Immigration Xenophobia And Human Rights In South Africa

In late 2006 SAMP undertook a national survey of the attitudes of the South African population towards foreign nationals in the country. The data from this survey allows us to analyze the state of the nation's mind on immigration, immigrants and refugees in the period immediately prior to the recent upsurge of xenophobic violence in South Africa. By comparing the results with those of previous surveys conducted by SAMP in the 1990s, we are also able to see if attitudes have changed and in what ways. Are they better now than they were in the days that prompted the South African Human Rights Commission to set up its Roll Back Xenophobia Campaign and partner with SAMP in a study of immigration, xenophobia and human rights in the country? Has xenophobia softened or hardened in the intervening years? Are xenophobic attitudes as widespread and vitriolic as they were then? How many South Africans were poised, in 2006, to turn their negative thoughts about foreign nationals into actions to "cleanse" their neighbourhoods and streets of fellow Africans?

The negative attitudes of South Africans towards non-citizens, migrants and refugees have been documented in several recent studies. Xenophobia has been officially recognized as a major problem by the state and steps have been taken by government and the South African Human Rights Commission to "roll back xenophobia." Since anti-immigrant intolerance is a global phenomenon, should South Africans be singled out in this regard? This paper seeks to contextualize the South African situation by comparing the attitudes of South Africans with citizens from several other countries in the SADC; namely, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. The paper is based on a SAMP Project implemented in 2001-2 called the National Immigration Policy Survey (NIPS). The survey of a representative sample of urban residents, was implemented simultaneously in 5 SADC states. A comparable data set was extracted from a 1999 SAMP survey in South Africa. The survey was designed to measure citizen knowledge of migration, attitudes towards non-citizens, and immigration and refugee policy preferences.

On a spectrum of hostility towards irregular migrants, South Africa ranks on top, Germany in the middle and Canada at the bottom. South African xenophobic violence by impoverished slum dwellers is directed against fellow Africans. Why would a society that liberated itself in the name of human rights turn against people who escaped human rights violations or unlivable conditions at home? What happened to the expected African solidarity? Why do former victims become victimizers? Imagined Liberation asks what xenophobic societies can learn from other immigrant societies which avoided the backlash against multiculturalism in Europe.

ÿOn a spectrum of hostility towards irregular migrants, South Africa ranks on top, Germany in the middle and Canada at the bottom. South African xenophobic violence by impoverished slum dwellers is directed against fellow Africans. Why would a society that liberated itself in the name of human rights turn against people who escaped human rights violations or unlivable conditions at home? What happened to the expected African solidarity? Why do former victims become victimizers?ÿ Imagined Liberationÿasks what xenophobic societies can learn from other immigrant societies which avoided the backlash against multiculturalism in Europe.

Xenophobia is a political discourse. As such, its historical development as well as the conditions of its existence must be elucidated in terms of the practices and prescriptions that structure the field of politics. In South Africa, its history is connected to the manner citizenship has been conceived and fought over during the past fifty years at least. Migrant labour was de-nationalised by the apartheid state, while African nationalism saw it as the very foundation of that oppressive system. However, only those who could show a family connection with the colonial/apartheid formation of South Africa could claim citizenship at liberation. Others were excluded and seen as unjustified claimants to national resources. Xenophobia's current conditions of existence are to be found in the politics of a post-apartheid nationalism were state prescriptions founded on indigeneity have been allowed to dominate uncontested in condition of passive citizenship. The de-politicisation of a population, which had been able to assert its agency during the 1980s, through a discourse of 'human rights' in particular, has contributed to this passivity. State liberal politics have remained largely unchallenged. As in other cases of post-colonial transition in Africa, the hegemony of xenophobic discourse, the book shows, is to be sought in the character of the state consensus. Only a rethinking of citizenship as an active political identity can re-institute political agency and hence begin to provide alternative prescriptions to the political consensus of state-induced exclusion.