Normalising xenophobia

The barbaric violence, including the intimidation and killings that silenced the ho hum of the rainbow nation for the past three weeks, has finally subsided.

Ordinary South Africans, after witnessing the bloodshed sprayed all over their newspapers and television screens, appear to have returned to the daily drama of their own lives.

Of course, the mass rioting might have stopped, but isolated incidents continue to reverberate sporadically across the country.

But there is an uncomfortable quality to the manner in which the issue is being treated, even reported. It has not even been a month since the first reports of violence, and already we treat the issue like sensitive Germans tired of discussing their naughty Nazi grandfathers.

All those with doomsday theories will be shot down as Afro-pessimists and racists, but surely the magnitude of the tragic events should be used as a warning of things to come if socio-economic conditions for the majority aren’t vigorously addressed other than as some once-off anomaly?

Government’s response suggests otherwise.

By refusing to treat the situation with a decisive, unambiguous commitment, the South African government has allowed mass ‘xenophobic sentiment’ to root itself in and germinate across the country in various forms.

Moreover, by standing back and allowing mainly humanitarian groups, NGOs and concerned citizens to direct the practical survival issues of the thousands displaced, government has belittled the crisis by relinquishing responsibility and effectively outsourcing disaster management to civil society.

Even charitable middle class housewives have realized that the shocking new ‘Help victims of xenophobia’ table at the local Pick ‘n Pay is really the same as the perennial ‘Feed the homeless’ or ‘Help street children’ table at the Spar next door.

Instead of demystifying the reasons for such hate, government has almost single-handedly guided the internalisation of xenophobia as another condemnable but untreatable South African reality.

But this is too easy.

We can accept that we are an extremely violent nation. Our record in violent crime, gender and domestic violence and its like point to an unmistakable culture of violence. But when are we ever going to pull off the bandaids and address the deeply psychological, emotional damage wrapped in socio-economic strife that drives such a culture?

In the battle for resources, a hungry man is easy to manipulate.

Eliminating Jews under the Nazi times, or institutionalizing racism, or building a wall between nations, is not hatred of ‘the other’ for its own sake.

Deep down we know that it is not essentially a superiority complex or tangible fear of the foreigner that drive xenophobes or racists. It is mostly an economic agenda driven by an ideology of exclusion, made tangible by stereotyping difference into a combustible hatred for ‘the other’.

Xenophobia in South Africa is no different.

By government side-stepping the xenophobic attacks – rolling their eyes, pointing in different directions to deflect the blame – they have fundamentally refused to acknowledge that ordinary South Africans are growing increasingly restless about their dismal economic circumstance. By implication, government’s impotent stance concedes a lack of purpose to push forward real change.

We know that Manto’s bi-polar kleptomania has cost us millions of lives to Aids when the disease could be manageable. We know crime is the only option for thousands of frustrated, angry youngsters needing food, shelter and airtime and is perceived as the only remaining option for many. We also know that government can clamp down, but ending crime would mean delivering services. We also know that to most of our leaders, delivering services is a career option, a chance to secure an X5 to visit their ancestral home with blue lights, rather than the obligation of serving as the position suggests.

Xenophobia is a release valve for growing discontent in South Africa; another manifestation of government’s alienation from and apparent lack of concern for the poor. With all the damage xenophobia has apparently caused to our investment prospects and all that hoo haa, government seems relatively content with the perception that foreigners, and not poor social policy, non-existent border control, lack of service delivery, etc., are the causes for the growing frustration.

Meanwhile, little Congolese, Rwandan and Mozambiquan refugee camps mushroom across the urban landscape awaiting an indication that the South African government has reclaimed control of the situation. To no avail. Not only is government battling to house these foreigners in the interim, they have yet to offer an official explanation of the crisis (except for the third force-Bourne Identity-like espionage theory), or even, more crucially, offer a way forward.

While our African next of kin shiver in leaking circus tents, our television sets show patronizing all-of-Africa-encompassing 2010 adverts, which do little to demystify the rest of Africa as underdeveloped, poverty stricken leeches waiting to lick away the gold plated streets of Johannesburg. Instead of creating imaginative ads and emergency public service announcement’s on radio and television urging South Africans to shed their hostility towards their African neighbours, the SABC has this recurring Department of Home Affairs (DHA) advert urging South Africans to get an ID and be green rather than blue.

DHA’s insensitivity is startling but unsurprising, considering recent revelations at a xenophobia workshop in Durban, where it was revealed that African foreigners were regularly treated brutishly in DHA offices, including being referred to as ‘dogs’ by officials. If they are treated in this manner in public, in front of frustrated South Africans, how do we expect the disenfranchised to be warm and welcoming in such desperate times to this obviously created ‘other’?

Granted, the various difficulties of governing a relatively ‘new’ country vastly polarized since the days of van Riebeck, Smuts and Noot vir Noot, it is not merely poor performance that is the ire of ordinary South Africans, activists, academics and political commentators. It is rather the South African government’s feeble approach to finding caring solutions to this and other crises that force one to question government commitment.

But even government inaction can’t hold out for too long.

You can bet your bottom Zim dollar that government will respond eventually. A xenophobia related conference will be arranged, a set of international rock stars will fly over for a Madiba-inspired concert, mass t-shirts and other such memorabilia will be sold. And if we really lucky, we might even get another public holiday.