Post-apartheid South Africa has not only seen South Africa expand its presence in other parts of Africa: we have also witnessed the ‘Africanisation’ of South African society. With democratisation, Africans from other African countries have migrated to South Africa in increasing numbers. The effect of this expanded African immigration (both legal and illegal) has been profound: townships and workplaces now reflect a regional demography that has presented its own opportunities and challenges, writes DARLENE MILLER and SIMON MUSHAVATU. Black on black In a recent interview (Friday 13 August 2010), a leading provincial director characterised the relationship between black South Africans and African foreign nationals as a ‘subliminal cold war’. And although rumours of a pending xenophobic onslaught during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa did not materialise, some (especially government) speculated that these claims of volatility were fuelled and instigated by the media. The social cleavage between African foreign nationals and black South Africans has become an important new characteristic of South African working class life in particular. But despite the charges against the media, ample anecdotal evidence exists of such African foreign nationals/black South African tensions in South African workplaces and townships. Instances of attacks against foreigners in the ensuing month point to some of these simmering social tensions. The varied responses to the xenophobic threat highlight the perceptions and misperceptions that inform and bedevil the relationship between African foreign nationals and South Africans. While it is important to note that tensions in townships and workplaces have multiple fault lines – criminal/ordinary resident, Eastern Cape/ Western Cape, African men/African women – the social cleavage between African foreign nationals and black South Africans has become an important new characteristic of South African working class life in particular. Foreign nationals feel ill at ease in a country where they are simultaneously welcomed and threatened. Their educational and cultural skills are welcomed in the workplace; their entrepreneurial services are utilised in townships and elsewhere; and as car guards and security guards they help to secure aspects of South African social life. Hierarchies of blackness Yet hierarchies of social ‘othering’ confound the peaceful evolution of multi-national democratic life in the new South Africa. While white foreigners are encouraged as ‘tourists’ and settlers who strengthen the South African economy are welcomed, many African foreigners complain of everyday forms of racism against them. Our continental guests are identified as the ‘other’ that needs to be excluded and marginalised, as the hateful term for African foreign nationals – amakwerere – demonstrates. South African nationals mark other Africans as a ‘problem’ in their society – objects of various forms of stereotyping as gangsters, stealers of local women, and most importantly, acquiescent workers who pinch jobs and work for less, driving down wages. Like old racial hierarchies of apartheid South Africa, new racial hierarchies emerge. But these hierarchies now incorporate ‘Africa in South Africa’: skin colour, accent and nationality become the stuff of racial epithets, tossed up in queues or work kitchens when South African working class life becomes too onerous. Black South Africans still find themselves the structural majority of the poor and working class, living in overcrowded townships with poor services and infrastructure. New challenges such as HIV/AIDs and a deadly gangsterism confront the township resident, along with a contracting job market. Absorbing other regional nationals into these overcrowded townships and workplaces has become an onerous burden in a context where there is very little to give. Locals respond to these economic and social challenges by lashing out against their working class competitors through calls for them to go back where they came from. And, as is so common in other anti-immigrant environments in the North as well (witness the expulsions of immigrants in countries like France and Italy), locals respond to these economic and social challenges by lashing out against their working class competitors through calls for them to go back where they came from. For the many African foreigners who have made South Africa their temporary or permanent residence, these social pressures threaten to erupt and exclude in ways that turn them into easy targets – not a recipe for social cohesion in South African society. There is a mixed response in government’s policies towards Africans in South Africa. The difficulties borne by foreign African nationals in relation to legalisation of their residence, difficult Home Affairs conditions, lack of protections in the workplace, and the offensive Lindela refugee centre, attest to inadequate or hostile government policies. South Africa in the SADC At the same time, liberalisation of visa controls with some countries in the region demonstrates government’s regional sympathies. According to local government officials, government has taken a number of initiatives, including a planned briefing at ambassadorial level in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The aim is to reassure governments in the region that the South African government is responding in a decisive way to curb xenophobic threats. Many have stressed the importance of South Africa’s leadership role at continental level. But this role has been compromised in a number of areas. One such area is that of South African economic expansion. Research at the HSRC and Rhodes University has shown that the expansion of South African companies in Africa has had, on one hand, many concrete benefits for the region’s citizens, such as skills transfer, new consumption and built environments and some new formal sector jobs. On the other hand, it has also exported a range of racialised practices into the region. Modernist sensibilities among primarily white South African managers speak of a new colonial encounter – with claims that they are bringing modernity and development to the region. Lacking the capacity to intervene at the regional level where its own companies were concerned, and following the prescriptions of a regionalism that eulogised foreign investment, the Mandela and Mbeki regimes failed to regulate the operations of these South African multinationals. South African corporate intervention has therefore tarnished South Africa’s image in many African host countries. If adversarial dynamics grow within South Africa between South Africans and other Africans from the continent, we further undermine our capacity for a regional leadership role. Modernist sensibilities among primarily white South African managers speak of a new colonial encounter – with claims that they are bringing modernity and development to the region. But how do the national responsibilities of the state articulate with political and economic relationships at the regional level? Are these goals potentially at variance with each other? Many would say that if you haven’t sorted out issues of transformation in your own locality, how can you hope to effect transformation at the level of supra-national region or the SADC? But what if these regional realities are inserting themselves into everyday life within South Africa? Some have said - both within government and without – ‘that we should clean up our act at home first’. But what is home in South Africa if not a regional space? The ‘Africanisation’ of South African social life and social reality has brought the region into our townships and into our workplaces. The sooner we come to terms with the multinational African character of many townships and workplaces, the more likely we are to plan and effect social redistribution and transformation that correspond with our actual social needs. If we limit our vision to a contained South African society that exists only in our imagination, the reality of a regional existence within South Africa will elude us. We live in a regional space within South Africa, and our policies and plans need to reflect this changing social reality in a way that enhances democratic life in our country. This is a shortened version of an article published in the African Sociological Review, No. 12, Vol. 1 2008. Dr Darlene Miller, research director, Democracy, Governance and Service Delivery research programme; Simon Mushavatu, a Zimbabwean artist.
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