They are right to be angry at the state of the country, but wrong about who is to blame.
These are problems of South Africa’s own making – the bitter legacy of apartheid, and subsequent corruption and mismanagement.
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Jean Pierre Misago and Loren Landau, the founders of the Xenowatch monitoring platform, argue that anti-migrant mobilisation is not only about frustrated communities.
It is “a political enterprise co-produced by vigilante groups and the state through acts of commission and omission” – including the failure to censure violence adequately.
Ahead of municipal elections in November, it is fair to ask who benefits.
Politicians from the opposition party ActionSA have said that citizens have no choice but to demand action against illegal migration.
Associates of the former president Jacob Zuma have links to the March & March movement, with politicians from his uMkhonto we Sizwe party attending its events.
Cyril Ramaphosa, the president, has attempted to straddle political concerns by launching a crackdown on illegal migration while decrying “fear, anger, hatred or violence”.
Yet the government has mostly tried to play down the xenophobic harassment and violence as an issue of law and order.
Though some at the grassroots are speaking out, there is little moral clarity at the top.
The anti-apartheid struggle was an African struggle, hosted and supported by other countries and individuals.
Now significant parts of the population seem to be pursuing the exclusion and oppression that people once sought to vanquish – angering politicians and the public across Africa.
That’s bad for diplomacy, for sorely needed tourism, trade and investment, and for South Africa’s ability to attract the skilled and hard-working people that it needs.
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Forcing out migrants will deepen the problems so angering South Africans, not solve them.
