The year 2016 heralded the resurgence of a political period of authoritarianism and nationalism in global mainstream politics. In 2016, Donald Trump became president of the United States, and the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. These events were driven by a rise in far-right politics and a hostility to immigration, more specifically immigration from the Middle East and Africa.
In 2022, South Africa has witnessed the most prolonged wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, and one cannot help but wonder if it will reshape the region in ways that undermine democracy, liberalism, and ultimately the region.
Though the population of foreigners living in South Africa represents only 4% of the population of people living in South Africa and only 7% of the workforce of the population, this issue has predictably come to feature disproportionately in the public discourse.
When Trump announced his campaign for president, he began a global trend of using anti-immigrant rhetoric to gain power. He came down an escalator, saying, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
There are similar trends in South African political rhetoric. First, there’s a rise in confrontation with African foreigners due to the emergence of Operation Dudula, which is hostile to African immigrants in South Africa. Second, there’s the deadline for the termination of a special status visa given to hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans in 2009. And finally, there are rising levels of unemployment and poverty and failure to offer any tangible solutions from the government. In lieu of solutions, there seems to be the decision to scapegoat African migrants for unemployment and crime.
This anti-immigrant sentiment has been escalated by the fact that the figures driving anti-African migrant rhetoric have been able to access national media platforms easily and in turn get international media coverage. There have also been instances of violence which have captured the public imagination and made these issues topical on social media platforms.
Government ministers have also participated in anti-immigrant rhetoric, and rejected descriptions of their rhetoric as xenophobic. Their participation has lent legitimacy to voices that would otherwise have been on the fringe of mainstream politics.
I believe this rhetoric should be classified as Afrophobia, not merely xenophobia.
There are many forms of recognised hate crimes and hate speech in the world, for example, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Asian hate. In many countries, they have been codified and legislated against.
The same level of qualification should be extended towards anti-foreigner sentiment, which is specifically targeted against African migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Afrophobia should be the word used to describe the activities of Put South Africans first, Operation Dudula, and the political rhetoric of prominent politicians such as Gayton McKenzie, Herman Mashaba, and Aaron Motsoaledi.
Codification of a genre of hate creates a clear understanding of what forms of language and narratives are harmful and hurtful. It allows for identification of the groups that are actively spreading particular narratives, and it creates social disincentives for those who participate in those narratives.
More than that, it also creates a path for legal deterrents, as those who perform those speech acts can be held directly liable for their actions and in some territories, even arrested for them.
The use of the word xenophobia is overbroad and misses the fact that these aren’t blanket attacks on all those of foreign descent but specific those of African descent. Consider that South Africa has large immigrant communities of people from the United Kingdom, which ranks fifth in the percentage of immigration, but British nationals in South Africa aren’t targets of xenophobia.
Xenophobia doesn’t go far enough in informing the public about what’s happening.
Let’s consider antisemitism, which is its own distinct form of hate crime. Prejudice against the Jewish people is centuries old. Among its most common manifestations throughout history were pogroms, the violent riots launched against Jews which were frequently encouraged by government authorities. Pogroms were often incited by blood libels – false rumours that Jews used the blood of Christian children for ritual purposes.
The harmful narratives and perceptions of Jews weren’t always formally labelled. The term antisemitism actually came into being in 1879 when German journalist Wilhelm Marr originated the term to denote hatred of Jews.
The existence of this term helped the world understand the hateful rhetoric of the Nazi party and the crimes against humanity committed by the Third Reich. It helped the world create laws to constrain the spread of hatred of Jewish people post World War II.
Parallels can be drawn between Afrophobia and antisemitism. They’re both forms of hate that are derived from harmful narratives that the specific groups are harming society.
For practical purposes, African migrants are in need of this specific classification because they are often subjected to harassment, intimidation, and quite often violence, which has led in some instances to death.
This protection is necessary because African migrants are often the most vulnerable of migrant communities. Many lack the economic means to seek legal recourse, many are unable to challenge Afrophobic movements for fear of retaliation, and many refugees don’t have any other refuge because they face imminent risk to life and limb in their home countries.
African migrants are being accused of being criminals, drug dealers, human traffickers, stealing jobs, and being rapists, among other things. Following these harmful narratives which are specifically targeted at a group of people, there have been attacks and profiling of those communities.
It’s important to note that this isn’t just rhetoric targeted at those who don’t have legal status in their home countries. Often on Facebook groups and on Twitter, the anti-African migrant rhetoric is generalised to everyone. Those who spread the narratives don’t make a distinction between those who are documented or undocumented, and those who are fully acclimatised citizens of South Africa. It indicates that this isn’t just about legality or illegality, it’s about fostering hatred of a specific group of people based on an arbitrary characteristic that they have no control of.
The introduction of a new term may seem unnecessary, but this is how language evolves, and clearly, there’s a distinction between antipathy targeted at all foreigners and antipathy targeted specifically at African foreigners. That is why we must call it Afrophobia.
- Jamie Mighti is an African policy researcher and analyst, and the founder of the African think tank Research and Dialogue Africa. He gave a talk on this topic at Limmud Johannesburg.
