrefutable sense economically as it is not sustainable.
When the cost of health, education, electricity and transport is rising beyond the reach of even affluent South Africans, how realistic is it to expect a semi-skilled or unskilled worker to settle for less than the minimum wage?
How easy is it for them to resist the temptation to blame those foreign nationals who are preferred because they come cheaper than the legal minimum?
Does that justify attacking foreign nationals, though?
No; but it is equally tragic to ignore the socioeconomic reality of the conflict. When the e-tolling saga first surfaced, it united South Africans across socioeconomic and political strata. Workers, youth organisations, opposition parties and business organisations were among its active opponents, simply because it would add to the cost of getting around and subsequently, that of doing business.
When an issue unites such diversified communities, it is a real issue. It must be addressed holistically.
The same can be said about the attacks on fellow Africans. The only problem is that the issue does not unite us, but it divides us. Why? Because we are not talking past or at each other. Why?
Because South Africa is still divided like that; not only racially, but even more drastically economically. The black-white divide has become the rich-poor.
In apartheid South Africa, black and white South Africans were far too polarised. Today, the haves and the have-nots have followed suit; except the majority of the poor are black. The rich worry about growing their investment portfolio or getting another property; while the poor worry about the next meal, basic healthcare or getting a job against the odds.
South Africa debates whether we have a “good story to tell”. Protagonists contend that our sound banking system, universal franchise, the fact that apartheid is outlawed, that millions have access to electricity and water, roads and other infrastructure improved in areas that were previously neglected are proof that we do.
Antagonists point out so many people still left out of the economy, the joblessness and scarce opportunities to earn a living for the majority of South Africans. This majority is susceptible to the belief – correct or incorrect – that their fellow Africans are responsible for their economic hardship.
My driver and shoe shiner in Durban told me that they had no time to loot or attack anyone because they had something to worry about: work or their business.
They got up very early and got back home too late, and too tired, to plan an attack of foreign nationals. How about a plan that multiplies such people?
So, it is about opportunity, inclusion and purpose.
It is fair to argue that some foreign nationals are involved in crime, if we have proof. But then, any criminal activity should be punished, irrespective of the nationality of the perpetrator.
Someone even called my radio show to tell me that police in their area were soliciting bribes from illegal immigrants, thus helping them to continue earning a living – legally or otherwise – to the detriment of locals. Another caller urged that our immigration machinery be strengthened so that only legitimate travellers should be allowed in and out of South Africa.
Who could argue with that?
In brief, let us enforce the laws of the country and punish transgressions even-handedly – foreign national or not. This applies to immigration, basic conditions of employment, trade. But, most of all, let us go back to basics.
That means running South Africa in a way that opens up more opportunities for the majority of South Africans to get an education, not delivering textbooks late in the second semester of the academic year. As business leaders, let us contribute to the economic transformation of the economy to make sure that more South Africans, inevitably black, will get skills, employment and enterprise development opportunities.
This has been the requirement of black economic empowerment policies and legislation since 1994.
Evidence suggests that big business, in the main, has dragged its feet. Who is tackling this poor corporate citizenship, in the interests of the poor?
We cannot deny that some of the organs of State are not giving South Africans a lot of hope; and the messaging is not helping things either.
Take Eskom and the power outage saga, compounded by the boardroom drama to go with that. Ordinary South Africans read or hear of way too many lapses of governance daily, to have much hope about their economic prospects.
Without generalising, our economy or how it is run does not give an average South African much hope – and average is below the breadline in the Afrophobic areas. Then they see the “pay-back-the-money” tussle continue unabated with no sense of urgency from the authorities.
Let us not lose our natural African soul, though
When all is said and done, in the depths of despair there is no justification for the attack of fellow Africans or fellow human beings in the way we have seen.
There is no time to recall how other African countries supported the struggle against apartheid, either. While we work out how to change the fundamentals of the economy for inclusivity, the bloodshed has to be condemned and stopped.
The State machinery must be deployed to achieve that. King Zwelithini would help the cause by retracting his statement, also. He is far too influential to continue wriggling about being misquoted, even if he is right about that.
Former Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah told us long ago that the forces that unite us are more intrinsic and more powerful than the superimposed influences that divide us. That means: at all times, under all circumstances. Rich or poor, employed or unemployed; at home or far from home – we are all Africans.
Let us honour that above all else.
* Kgomoeswana is author of Africa is Open for Business, anchor of CNBC Africa’s weekly show African Business news and PowerFM’s daily show, Power Hour. He writes in his personal capacity.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
The Sunday Independent
Related Stories