Ashley Green-Thompson Ashley Green-Thompson
Image: Supplied
Let me be unequivocal at the outset. I am disgusted by the justification of the violence against migrants happening in our cities in recent weeks. I have seen too many social media posts that declare unconditional support for the organisers of these actions, and there are too many of my middle-class peers who think these activities are justified. They are not. And even if there is no stated intention by the organisers to attack other people, the rhetoric they use to mobilise people will inevitably create the conditions for violence. Claiming innocence is not acceptable.
Some argue that communities have legitimate grievances against migrants, and that their anger is understandable. Marches and protests against them are therefore in order, and illegal blocking of their access to public services, looting their spaza shops, and attacks on their person are thus justified. While the demands of the organisers correctly challenge government inability to manage migration at border posts, their actions are defined by their rhetoric calling on people to remove foreigners from society. It is them taking the law into their own hands. If this is not an invitation to violence against others, I don’t know what is.
Regular readers of this column will know that I am not naïve to the reality of poverty, joblessness, crime, violence and drug abuse that afflict working class and poor communities. This is a result of the systemic failures of governance, and economic decisions that have not been brave enough or compassionate enough to help poor people cope.
There are many facets to these failures, and to single out undocumented migrants as the only cause is disingenuous, false, and dangerous. It is disingenuous because it allows government to deflect attention from its governance failures. “It allows opportunistic political parties - whether black, like me, or patriotically brown - to exploit legitimate community concerns to advance their agendas for power. It is false because the facts of the situation are bent to suit political purposes of the organisers. I have no intention of trawling the research and census data to prove this point. I simply reference the Addington Primary School situation in which outrageously false claims were made about how many foreigners were enrolled and how that prevented registration of South African children.
Most worrying for me is the danger that these developments pose to the democratic future of South Africa. It is ironic that cheerleading ActionSA politician Herman Mashaba is the one to have said “Imagine if we lose this country, where are we going to go to?” He sees foreigners in the townships taking over, but he’s either blind to or complicit in the nefarious agendas of other forces in the assault on our constitution. This isn’t just any old constitution. It stands as a bulwark against the barbarism that is so easily ignited when communities are ‘othered’ – when whole groups of people are regarded as less than us. This is what makes violence against others possible, and in extreme situations can ignite genocide.
South Africa espouses the values of the Constitution in its engagements in the world. It is this respect for all people that enables it to challenge genocide in Gaza and incur the wrath of the United States. The allegations of white genocide by the orange ogre and his administration are not accidental – they seek to undermine the legitimacy of a country that, despite its many problems, is governed by a progressive constitution that stands against tyranny and domination by any group. This is fundamentally at odds with those seeking a world in which the strongest rule, the richest make decisions, and the poor and marginalised are kept in their place. It is little wonder that our own orange menace AfriForum finds a willing bedfellow in US President Donald Trump.
Do not be naïve. The likes of March and March, Operation Dudula, Patriotic Alliance's Gayton McKenzie, National Coloured Congress leader Fadiel Adams and Mashaba are not accidental phenomena. They will diminish the ability of government and society to keep the barbarians from our walls. They will undermine those noble aspirations declared in 1994 to build an inclusive, fair, and just society based on respect for all. Wits Professor Loren Landau warns that “… the ability to misdirect the citizenry’s attention away from corruption, poor planning and an absence of vision means South Africans will elect candidates who are less qualified, less principled and less able to deliver for the people.”
The images of March and March in Durban reminded me so of the IFP marches in Johannesburg in the early nineties when third force violence was being fanned to undermine the democratic transition. Let’s not be blind to the forces behind this anti-black migrant movement. And the horse-riding media personality Ngizwe Mchunu should take care not to emulate Eugene Terreblanche’s equestrian misadventures.