It has been a terrifying few weeks in South Africa.
A campaign against African immigrants has resulted in at least four deaths and the mass fleeing of thousands.
>>> Amber Valley Council Rejects Developer Bid to Cut School Funding
Mobs and protesters have terrified African migrants, leaving thousands to sleep on pavements in fear of being attacked in their homes.
Many hope for repatriation to their home countries.
Governments from Malawi, Ghana, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe have begun arranging for tens of thousands of their citizens to return.
This is a distressing state of affairs for a country that many African migrants once saw as a place of hope and opportunity.
A New Kind of Xenophobia
While mass xenophobic violence has occurred in South Africa before, with riots dating back to 2008 and 703 people killed in xenophobic incidents since the end of apartheid, this current wave is different.
It is well funded, legitimized by mainstream media coverage, and has received engagement from the highest levels of government.
President Cyril Ramaphosa met and shook hands with protest leaders last week.
“This is a new moment,” says Mthonti, an analyst. The root of this crisis traces back to a fragile sense of belonging.
Black South Africans became citizens in 1994, but that citizenship has always felt precarious, particularly for poor, rural populations who have not seen the promises of a transformed post-apartheid life come to fruition.
“When there’s a particular global economic crisis – we see this across the world – there’s a turn to fascism, to conservative values, to scapegoating politics,” says Mthonti.
