I have frequently felt out of place in my own surroundings.
My arrival was not a gentle transition from the magical world of abundance and joy, my mother’s womb, but rather a harsh entry into a reality filled with dust, hunger, and disappointment; my tiny feet far too fragile for the resolve of a home birth.
The second chapter of my departure began in 1993 when I left my village of Habeni in Eshowe, northern KwaZulu-Natal, in pursuit of education in Durban.
I was fleeing from pastoral responsibilities, political figures like Gatsha Buthelezi from Inkatha, village labor, and the daily rhythms of rural life.
By 1997, I found myself uprooted again, this time to Inanda, KwaDube, which was then a makeshift settlement.
I had lost my chance at higher education at the then-white Technikon Natal—a product of an apartheid education system that hadn’t prepared me for the challenges ahead.
Throughout these separations, I faced homelessness more often than I wish to recall, especially in 1999 and again in 2001.
Each time, it was not my fellow South Africans who came to my aid, but individuals from foreign lands.
Ziggy, a student from Namibia, offered me shelter at a Durban flat named Corlo Court when I found myself in need.
Percy, another Namibian, became like family to me.
I contributed R100 for groceries, while others (also Namibians) covered the remainder, filling in where my own country had faltered.
Later, I was fortunate to receive a scholarship from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, funded by German taxpayers who recognized my academic merit and financial need.
At one point, a white woman, unable to pronounce ubuntu, offered me a place to stay.
This is why the topic of migration resonates deeply with me; it’s not just a matter of academic discourse, policy papers, or the latest stunt from political figures seeking the applause of a despairing nation.
It resonates as personal memory.
It resonates as Ziggy making space for a struggling South African. It resonates as Percy sharing meals. It resonates as the painful realization that during crucial moments of my life, foreigners exhibited more ubuntu than my homeland.
And yes, it includes Joe (not his real name), another Namibian in that same flat, who revealed his own wave of xenophobia toward me.
He dined alone in his room and questioned why the South African government couldn’t support its struggling citizens.
He resented me for eating his Namibian lunch.
It was painful.
For an entire year, I wrestled with the question: why couldn’t South Africa support its vulnerable?
Decades later, that question remains unanswered. Instead, we see new players, slogans, marches, cameras, and targets, while fresh ideas remain elusive.
Fred Khumalo warned in News24 that protests against foreigners are a ticking time bomb that still has time to be defused.
I fear the fuse has already been lit.
In practice, the individuals targeted are primarily Black Africans: Malawians, Mozambicans, Zimbabweans, Nigerians, Ghanaians, Congolese, Ethiopians, Somalis, and, as history indicates, South Africans mistaken for them. This is essentially an intensified anti-Black agenda.
This is where Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma enters the narrative.
She is not the root cause of South Africa’s migration crisis.
She symbolizes a symptom of our lack of ideas: a political vacuum disguised as civic action, a performance for cameras overwhelmed only by the certainty with which it asserts to be the solution.
Her March and March movement claims it is not xenophobic, asserting its goal to enforce immigration laws. That’s acceptable.
A responsible nation must comprehend who enters, who stays, who works, who qualifies for asylum, and who should be returned via lawful, compassionate processes.
However, there is a clear distinction between managing migration and conducting street theater.
There is a difference between a constitutional state enforcing legal norms and crowds marching through communities, targeting Black Africans, issuing threats, demanding documentation, and turning neighbors into suspects.
There is a vital distinction between policy and performance.
When Ngobese-Zuma tells her audience that some refer to March and March as a Zuma stokvel, and she doesn’t mind because she is, after all, a Zuma, she may perceive this as defiance.
It’s not; it’s a revelation.
A national crisis degenerates into family drama. Public fear morphs into branding. Desperation turns into performance.
She is not alone in this narrative.
Herman Mashaba has built much of ActionSA’s political rhetoric around “anger” directed at undocumented foreigners.
Gayton McKenzie and the Patriotic Alliance have commodified “illegal foreigners” for political leverage. President Cyril Ramaphosa now discusses stricter border measures, crackdowns, and enforcement, but too often the state realizes its backbone only after the mob has already chosen its victim.
There’s nothing brave about arriving with a microphone after the flames have already been lit.
Let’s define the issue accurately.
South Africa is facing a migration management dilemma.
But it is also caught up in a broader crisis of ineffective governance, rampant unemployment, violent crime, municipal failures, a dysfunctional Home Affairs system, exploitative employers, and a political class devoid of ideas.
Instead of tackling these issues, politicians and fake activists have discovered a cheaper route: blaming foreigners.
The foreigner becomes the scapegoat for every unfulfilled promise.
Is Home Affairs incapable of meeting its responsibilities? Blame the foreigner. Are municipalities failing to collect waste? Blame the foreigner.
