The real South Africa must stand up — or xenophobia will undo it, By Noxolo Luthando
Add us on Google The deeper truth is less dramatic, harder to weaponise and more enduring: in the everyday life of South Africa, migrants and locals are not enemies. They are partners in survival. Three weeks ago, the coastal city of East London, now renamed KuGompo, woke to a familiar and unsettling scene: a confrontation that has come to define South Africa in the eyes of too many — a country turning on its fellow Africans. The spark was almost absurd in its smallness. A Nigerian national, Chief Solomon Ogbonna Eziko, was ceremonially crowned an “Igbo king.” It was meant to be symbolic, cultural, and contained. Instead, it metastasised. Political parties, traditional leaders and civic organisations mobilised under the banner of “defending sovereignty and customary law.” The Nigerian High Commission clarified that the coronation carried no legal authority. By then, it no longer mattered. People were injured, property destroyed, and the streets filled with smoke, rage and fear. Some recognised the episode for what it was: a misunderstanding inflated into a crisis. But in a country where foreign nationals live precariously — always one incident away from becoming targets — the outcome was almost predictable. Stay Ahead with Premium Times Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting. Add as a preferred source on Google /* 1. Wrapper & Container / .gn-wrapper { width: 100%; padding: 20px 0; display: flex; justify-content: center; } .gn-card { width: 100%; max-width: 600px; background: #ffffff; padding: 28px; border-radius: 16px; border: 1px solid #e0e0e0; box-shadow: 0 4px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.08); font-family: 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; } / 2. 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The High-Impact Button / .gn-button { display: inline-flex; align-items: center; gap: 12px; padding: 14px 24px; border: 1px solid #dadce0; border-radius: 30px; / Modern pill shape / text-decoration: none; background: #ffffff; color: #3c4043; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(60,64,67,0.1); } .gn-button-text { font-size: 17px; / Increased font size / font-weight: 700; / Maximum boldness / letter-spacing: 0.1px; } .gn-button:hover { background: #f8f9fa; border-color: #d2d2d2; box-shadow: 0 2px 4px rgba(60,64,67,0.2); transform: translateY(-1px); } .gn-icon { width: 22px; / Matched to larger text size / height: 22px; object-fit: contain; } / 5. 📱 Mobile Optimization / @media (max-width: 480px) { .gn-card { padding: 20px; } .gn-header { flex-direction: column; align-items: flex-start; gap: 10px; } .gn-title { font-size: 20px; } .gn-description { font-size: 16px; } .gn-button { width: 100%; justify-content: center; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 14px 10px; } .gn-button-text { font-size: 15px; / Scaled slightly for small screens / } } Those attacked had nothing to do with the coronation. Many were not even Nigerians. Somali shopkeepers were among the victims. In the eyes of the mob, it was enough simply to be foreign. This is how it almost always unfolds. What begins as an anti-migrant protest quickly mutates into looting, usually targeting spaza shops owned by foreign nationals. Even when grievances have some basis — expired food, allegations of criminality — the response is indiscriminate. The line between protest and predation disappears. What happened in KuGompo did not stay there. Similar protests flared elsewhere. Social media amplified the anger. Since then, incidents have spread across the country, culminating in a mass protest that escalated into public thuggery in central Durban on 20 and 21 April. The Match that Lit the Fuse To describe this simply as another wave of xenophobia is to miss the mechanism behind it. In East London, groups travelled from KwaZulu-Natal to ignite the protests. Buses carried young men and women into communities not their own, with a singular purpose: to inflame tensions. Refugee-rights organisations, including groups such as the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa, have described the violence as a “well-coordinated wave of xenophobic attacks.” But who is behind it and why? We know that the recent unrest emanates from KwaZulu-Natal and there are associations — but no direct connection — with Jacob Zuma’s Umkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP). The Durban protests were supported not only by the MKP, but by ActionSA, the Patriotic Alliance (PA) and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) as well. March and March, a group linked to Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma and the homophobic podcaster Ngizwe