This turn becomes sharper given South Africa’s history and contemporary political failures.
The state has increasingly abdicated its role in providing economic security and services, leaving both poor South Africans and migrants to fend for themselves.
“It is why [this] xenophobia is more troubling,” says Mthonti. “The violence is more intimate.
These are people who are next door to one another, who are suddenly turning on each other, because now there are these conversations about ‘us v them’.”
There is a sad irony in this division.
South Africa's modern infrastructure and legendary wealth, including the Sandton area in north Johannesburg, were built on the backs of migrant labor drawn from across the continent for capitalist enterprises like mining.
“The reason we have Joburg is because of indentured labour,” says Mthonti.
The Long Shadow of Apartheid
As a recently post-colonial society, South Africa remains deeply marred by three distinct systems of historical violence: apartheid, colonialism, and slavery.
Because South Africa did not end apartheid until 1994, it missed out on the decades of racial self-esteem and post-colonial coherence that other African nations experienced in the 1960s.
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“We are deeply marred by three systems of violence,” says Mthonti. “Not every country can say they have had apartheid, colonialism and slavery.
Inherently, that violence meets itself in different ways. The anti-Black racism that South Africans have had to deal with is quite profound.”
Historical amnesia has further complicated the nation's healing.
