Part of my political education in the eighties included a comic strip that starts off showing a boss man in a suit shouting abuse at an employee. This employee then goes home and shouts at his wife. She shouts at the kid, and the kid kicks the cat. This simple set of frames taught me more about power than a whole lot of reading of Karl Marx.
This representation of power and powerlessness is a perfect analogy to describe the current anti-migration mobilisation that is happening in the country. My disclaimer upfront. We have achieved incredible things since 1994, and South Africa is massively better than it was under apartheid. Right now we are in trouble though. The country is in crisis at so many levels, and it is poor communities who bear the brunt of these crises.
The failure of our government and the private sector to create jobs is devastating. The breakdown of our health and education systems means that the disadvantages you start with in life are entrenched as you grow older, further pushing poor people to the margins of society. Crime continues to disproportionately affect poor people - those with the means can afford private security. Even the privatisation of security is not enough to halt the pandemic of men violating women, and children remain more vulnerable than ever.
There is no doubt that the stupidity of a certain orange megalomaniac has messed up the global economy. It wasn’t that great in the first place, with rich nations enjoying carte blanche over Africa’s natural resources. But with the Strait of Hormuz debacle, ordinary people are paying an extra price for the folly of rich white men. Then there are the high-ranking police officers who every day are being exposed as the instigators behind the crime. This week taxi boss Joe Sibanyoni had to ask for bail in a case of extortion and money laundering, but in the same week, delegates saw it fit to re-elect him as deputy president of the South African National Taxi Council.
The minister of social development has been fired as she faces charges of fraud, corruption, and misleading parliament. The President himself may have to answer questions about dollars in his couch. The Special Investigation Unit wants to recoup half a billion rand from Thapelo Buthelezi, a businessman who has benefited from a corrupt relationship with the Free State health department. Lest we forget, Babita Deokaran was killed for exposing the R2 billion fraud at Tembisa hospital.
And there’s the perennial looting of municipal resources. Word is that the new politicians in charge of my hometown in KwaZulu-Natal have taken corruption to a new level – it's corruption on crack. There’s bribery to cross borders without papers, bribery to get identity documents, and bribery to get tenders. And it’s death by assassination if you blow the whistle. We have deepening inequality caused by bad governance. Femicide gets everyone excited once a year during 16 days of no violence against women, but it seems fair game for the rest of the year. The continued enrichment of apartheid beneficiaries through an economy that has excluded black people continues to be the status quo. This is our reality.
But wait. It must be the African foreigners who are causing these problems. If we kick them out, we will have jobs and health services and proper education and houses and no crime or drugs. But our government won’t deport them, so we’ll make it untenable for them to stay in our communities. These are the people in our line of sight, and they have no means of defending themselves. The corrupt and crooked who live behind walls in the suburbs and who have blue light brigades and armed security are too far away and too strong to be attacked, so we kick out at the ones who are weaker than us. When you cannot reach the ones in the ivory towers, you need to find someone against whom you can vent your anger and frustration – your powerlessness. Can you imagine the fear of those who must face angry mobs targeting them based solely on their nationality?
Those who mobilise based on that powerlessness are complicit in the violence that follows. They must be charged. We should be mobilising and organising against the people who are at the heart of our malaise, corrupt and incompetent politicians and officials, criminals, and so-called businessmen. But that is hard work, and it doesn’t suit the agendas of those who are sponsoring this anti-migrant movement.