Mchunu, played a role in organising the protests. In Tembisa, protests were organized by Mlungisi Zondi under the banner of the Labour and Civic Organisation (LACO), a formation that emerged from the labour desk of MKP. Groups moved from company to company, submitting CVs and demanding that employers stop hiring foreigners. The timing is not coincidental. South Africa is heading into critical local government elections. Stirring hostility toward foreigners is a tried and tested political instrument—a way to mobilize support, redirect frustration and generate visibility. When politicians run out of ideas, they reach for an enemy. But in the apparent determination to spread chaos it is likely that there is a more sinister hand behind the protests. Another South Africa Many people from the rest of the continent view the violence as shameful, something that places a question mark against South Africa’s claim to be a leader on the continent. I have witnessed across much of South Africa, how people from different parts of the continent live side by side. They share a beer from a single ngudu, eat pap and chesanyama at local taverns, dance to the same music, and speak to one another in a fluid mix of languages shaped less by borders than by daily life. Men and women hustle together, lend each other what little they have, and protect one another when trouble comes. It is common to find marriages that cross national lines — South Africans with Zimbabweans, Malawians, Nigerians — raising children who inhabit more than one identity without contradiction. In many communities, South Africans speak Shona, Chewa, Swahili or Hausa as easily as isiZulu or Sesotho. This is the South Africa that exists beneath the noise: interdependent, multilingual, intertwined. But it is also fragile. Daily life blurs the line between “us” and “them” — until, suddenly, it does not. When that line is redrawn, it is often redrawn violently, driven by small groups that mobilise not just weapons — petrol bombs and tyres — but narratives. Messaging that turns neighbour against neighbour. Residents I have spoken to are often clear-eyed about where this comes from. They point to propaganda circulating on social media, to rhetoric at political rallies, to organised campaigns designed to inflame. Many insist they will not be used. Since the presidency of Thabo Mbeki, they argue, communities have lived alongside migrants with relatively little friction. When violence erupts, it is not organic. It is manufactured. A Shared Survival System Beneath the noise lies a deeper reality: South Africans and migrants are economically intertwined in ways that are both visible and essential. In Diepsloot, a landlord named Lawrence Thela rents garages on his property to Somali and Bangladeshi shopkeepers. The income has enabled him to put his children through university. His tenants, in turn, employ local workers — nine people across three small shops. “They are creating jobs,” he says. “And we live like brothers and sisters.” This is not an isolated case. Research from the Southern African Migration Programme indicates that immigration has a largely neutral — and sometimes positive — effect on employment. Migrants create demand, start businesses and sustain livelihoods, particularly in lower-income communities. The claim that foreigners “steal jobs” does not withstand scrutiny. Nor does the perception that they drive crime. Data presented to Parliament shows that undocumented migrants accounted for just over 2 percent of convicted criminals between 2017 and 2021. Studies by the Institute for Security Studies and the Human Sciences Research Council consistently point to a gap between perception and evidence. It is laughable that those promoting lawlessness and vigilantism claim to be doing it to support law and order. For many South Africans, migrants are not competitors. They are part of a shared survival system. In Olievenhoutbosch, a 74-year-old grandmother, Gogo Lindiwe Mahlangu, supports her grandchildren through social grants and rental income from backyard rooms occupied by migrants from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi. Her tenants work as gardeners and construction workers. They pay rent. They support families. “We lived like one family,” she says. Recent immigration crackdowns have disrupted these arrangements. Tenants have been arrested for visa violations — a process Mahlangu struggles to reconcile with the reality of shared lives. A police officer in Diepsloot acknowledges the tension: the rule of law matters, but enforcement alone cannot unwind what has become a deeply embedded socio-economic system. A Potent Political Tool As the election cycle intensifies, immigration will remain a potent political