The uninvited political army that patrols the streets South AfricaSoweto Township had only one goal: To expel foreigners. A crowd made up of people who support the anti-immigrant group Operation Dudula stormed the so-called Spaza shops run by foreigners in the village of Diepkloof, where they harassed the owners — inspecting the sell-by dates of their products and threatening to close the shops.
Victress Mathuthu, who is from Zimbabwe, was one of those targeted by xenophobic Black South Africans. “If the members of Operation Dudula are unhappy with the granting of permits to foreign nationals to run small businesses, they should approach the government or the relevant ministry.
Attacks on foreign stores
Supporters of Operation Dudula have claimed that relevant ministries are not doing enough to prevent foreigners from owning businesses, using this as an excuse to take the law into their own hands.
“They are not allowed to have a Spaza shop,” claims Thabo Ngayo during one such vigilante operation. Dudula’s national coordinator, Ngayo said the businesses are exclusively for South Africans, before telling the shop owner, “This means this Spaza shop must be owned by a South African. You have a few days to vacate the premises.” The same applies to foreign owners who have registered their businesses, Chief Dudula said.
Mzwanele Manyi, a spokesman for the Economic Freedom Fighters party, agrees. It also calls for the closure of all foreign Spaza stores in South Africa. “We simply cannot tolerate such a situation,” Manyi told DW.
Xenophobia has deep roots in South Africa
Xenophobia is nothing new in South Africa. In April 2022, a Zimbabwean in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg, was stoned and set on fire. In 2008, black South Africans set fire to shacks owned by foreigners in their towns, killing 62 people. The anger that fueled the spate of hate killings was widespread, yet investigations launched by initiatives at the time went nowhere.
The Xenowatch platform, which was developed by the African Center for Migration and Society (ACMS) at the University of the Witwatersrand, collects data on crimes against foreigners. They recorded 1,038 attacks on migrants, 661 deaths and 5,131 shops looted since 1994. Xenowatch says this is almost certainly an underestimate, as not all cases are reported.
South Africa’s right-wing scene is growing
The Operation Dudula group first appeared on social media in 2020. Dudula is a Zulu word meaning “push back”. The group is now registered as a political party and will take part in the country’s 2024 general elections.
But the Dudula candidates will not be the only ones shouting xenophobic slogans in the election campaign. The Economic Freedom Fighters, currently South Africa’s third largest party, also use them. Although the party takes a radical left-wing approach to economics, it is also openly xenophobic.
Other smaller parties, such as the Patriotic Alliance and ActionSA, also have incitements against foreigners. The latter managed to score points with xenophobic slogans during last year’s municipal elections.
This is an ominous development from Fredson Guilengue’s perspective. A staff member at the German Left Party-aligned Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Johannesburg, Guilengue fears a rise in attacks on migrants in South Africa – as well as the continued growth of the country’s right-wing scene – as the vote approaches.
Guilengue, from neighboring Mozambique, says that even if current data shows a decrease in the number of actual xenophobic attacks compared to 2022, the narrative scapegoating of migrants is increasing. “Unlike previous waves, what we are seeing now is the institutionalization of xenophobia,” he told DW, noting that Operation Dudula contributed to the phenomenon.
Right-wing parties fishing for supporters
Guilengue says the problems Black South Africans have with people from other parts of Africa are due to a combination of factors. “First, colonialism and Apartheid not only led to a rift between whites and blacks, but also a rift within the black majority – putting immigrants at the bottom of black South African society.”
Now, in a desolate economy with no job opportunities and at a time when political parties are practicing xenophobic policies, this Policy of racial segregation- The legacy of the era has become more explosive.
The staff of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation fear that the The ever-ruling African National Congress (ANC) the party might as well jump on the xenophobia bandwagon. There are xenophobic forces in the ANC and Nelson Mandela’s former freedom struggle is facing the toughest vote in its history. Experts predict that the ANC may even fall below the 50% mark for the first time since it was founded.
South Africa’s problems were not created by immigrants
A study by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria says one in two people in South Africa is unemployed and the blame for growing poverty, extreme social injustice, corruption and crime is often placed on foreigners.
In fact, says the ISS, poor governance and political corruption, combined with administrative deficiencies, are to blame. Furthermore, South Africa’s immigrant population, estimated at 6.5%, is no larger than anywhere else in the world.
The fact that many foreigners living in South Africa do not have proper residence permits is also a result of poor immigration policy. Many foreigners immigrate to South Africa legally only to later have their status revoked through no fault of their own, ISS researchers say. They point out that the country’s interior ministry has been plagued by corruption for years and is also far behind in processing applications and residence permits.
Suso Khumalo contributed to this report. This article was originally written in German.