Old maladies: South Africa’s growing xenophobia problem
Operation Dudula supporters have claimed that relevant ministries are not doing enough to stop foreigners from owning businesses, using this as justification for taking the law into their own hands.
Representative image
By Martina Schwikowski
WASHINGTON: The self-appointed civilian army patrolling the streets in South Africa’s Soweto Township had one aim only: To drive out foreigners. A mob made up of people supporting the anti-immigrant group Operation Dudula stormed into so-called Spaza shops run by foreigners in the village of Diepkloof, where they harassed owners — inspecting the sell-by dates on their products and threatening to close the shops.
Victress Mathuthu, who is from Zimbabwe, was one of those targeted by xenophobic Black South Africans. “If the members of Operation Dudula are dissatisfied with foreign nationals being granted licenses to run small businesses, they should address the government or the relevant ministry.
Operation Dudula supporters have claimed that relevant ministries are not doing enough to stop foreigners from owning businesses, using this as justification for taking the law into their own hands.
“They are not allowed to own a Spaza shop,” claims Thabo Ngayo during one such vigilante operation. Dudula’s national coordinator, Ngayo said the businesses are reserved solely for South Africans, before telling the shop owner, “That means this Spaza shop must belong to a South African. You have a few days to vacate the premises.” The same goes for foreign owners who have registered their businesses the Dudula leader said. Mzwanele Manyi, a representative of the Economic Freedom Fighters party, agrees. He, too, is calling for the closure of all foreign-owned Spaza shops in South Africa. “We simply cannot tolerate such a situation,” Manyi told DW.
Xenophobia is nothing new in South Africa. In April 2022, a Zimbabwean in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg, was stoned and set on fire. In 2008, Black South Africans torched huts belonging to foreigners in their townships, killing 62 people. The outrage sparked by the wave of hate killings was widespread, yet investigations started by initiatives at the time went nowhere. The platform Xenowatch, which was developed by the African Center for Migration and Society (ACMS) at the University of Witwatersrand, collects data on crimes against foreigners. They recorded 1,038 attacks on migrants, 661 deaths and 5,131 shops looted since 1994. Xenowatch says this is almost certainly an underestimation, as not every case is reported.
The group Operation Dudula first appeared on social media in 2020. Dudula is a Zulu word meaning “push back.” The group is now registered as a political party and will take part in the country’s 2024 general election. But Dudula candidates won’t be the only ones chanting xenophobic slogans on the campaign trail. The Economic Freedom Fighters, currently South Africa’s third-strongest party, also uses them. Though the party takes a radical leftist approach to the economy, it is also openly xenophobic.
Other smaller parties, such as the Patriotic Alliance and ActionSA, have also inciting against foreigners. The latter was able to score points with xenophobic sloganeering during last year’s municipal elections.
That is a threatening development from Fredson Guilengue’s perspective. A staff member at the German Left Party-aligned Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Johannesburg, Guilengue fears an uptick in attacks on migrants in South Africa — as well as the continuing growth of the country’s right-wing scene — as the vote approaches.
