Who orchestrated the xenophobic violence?
by Guest Blogger
Khadija Sharife
Perhaps the timing [of the xenophobic violence], sandwiched between Polokwane and the general elections, hints at a connection linking the whispering campaign against certain ANC members, slowly being pushed aside, and the systematic nationwide targeting of foreigners, meant to destabilize the country and rapidly usher in a different leadership.
This is not to say that virulent forms of xenophobia do not exist.
One of my closest friends, a native of Botswana, SMS'd me sometime around midnight, saying, "SA comes from a long history of institutionalised hate…removing the apartheid government did not remove the hate from people's hearts … outsiders are seen as diseased, criminally minded, dirty and less than human…"
"SA is tired of cronyism — the people want land, development, facilities."
Sadly, this particular friend of mine has chosen to no longer remain in South Africa.
"Ubuntu is dead," he said, "It is just a scam word they use to market BEE*."
Another friend (white), who recently left for the UK, told me that our democracy "was not real because it had yet to be tried and tested."
"Look at the xenophobia — the numbers are staggering."
According to Nde Ndifonka, Media and Communications Director at the International Organization of Migration (IOM), "60 people were killed, about 48,000 initially displaced: 25,000 in 48 locations in Gauteng, 20,000 in Western Cape, 2,500 in KZN, 800 in Mpumalanga, 80 in Limpopo Province."
"About 40,000 Mozambicans have returned voluntarily, more than 3,000 of them with the assistance of their government."
The idea of this disquisition is not to dismiss the endemic poverty, ecological crisis (emanating from exploitive and inefficient policies), or the corruption so prevalent in government (a good example: 30% of restituted land sits idle with only 7% having been dealt with), but rather to confront the contours of xenophobia when inserted within the current political climate, vis-à-vis the arms deal at the root of the ANC's polarizations.
"The magnitude of the attacks indicates that they were systematically planned," said Nde, "but one must note that such sporadic attacks are the physical manifestation of feelings of xenophobia that have existed among people long before, and that need to be addressed in the long run if future attacks are to be pre-empted."
Were the attacks really sporadic?
Mary de Haas, a social anthropologist, author and the head of Violence Monitor group in KZN, said, "It's clear that the xenophobic attacks are neither spontaneous nor uncoordinated; they are indeed carefully crafted with a view to sowing certain types of divisions.
"I spoke to persons who had fled various shack settlements and they told exactly the same story about events in different shack settlements on the same night. Piecing together versions from different sources, it does seem that outsiders were working with locals, or at least on information from locals.
"The attacks bear a striking resemblance to the attacks on squatter camps of the early 90s, especially insofar as they relate to hostel dwellers' involvement and the 'other' having taken scarce resources such as jobs and houses (except that the 'other' is now a non-South African and not a Xhosa/Pondo," she continued.
As a former inmate of the Clare Estate region, an area populated with the largest informal settlement in KZN, the idea that the poorest in the nation, burdened with Herculean constraints, would somehow contrive to foment a coordinated national campaign to expel foreigners is bizarre.
(I'm not trying to romanticize the poor or to claim that they are without their share of sin, but when poverty is inherited as the result of systematic injustice and the continuities between the skeletal structures of those policies are not addressed, we — the others — are guilty of complicity.)
In this case, the xenophobic violence ties in perfectly when examined from a relational perspective, mirroring the factual and historical contours of pre-1994 hostel and township intra-community violence, prior to the impending change in political leadership.
In the current context, it serves to further destabilize and undermine the political standing of Mbeki (and by implication, the old guard), in order to accelerate Zuma's ascent to power.
Already, as the Sunday Times reports, the ANC's house in KZN has been cleansed of all Mbeki supporters. Julius Malema, the head of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) declares that he will kill if Zuma is taken to trial, (implying that those vying for prosecution should seriously reconsider audacious assumptions manifested in phrases such as when Zuma is taken to trial); the South African Communist Party (SACP) amongst other bodies used the situation as the (in-built?) catalyser, calling for Mbeki's removal.
Ironically, though Zuma has stated that there would be policy continuation (of capitalism facilitated within the global system with added dimensions, speeding up the velocity of destruction), he has been heralded as a revolutionary who would drastically reform the aberrant economic hierarchy.