tool. Around the world, it already is. It is what helped get Donald Trump elected and led to the rise of the extreme right in Europe. South Africa is no exception. The government has approved a revised White Paper on Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection aimed at tightening borders and enforcement. Most political parties draw a distinction between legal and undocumented migrants. ActionSA, led by Herman Mashaba, built its support in 2022 on promises to clamp down on undocumented immigration, particularly in communities like Alexandra and Diepsloot. The party has since condemned both violence and dehumanizing language while maintaining a hard line on enforcement. The Inkatha Freedom Party has called for stricter controls. The Democratic Alliance frames enforcement as a matter of the rule of law, not populism. These are legitimate debates. No country can operate without borders. South Africa needs to get its immigration system under control. But South Africa’s dilemma is more complex. The state that now seeks to enforce the law is the same one that allowed millions of undocumented migrants to enter and remain in the first place—through porous borders and corruption. Many of those now subject to arrest have lived in the country for decades. A sudden zero-tolerance approach means attempting to unscramble entire communities. And in the heat of mob action, the distinction between documented and undocumented collapses. On the ground, the language of the vigilantes hardens. “Foreigner” is no longer a legal category but an identity—often simply meaning an African from somewhere else. There are darker distortions as well. Reports are mounting of police officers extorting money from detained migrants—demanding payment to avoid arrest or secure release. Cases in Johannesburg Central, Midrand, Klerksdorp and Alexandra suggest a pattern. Xenophobia becomes not only violence, but an economy—one that feeds on the vulnerability of those with the least protection. Still, the atmosphere is deteriorating. Groups like March and March operate in a grey zone between activism and political machinery. A formation calling itself “Concerned Citizens of South Africa” is even more militant, planning a national shutdown and a march “against all foreigners” next month. The trajectory is ominously familiar. In Diepsloot in 2022, a Zimbabwean man, Mbhodazwe Elvis Nyathi, was dragged from his home by a mob demanding identification. He was beaten, doused in petrol and burned alive. The attackers moved on in search of other victims. In 2015, the Mozambican national Emmanuel Sithole was murdered in Alexandra, his final moments captured in photographs that shocked the world. In 2008, Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuaye met a similarly brutal fate. Today, the country is once again approaching that edge. The language shifts. The tone thickens. Insults like “Voetsek Kwerekwere” and “Zaizai” circulate. Young men—sometimes women — patrol streets with sjamboks, pangas and steel rods. Tribalism Rears its Head More troubling still, the politics of exclusion is beginning to turn inward. Protesters have not only targeted migrants but fellow South Africans, using ethnic slurs like “Shangana suka endleleni”— “Shangaan, get out of the way.” What begins as xenophobia risks mutating into tribalism. Earlier social media posts from March and March organiser Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma show her directing crude slurs at “Limpopo girls”. Political leaders across the spectrum have pushed back. ActionSA’s Lerato Ngobeni and uMkhonto weSizwe MP Papa Penny have condemned the rhetoric. Prince Cedrick Nxumalo of the AmaShanga Traditional Authority has reminded protesters that AmaZulu and AmaShangana share a common heritage — they are “kith and kin”. Mmusi Maimane, leader of Build one South Africa (Bosa), has issued a blunt warning: “Today it’s a Zimbabwean, tomorrow they will beat up someone from Limpopo… This will end in murder if it is not stopped now.” Those who incite violence are a minority for now. Those who live together peacefully do not march. They do not trend. They do not organize shutdowns. They rebuild. They reopen shops. They defend their neighbours. They refuse to join in. This quieter majority is the country’s last line of defence. The deeper truth is less dramatic, harder to weaponise and more enduring: in the everyday life of South Africa, migrants and locals are not enemies. They are partners in survival. Noxolo Luthando is not the author’s real name. They asked that their name not be used in this story due to fear of reprisal. This piece was originally published on “Africa Unscrambled” on substack.com. 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