Are clinics overcrowded? Blame the foreigner.
Are jobs scarce? Blame the foreigner.
Is crime plaguing communities? Blame the foreigner.
This isn’t bravery; it’s cowardice amplified by a megaphone.
We know the trajectory this leads us on. In 2008, 62 lives were lost in xenophobic violence, including 21 South Africans. Even when mobs think they’re targeting foreigners, South Africans suffer too.
Xenowatch, which tracks xenophobic discrimination in South Africa, reports over 1,300 incidents since 1994, displacing more than 128,000 people and resulting in 698 deaths.
In 2021, 354 individuals lost their lives during the July unrest, ostensibly triggered by the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma.
However, that upheaval quickly transformed into something larger and more malevolent: looting, vigilantism, racial fear, retribution, opportunistic violence, and chaos.
Each eruption carries a pretext.
The deceased never engage in discussions surrounding the slogan.
Let’s not even begin with the pre-1994 killing spree perpetrated in the name of politics. What politics? We fought for liberation.
We fought to counter a revolution. We fought for law and order. We fought for the people.
Now, we threaten death in the name of borders.
Why do we always seek justification for killing?
The unsettling answer, I fear, is that murder offers failed politics a false sense of purpose. It grants unemployed men an illusion of power.
It gives demagogues an audience. It mobilizes cowards. It provides the state with a pretense to feign outrage.
This matters because a nation that normalizes the public degradation of Black African migrants not only endangers these migrants but also conditions itself to accept mob rule.
Today, the mob demands documentation from Malawians, Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Nigerians, Ghanaians, Congolese, and other Black Africans.
Tomorrow, it will seek proof of belonging from South Africans with the “wrong” last name, accent, skin color, political views, or neighborhood.
Once violence is accepted as a language of citizenship, no one is safe.
This is why the claim “we just want the laws enforced” falls short. Law enforcement is the duty of a constitutional state, not of mobs.
If someone is undocumented, there is a legal process. If an employer exploits undocumented labor, hold the employer accountable.
If Home Affairs is corrupt, address those issues.
If borders are mismanaged, manage them better. If a crime occurs, investigate and prosecute.
But do not present the vulnerable to a Black African foreigner and call it justice.
South Africa carries a debt it prefers to forget.
Johannesburg was built on migrant labor.
Men traveled from across the region to mine for gold, bolster the economy, and stay in compounds while others accumulated wealth.
During the anti-apartheid struggle, South African exiles received refuge, training, and political backing in African countries that owed us nothing other than solidarity.
Now, with remarkable historical amnesia, we discuss African migrants as though they manifested overnight to rob a nation that was built without them.
Yet, this is the elephant in the room we refuse to acknowledge: the deeper grievances originating from colonialism and apartheid.
Those who constructed and profited from that system pillaged, seized land and resources, exploited African labor, violated women, and caused countless deaths in conflicts.
Today, many live in peace, while impoverished Black Africans are portrayed as the face of national failure. I am not advocating for revenge; I seek complexity.
Migration did not dismantle South Africa; it played a crucial role in its formation.
What fractured it was poor governance, corruption, economic stagnation, decaying municipalities, an educational system that perpetuates inequality, and an inability to envision a state that is both strong and compassionate.
A serious nation does not hand over sovereignty to vigilantes and anti-migrant factions, hashtags, marches, and camera-ready demagogues. It governs responsibly.
The migration issue requires data, not hysteria. It demands constitutional rigor, not political theatrics.
It necessitates lawful enforcement, not court-side judgments.
It requires a state capable of differentiating between an asylum seeker, a documented immigrant, an undocumented immigrant, a refugee, a vendor, a student, and a criminal suspect.
And it calls for honesty from South Africans.
If Ziggy arrived today, would we welcome him as a brother or view him as a burden? If Percy offered a hungry South African student dinner now, would we show gratitude or demand his documentation?
If Joe questioned why the South African government couldn’t assist its impoverished citizens again, would we respond with honesty, or would we shout “Abahambe”?
The tragedy of South Africa isn’t that we run out of justifications; it’s that we constantly create victims.
Once the dust settles, politicians will deny accountability. Pseudo-activists will claim they merely sought law enforcement.
The police will state that investigations are ongoing.
Families will grieve their dead.
Those who cautioned against violence will be branded sellouts, while others will move on to the next slogan.
Until the next excuse arises.
That is not patriotism.
It’s climbing on the backs of Black Africans to elevate oneself while mistaking a lack of ideas for activism.
*Bhekisisa Mncube is an author and columnist who has received the national 2024 Standard Bank Sikuvile Journalism Award for columns/editorials, as well as the same category at the regional 2020 Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards. First published here
*The views expressed by Bhekisisa Mncube are not necessarily those of The Bulrushes
