Xenophobia, Poverty and Capitalism in South Africa

“…South Africa belongs to all who live in it …” The Freedom Charter, adopted by the Congress of the People in Kliptown, Johannesburg on 26 June 1955.

“Thus in South Africa now it is very expensive to be poor. It is the poor people who stay furthest from town and therefore have to spend more money on transport to come and work for white people; it is the poor people who who use uneconomic and inconvenient fuel like paraffin and coal because of the refusal of the white man to install electricity in black areas; … it is the poor people who use untarred roads, have to walk long distances and therefore experience the greatest wear and tear on commodities like shoes …” Steve Biko (1973): “Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity” in Basil Moore’s book Black Theology: The South African Voice, London: C. Hurst & Co.

“The society of money and exploitation has never been charged, so far as I know, with assuring the triumph of freedom and justice.” – Albert Camus: “Bread and Freedom” from Resistance, Rebellion and Death, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1964 .

“We did not struggle to be poor” – a current ANC leader.

In the past two weeks there have been horrifying incidents of violence perpetrated against foreigners in various informal settlements around South Africa, mainly in the densely urbanised Gauteng Province. At the time of writing more than 40 people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced. The army has been called in to help re-establish order.

How has it happened that the beautiful “rainbow nation” has descended to such brutality and ill-discipline just 14 years into our fragile and wonderful democracy? How is it that a cultural tradition of centuries has been forgotten?

The tradition I mean is that of welcoming the stranger in our midst, of giving him or her succour, of treating him or her as part of ourselves. When the ships of the European explorers began rounding the Cape in search of the passage to India there were obviously shipwrecks and some survivors, crew and passengers of these precarious ships, came ashore. There are many tales of the welcome they received from the local inhabitants. Maybe not all, but at least some, enough to make an impression, were received, not with hostility, maybe with some apprehension, but by and large with generosity of spirit.

South Africa, in moving from the oppressive apartheid state to a modern, democratic and open society, did so without the convulsive violence of revolution, and the transition to the constitutional democracy envisioned by the Congress of the People back in 1955 was often described by commentators as “miraculous” in the days after the great 1994 elections and the installation of the ANC-led government under struggle icon Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.