By Monday, the morning after the World Cup final in South Africa, the tension that had been building for weeks had already broken.
Violence against foreign nationals was reported throughout the Western Cape province late Sunday and early Monday. Shops were looted, 6 people were assaulted at last count, and more than 100 non-nationals, mainly Somalis and Zimbabweans, were displaced from their homes. Police acted swiftly to the reports, quashing the violence and arresting and charging several people in the process.
Rumors of a coming wave of what’s called “xenophobia” had been circulating for months in South Africa, long before soccer tourists touched down and the first vuvuzelas had been blown. Once World Cup was over, according to the talk on the street, attacks would begin. And like clockwork they began almost immediately, even as soccer fans were still nursing their Spanish-Dutch hangovers. What some find surprising is that it began in the Western Cape, not in Gauteng province. Civil society and grassroots groups note with relief that the violence and displacement happened on a mercifully small scale and seem to have, at least for now, quieted down.
The weeks leading up to Monday, July 12th—painted as a sort of D-Day for foreign nationals in the country—have been mad. Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Congolese, Burundians, Malawians, Somalis, Ethiopians and Nigerians from coast to coast to coast have been living in fear. Those who remember what happened two years ago have been particularly nervous. May 2008: the largest, most destructive outbreak of anti-foreigner violence in democratic South Africa’s short history. More than 62 dead, over 100,000 displaced, and millions of Rand of property looted and destroyed. People fled from township to cities, from south to north, from one hostile situation into another. The country is still covered with unhealed scar tissue, so the thought of another wide-spread outbreak, this time a coordinated one, has been more than some have been able to bear.
As much as the rumors have been based on personal threats, and some of those threats based on actual planning, talking about the potential xenophobic violence has been tricky. By talking about it some wonder: Could that give the rumors more steam? Does repeating it solidify or legitimize the threats? The thought has made Ministers, police and civil society groups uneasy, so their narrative has remained somewhat cautious.In yesterday’s Mail & Guardian President Jacob Zuma is cited as questioning the very existence of solid threats—a stance that’s almost incomprehensible in the context of the mass exodus of Zimbabwean nationals and other foreign nationals that’s taking place right now. Reports at the border bear witness to this flight, and a walk around Gauteng province townships this past weekend—where I saw so many people packing their belongings and shipping their kids off to stay with relatives—backed it up. Paul Verryn of the Central Methodist Mission in Johannesburg—long known as a place of refuge for homeless South Africans, refugees and migrants—has personally received pointed threats that, once violence is triggered, the foreign nationals who sleep at his church will be targeted.
By Monday, the morning after the World Cup final in South Africa, the tension that had been building for weeks had already broken.
Violence against foreign nationals was reported throughout the Western Cape province late Sunday and early Monday. Shops were looted, 6 people were assaulted at last count, and more than 100 non-nationals, mainly Somalis and Zimbabweans, were displaced from their homes. Police acted swiftly to the reports, quashing the violence and arresting and charging several people in the process.
Rumors of a coming wave of what’s called “xenophobia” had been circulating for months in South Africa, long before soccer tourists touched down and the first vuvuzelas had been blown. Once World Cup was over, according to the talk on the street, attacks would begin. And like clockwork they began almost immediately, even as soccer fans were still nursing their Spanish-Dutch hangovers. What some find surprising is that it began in the Western Cape, not in Gauteng province. Civil society and grassroots groups note with relief that the violence and displacement happened on a mercifully small scale and seem to have, at least for now, quieted down.
The weeks leading up to Monday, July 12th—painted as a sort of D-Day for foreign nationals in the country—have been mad. Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Congolese, Burundians, Malawians, Somalis, Ethiopians and Nigerians from coast to coast to coast have been living in fear. Those who remember what happened two years ago have been particularly nervous. May 2008: the largest, most destructive outbreak of anti-foreigner violence in democratic South Africa’s short history. More than 62 dead, over 100,000 displaced, and millions of Rand of property looted and destroyed. People fled from township to cities, from south to north, from one hostile situation into another. The country is still covered with unhealed scar tissue, so the thought of another wide-spread outbreak, this time a coordinated one, has been more than some have been able to bear.
As much as the rumors have been based on personal threats, and some of those threats based on actual planning, talking about the potential xenophobic violence has been tricky. By talking about it some wonder: Could that give the rumors more steam? Does repeating it solidify or legitimize the threats? The thought has made Ministers, police and civil society groups uneasy, so their narrative has remained somewhat cautious.In yesterday’s Mail & Guardian President Jacob Zuma is cited as questioning the very existence of solid threats—a stance that’s almost incomprehensible in the context of the mass exodus of Zimbabwean nationals and other foreign nationals that’s taking place right now. Reports at the border bear witness to this flight, and a walk around Gauteng province townships this past weekend—where I saw so many people packing their belongings and shipping their kids off to stay with relatives—backed it up. Paul Verryn of the Central Methodist Mission in Johannesburg—long known as a place of refuge for homeless South Africans, refugees and migrants—has personally received pointed threats that, once violence is triggered, the foreign nationals who sleep at his church will be targeted.
There is some talk, too, about whether xenophobia is even the right word for what’s happening. Of South Africa’s 11 official languages—Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Sotho and Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu—several are shared with tribes from neighboring countries. Culturally and linguistically, many of the migrants and asylum-seekers coming from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Botswana, Malawi and Swaziland have a great deal in common with their South African counterparts, so they are not outsiders in that sense. Shosholoza, arguably South Africa’s most famous folk song and an intrinsic part of the South African national team’s games on the World Cup pitch, was originally a Zimbabwean migrant worker song. The lyrics seem almost eerie now in that context:
“Go forward on those mountains, train from South Africa.
Go forward, you are running away, on those mountains, train from South Africa.”
