It often takes a major shock to force a society to confront challenges it has been either denying or underestimating. South Africans have been living in a false paradise that ignored the realities of our interconnected and interdependent world. Our nascent democracy has often operated as if the migration of goods and services, ideas and people does not matter to us. Our apartheid isolation made us rather insular. The current crisis forces us to rise to our challenges and seize the opportunities of being part of a rapidly globalising world.
This article was first published on 22 May 2008, in the South African newspaper, The Star
The wave of violence that is sweeping through our society is an intensification of brutal attacks on foreign African nationals by South Africans at many levels of our national life over the last few years. The Department of Home Affairs has often been demeaning and unhelpful to refugees seeking registration as asylum seekers. Parliament's reaction to police brutality against refugees sheltered at the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg turned to anger at Bishop Paul Verryn's ministry to these vulnerable people, whom they regarded as potential if not actual criminals. Somali traders have been killed in large numbers everywhere for daring to be successful. Some estimates put the number killed over the last few years at over 100. Exploitation of economic migrants by some in the private sector has also been shocking. Our collective silence as citizens of this society has added salt to the wounds of abused migrants and refugees in our midst.
This article forms part of MigrantVoice on refuge, a special project celebrating UK Refugee Week 2008.
Have your say on our multiauthored blog, bringing unheard voices to the forefront of the debate.
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Brian K Murphy, "Open borders, global future"
It is tempting to characterise the current wave of violence as the work of criminals. Even more tempting is to use metaphors from our struggle days and blame the third force for stoking the violent flames of anger and brutality. Even if there may be provocateurs, the root causes of the xenophobic violence are to be found in our national institutional responses to the presence of migrants and refugees. Our performance as a young democracy has not been adequate in creating a climate in which respect for human rights is embedded in our social relationships. We need to harvest the lessons of past performance and take corrective action to address the underlying causes of xenophobia and consolidate our democracy.
First, our government has failed to establish a policy framework that translates our human rights obligations under our national constitution to protect and promote the rights of all people living within our territorial boundaries to dignity and respect.
South Africa is a signatory to the United Nations Human Rights Charter and the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees and Asylum seekers but it has failed to establish appropriate mechanisms for receiving, processing, and giving protection to refugees and asylum seekers. To add insult to injury, the Home Affairs Department seems to treat refugees as criminals to be detained and deported without adequate attention to the obligation to protect those persecuted in their home countries.
The abuse of human rights of refugees and asylum seekers by police and officials in my own city, Cape Town, leaves me with profound embarrassment and sadness. The horrors detailed in numerous media reports over the years, about the abuse at Lindelani detention centre for migrants in irregular status, makes me wonder how we could have come to this approach and still call ourselves proudly African. One would have expected better from an ANC government whose members in exile received so much generosity from much poorer fellow African countries. We all expected much more from a government led by a President who is as strong a proponent of an African Renaissance.
Chapter 9 institutions that are meant to monitor and evaluate government performance in discharging its constitutional obligations have failed us and failed the migrants. Not once did the Human Rights Commission insist that the Home Affairs Department perform appropriately to establish the framework mandated under the Geneva Convention essential to responding adequately to refugees and asylum seekers. It remained silent even when the Minister of Home Affairs, Ms Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, made the shocking statement that the estimated influx of 1000 - 3000 Zimbabweans per day towards the end of 2007 should be integrated into local villages. How can we as a nation expect poor villagers and township people to bear the burden of hosting refugees and sharing scarce resources with them? Why are we then surprised when they say in brutal terms that enough is enough?
Also in openDemocracy on recent violence in South Africa: Faten Aggad and Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, "South Africa's tipping point"
South African citizens have failed to hold the government and parliament to account for the above failures. The gaps in policies dealing with migrants across the spectrum hurt us and yet we have not made our voices heard beyond whispering behind closed doors or complaining around dinner tables. We have obligations as citizens of this democracy to hold our leaders accountable for living up to the commitments we made in our national constitution and as members of the international community of nations. We cannot be free-riders and then be shocked when we wake up to violent outbreaks.
The growing gap between the haves and have-nots is fuelling deep resentment among those who feel left behind as our society prospers. Of paramount importance in this regard is the continued under-performance of our education system that denies poor people the sure and tested way out of poverty. Most unemployed people are uneducated and unskilled and thus likely to be unemployable in today's knowledge driven economy.
The implementation of black economic empowerment, tainted as it has become by nepotism, fraud and corruption, has also contributed to this growing gap between rich and poor. Empowering a few black people at the expense of the majority of poor people is a travesty of justice. Take the example of many local authorities where poor quality public services are largely due to the appointment of under-qualified or inexperienced black people in the name of affirmative action. Why must poor people be made to pay the cost of enrichment of a few?
The private sector has not shown bold leadership in the field of managing migration better. Successful countries everywhere recruit skills globally and private sector lobbies ensure that governments set and implement policies that promote the recruitment, training and retention of the best talents to sustain economic growth. Despite the continuous lamentations about skills shortages in South Africa, there has been little concerted effort to audit the skills of the migrants who have come into our country, legal or otherwise. Many are skilled artisans, maths and science teachers and able lower-level managers. We are a magnet in Africa; whether we like it or not we will continue to attract economic and other migrants from our continent. Turning this challenge into an opportunity to address our skills shortages is what has been lacking.
What can be done about the current crisis?
We need to acknowledge our failures in managing migration and not look for scapegoats.
The 2005 report of the United Nations sponsored Global Commission on International Migration is a good place to start to educate ourselves about the challenges and responsibilities of international migration. We have to establish formal reception areas for refugees and asylum seekers. It is unacceptable for victims of these attacks to be left in open spaces in the care of volunteers. The Department of Home Affairs should ask for assistance from the army to mobilise its disaster management capabilities to set up proper places of refuge.
There is enough good will within civil society, the private sector and religious communities to help process all those given refuge to identify asylum seekers, economic and other migrants and deal with them adequately. Economic migrants' skills should be audited so as to deploy them appropriately to fill sorely needed skilled jobs.
Second, we need to acknowledge the depth of the scars of racism in our society. The cruel irony of the viciousness of the attacks on black people by black people in post-apartheid South Africa should force us to confront these scars. Attacks on foreigners that single out black people bear the hallmarks of a lack of self-respect. While it is understandable that people feeling disempowered often seek scapegoats in their midst, the extent of the brutality of the attacks speaks of a deeper social pathology. Addressing the real empowerment of poor black South Africans through skills training and job placement is an urgent task. Sector Training Authorities have proven to be inadequate to the task.
Third, the violence has to be stopped in a most decisive way. The police force has thus far been hopelessly inadequate to the task. What is needed is sophisticated crowd management and better intelligence to identify and deal with hot spots before they erupt.
Pictures of defiant, drunken men with weapons of war send a message of loss of control by law enforcement agents. Reinforcements are needed, if necessary from the army. Criminals must be prosecuted and severely punished.
The materialism that has engulfed our society has added further value attached to material possessions. We need to return to the ideals that formed the foundations of our democracy that put human dignity at the centre of our relationships and national endeavours. Self-respect and respect for others is what defines us as human. We need a social movement to promote a values system that balances material, aesthetic and spiritual needs of our society. Reigniting a focus on ethical behaviour would go a long way to reducing levels of crime and abuse of women and children.
We are a nation that has been able to rise to greatness under extreme pressure. We can still reinvigorate that dream of a nation that is proud to be African.
