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A Retrospective Study of the Effects of Xenophobia on South Africa-Nigeria Relations

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A Retrospective Study of the Effects of Xenophobia on South Africa-Nigeria Relations View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Covenant University Repository A Retrospective Study of the effects of Xenophobia on South Africa-Nigeria Relations Oluyemi Fayomi, Felix Chidozie, Charles Ayo Abstract— The underlying causes of xenophobia are complex I. INTRODUCTION and varied. Xenophobia has to do with contemptuous of that which The perennial spate of attacks on foreign-owned shops in is foreign, especially of strangers or of people from different some South African townships raises uncomfortable countries or cultures. Unemployment and mounting poverty among South Africans at the bottom of the economic ladder have provoked questions about xenophobia in South Africa. fears of the competition that better educated and experienced This attitude generated the questions which include: To migrants can represent. South Africa’s long track-record of violence what extent can South Africa's inconsistent immigration as a means of protest and the targeting of foreigners in particular; policy be blamed for xenophobia? Do foreigners really 'steal' and, the documented tensions over migration policy and the scale of South African jobs? Do foreign-owned small businesses have repatriation serve a very good explanation for its xenophobia. It was an unfair advantage over those owned by South Africans? clear that while most of the attacks were directed against foreign, Xenophobia is becoming a prominent aspect of life in primarily African, migrants, that this was not the rule. Attacks were Africa. From Kenya to the Maghreb and across Southern also noted against Chinese-speakers, Pakistani migrants as well as Africa, discrimination against non-nationals, particularly against South Africans from minority language groups (in the conflict areas). Settlements that have recently experienced the expression of fellow Africans, has been on the rise according to ‘xenophobic’ violence have also been the site of violent and other international media reports. forms of protest around other issues, most notably service delivery. However, Crush (2008) states that exclusion, based on the The failure of government in service delivery was vexed on this form idea of being 'non-native' has existed in Africa since of xenophobia (HSRC, 2008). independence (and was codified during colonialism). Due to the increase in migration, this conflict is certainly not Bounded ideas of citizenship have existed in Africa for two temporary in nature. Xenophobia manifests in different regions and centuries, and contemporary xenophobia can be seen as one communities, with devastating effects on the affected nationals. of the most recent manifestations of this feature. Nigerians living in South Africa have been objects of severe attacks South Africa is extremely high with regular attacks on and assault as a result of this xenophobic attitude. It is against this foreign nationals. Despite a lack of directly comparable data, background that this study seeks to investigate the xenophobic attacks against Nigerians in South Africa. The methodology is xenophobia in South Africa is perceived to have significantly basically qualitative with the use of secondary sources such as increased after the installation of a democratic government in Books, Journals, Newspapers and internet sources. 1994. According to a 2004 study published by the Southern Africa Migration Project (SAMP), The ANC government, in its attempts to overcome the divides of the past and build new Keywords—Nigeria, Poverty, South Africa, Unemployment, forms of social cohesion embarked on an aggressive and Xenophobia, inclusive nation-building project. One unanticipated by- product of this project has been a growth in intolerance towards outsiders. Violence against foreign citizens and African refugees has become increasingly common and Fayomi Oluyemi is with the Political Science and International Relations communities are divided by hostility and suspicion (SAMP, Department, Covenant University, PMB 1023, Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria. (phone: +2348033342415; e-mail: [email protected]). 2004). C. Ayo is with the Computer And Information Sciences Department, Xenophobia is a dislike and/or fear of that which is Covenant University, PMB 1023, Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria. unknown or different from one. It comes from the Greek (e-mail: [email protected]). words (xenos), meaning “stranger,” “foreigner” and (Phobos), F.Chidozie is with the Political Science and International Relations Department, Covenant University, PMB 1023, Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria. (e- and meaning “fear.” The term is typically used to describe a mail: [email protected]). fear or dislike foreigners or of people significantly different from oneself, usually in the context of visibly differentiated minorities (Shinsana,2008). It is more broadly defined in the prompting the various governments to initiate economic Dictionary of Psychology (1978) as “a fear of strangers”. reforms to reverse the trend. Hence, even though policies Post apartheid South Africa has enjoyed about two decades such as the Growth, Employment and Redistribution of majority rule on the basis of a constitution which declares, Programme (GEAR) and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) as one of its fundamental principles and goals, the came under heavy attack, especially from the white minority “achievement of a non-racial society”. However, in spite of in South Africa, it nonetheless, portrayed government’s the efforts to create “the rainbow nation”, neither the genuine intervention to redress racial (mis)representation in question of race nor the questions of class and gender the country’s political economy (Alozieuwa, 2009; Edigheji, oppression and exploitation have ceased to be central in 2012). contemporary South Africa (Gqola, 2001 cited in Hendricks, But the efforts of the government are not enough as 2005:103; Trimikliniotis et al, 2008). Indeed, the defeat of indicated by the report released by the United Nations apartheid, the bastion of state-organized racism, a regime Development Programme (UNDP) in 2003. The report based explicitly on racist institutionalization, and its concluded that: replacement by the “new South Africa” is indicative of how Human Development Index has race and racism remain operational forces even after they worsened (from 0.73 in 1994 to 0.067 in have officially been declared dead. There is no consensus as 2003), poverty still engulfs 48.5% of the to the current transitional state of affairs; for 20 years after population (21.9 million in 2002), African National Congress (ANC) took over from white income inequality has increased (from nationalist/racist minority rule, there is considerable debate 0.60 in 1995 to 0.63 in 2001), the as to the direction, pace and nature of the post-apartheid majority of households have limited regime (Trimikliniotis et al, 2008). access to basic services, and the official To be sure, the issue of xenophobic relations in contemporary unemployment rate has sharply South Africa is rooted in and conditioned by the structure of increased to more than 30% in 2003 its apartheid economy. The apartheid economy was a (UNDP report, 2003:3, cited in totalizing one, in that it mobilized all the social forces at its Hendricks, 2005:104). disposal to further the interest of the apartheid South African state. Since the primary productive force in the apartheid However, the deep economic cleavage in post-apartheid South African economy was gold and the concomitant social South becomes pronounced when the rising influx of “other relations of the mining process was by mostly black labour foreigners”, especially Nigerians and their active role in the force, the industry attracted heavy migrant labour from economy of South Africa comes under scrutiny. According to Southern African regions notably Zimbabweans, Malawians the report of an oral interview conducted in 2013, Salifu of and Mozambicans to the fast thriving industry. The the Institute for Securities Studies (ISS), South Africa, immediate result of this was that, as the foreign labour force estimated that there are about 13 million Nigerians living in began to gain social mobility in the gold industry and the South Africa while about 1 million South Africans are living in black South Africans continually subjected to the repressive Nigeria. She argued that the implication of these figures is policies of apartheid, social tensions rose in the political that, rather than portend an advantage for the South African economy of the state and has since remained a dominant economy, as many believe, there is instead a huge tension in part of the social relations of the post-apartheid South the South African economy which has resulted in xenophobia African state (Konanani and Odeku, 2013; Chidozie, 2014). in recent times (Salifu, oral interview, 2013). Lester et al (2000) had argued that, while for the first time In effect, recent waves of xenophobic attacks on Nigerians democratization in South Africa has translated to the poor living in South Africa bring into stark reality the having the same formal political power as the rich, the preponderance of Nigerian business community in post country remains one of the most unequal societies on earth. apartheid South African economy. The attacks in which more This gross inequality was engendered, according to him, by than 60 persons were killed and thousands displaced the fact that, when the country left apartheid behind, it did attracted diplomatic
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