The divisions within the ANC are reflective of the rotting and suppurated core that comprises the essence of most one-party liberation movements; controlled forms of democracy are used as a cloak to maintain power via the many-headed hydra that perpetuates the illusion of choice by 'elections'.
In SA, our own liberation was determined by a confluence of multinationals (subsequently granted an unconditional blanket amnesty by the government) and foreign governments via multilateral institutions such as the World Bank; the latter hand picked economists to develop subservient domestic policies aligned with the US etc
Modern nations, founded on the principles of 'democracy' have schooled citizens to misunderstand the prerequisites required to fulfil the 'for the people, by the people' modes of expression; the innate corruption of the system authenticates the exploitation inlayed by megacorporations who operate outside of national jurisdictions.
As a friend in Malawi told me several years ago, multinationals are garbed in legal cloaks that render them untouchable, unaccountable and to a large degree, invisible.
More often than not, MNC's are responsible for financing and facilitating rogue regimes, whether democratic or dictatorial.
This faecal ideology, of evolution justifying capitalism, hearkens back to the days of pseudo-scientist Darwin with his eugenic training, interpreted by Spencer who coined the phrase Survival of the Fittest.
If Darwin (a sickly chap to the end) is to be believed, then greed in itself becomes a virtue and multinationals are to be applauded for raping the planet, rendering such principles as just and logical.
How does it play out in SA?
"There have been rumors for some years (i.e. pre-Polokwane) that ways would be found of removing Mbeki," said De Haas.
"I can only speculate that perhaps he has made himself unpopular with powerful international forces (which can be governmental or non-governmental, given the economic clout of huge multinationals) with the significant contribution he has made to politics in Africa generally and possibly, in the process lessen dependence on colonial/imperialist powers."
(De Haas is by no means uncritical of Mbeki. In an email, she detailed many conflicted, contradictory policies during Mbeki's reign, especially related to HIV/AIDS and other issues.)
"I simply do not know enough about the political economy of Africa to draw any firm conclusions, but Mbeki has certainly worked hard to bring peace, particularly in war-torn areas."
"His government has also — and this may be significant — passed legislation outlawing the operation of private security companies/mercenary activities in other countries, which would have done nothing to make him popular (However, policing this legislation is problematic)."
Any indication, I asked De Haas, of who is behind the attacks and how is this related to Polokwane, if at all?
"These are two separate issues and I have no idea whether there is any connection between them," she says.
"Assuming there is an organized force — and everything points to there being one — it must be one that is bent on weakening the ANC and/or further discrediting Mbeki."
Manala Manzini, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA) told Reuters, 'We have information to the effect that elements that were involved in the pre-1994 election violence are in fact the same elements that have re-started contacts with people that they used in the past.'
If xenophobia as a condition is examined at the starting point of national/nation state evolution, it emerges as the most obvious reaction to the flags of our modern age; the world as we know it is merely responding to the social engineering developed during the heydays of the Spanish-Hapsburg, Ottoman, British and Dutch empires, with the latter developing the first world's first Multinational Corporation in which slavery, exploitation and colonialism played significant roles.
The vilification of minorities is a logical consequence of patriotism and a necessary evil that must remain accessible to the upper echelons of the state (political) and the corporations who facilitate the politics of 'democracy', reinforcing their economic power.
By sustaining pockets of poverty and 'otherness,' politicians have inscribed for themselves 'ready-made' voters, desperate enough to be manipulated by a highly selective information economy.
Paradoxically, politicians must win the vote of the poor in order to ensure that the poor remain poor, and so continue the cycle.
As Amy Duffy, the adorable Welsh chick so aptly said, "Mercy!"
*The codification of languages, thought-forms, identities, histories, ethnicities and narratives by former colonialist powers have resulted in the native internalisation of Eurocentric perspectives and outlooks; this is perhaps why my friend was called Makwerekwere by some native South Africans who see themselves as the 'superiors' of other Africans.
Khadija Sharife is a 22-year-old freelance journalist, musician and the Deputy Director of the Phoenix Environmental Institute. She writes in her own capacity.
Copyright 2008 Khadija Sharife
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