by Chammah J Kaunda
Chammah J Kaunda (PhD) is from Zambia. He is a minister in Pentecostal Assemblies of God. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the College of Humanities, University of KwaZulu-Natal. His research focus is theo-decolonial discourse within an overarching theoretical framework of African theology. Functioning within this theory, he engages with issues of African Christianity and politics, theological education, missiological ecumenical and systematic theological thoughts.
In abstract, the key argument of this article is that xenophobia is a way of resisting the mutilation of black South African lives by neo-capitalist politicians; it is a scream of rage, a scream of disgust, a scream of anger, a scream of resentment, a scream of negation of political oppression and economic exploitation. It is an atrocious, brutal, heinous revolutionary war and murderous revolt against political barbarianism and injustice in South Africa.
Xenophobia, by all accounts, is growing in South Africa and receiving much attention in media and among scholars. However, we need to understand its underlying causes, or rather how it is rooted in or exacerbated by socio-political problems engendered by political injustice and economic exploitation. Foreigners are being used as hostile spaces of contestations against democratic casualties. The post-apartheid, undemocratic democracy has satisfied a few black elites and dissatisfied the majority living materially disgraceful lives. Xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals in townships do not contradict contemporary South African political mis-values; they merely exaggerate the domination, inequality and exploitation already present in political spheres. Pertinently, the xenophobic construction or xenophobization of township discourse does not contrast, but rather caricatures this political culture of violence, corruption and exploitation. The South African townships are social contexts which are materially deprived and socially delinked from the affluence of ‘undemocratic-democratic’ South Africa. They act as the mirror of a miscarried democracy. As Aristotle famously stressed, “If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will best be attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.” But in South Africa, democracy means neo-capitalism which has taken off from where apartheid left to an all-new dimension of exploitation. At least the apartheidist took care of fellow whites. But the contemporary South African, neo-capitalist has managed to achieve a drastic or endemic increase in the gradient of socio-economic inequality by promoting greediness and unequal power relations as “an ideal for which I am [political leaders] prepared to die” (Nelson Mandela).
As Aristotle notes, democracy can only truly foreground “liberty and equality”, if it is “shared” by “all persons alike.” What we have observed in South Africa is completely different; the scenario is that of a small groups of black South African elites or aristocrats who have declared themselves liberators of the nation and are getting richer by committing vilest crimes that have huge impacts not only on the economy and political development, but also on the quality of life, negating the ANC’s slogan of “better life for all”. It is important to understand that the higher the gradient of political and economic inequality in the country, the more people become dissatisfied and seek a means to ventilate their discontent and frustrations on those seeming weaker than them. Who then can be an easier target than a foreign? In fact, the foreigner can easily be objectified as a symbolic representation of economic exploitation and political despotism.
With reckless and unqualified sentiments from those in leadership positions, individuals already seeking ways of ventilating their political frustration and dissatisfaction with undemocratic democratic service delivery can easily misinterpret such sincerely wrong messages as justification for xenophobic attacks, as was chanted during recent attacks – “the King said ‘kwere-kwere[1]’ must go!” That is why responsible leaders assess the implications of their words before they speak them. As an African King, the Zulu King must be well acquainted with the fact that in Africa, words are believed “to be edible or drinkable”; people “chew and digest” words (Bénézet Bujo). If chewed and digested in the context of political frustration and economic discontentment, words can lead to violence and social disharmony. Therefore, traditional and life-giving African leaderships demanded chiseling words and carefully communicated them in ways that cannot discredit and misrepresent the leader and the ancestors on whose stool the leader sits.
The argument is that these xenophobic attacks are not merely “criminal attacks” but a political mirror grotesquely reflecting the general socio-political dissatisfaction with widening economic gaps and hopelessness bequeathed by seemingly inescapable misery and material distress which has dashed the general hope for an imagined “better life for all” in post-apartheid African South that has sunk into the abyss of neo-apartheid “problematic terrain of emptiness, illusions, myths and shadows of being free and colonized” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni). Therefore, xenophobia is socially and consciously constructed as a means of struggle against socio-political inequality and economic exploitation. It is misdirected frustration and discontentment with the unfilled post-apartheid promises. This fact can be deduced from the nature of the contexts from which much xenophobic attacks have taken place – townships. It is an atrocious political weapon of the politically and economically excluded.
At a subliminal level, xenophobia is also an inaugural speech for a deteriorating nation. Rather than, leaders making excuses by misdirecting the nation that attacks as being orchestrated by criminals (in fact, xenophobia itself is a vile crime and sin which distorts human relations), political leaders must see this as active socio-political fault line of a nation sitting on the vent of a volcano waiting to erupt. Xenophobia, in this analysis, is a sign of a more serious problem of political and economic injustice. It is a reaction to the failure of the government to fulfill the post-apartheid general dream of a “better life for all”. Arguably, the antidote to xenophobia in South Africa is found neither in “reintegration” nor “repatriation” (Band-Aid solution), but in ‘just-politics’ and equal access for everyone to public resources. Even if all the foreigners were to be repatriated, xenophobia would not disappear; rather it would only metamorphose into something else (e.g., ethnocentrism?). Thus a revolutionary solution is found in the liberation of political spheres with its decommonization of public resources through corruption and injustice as a prerequisite for commonization of the common good for the benefit of the all human beings. This is where the voice of justice from the church in South African must be heard unceasingly.
So, what is the conclusion of the matter? It is that xenophobia must be understood within the complexity of the current socio-political demonstrations and campaigns in South Africa. It is neither isolated from the “end white privilege” statue vandalization campaign nor is it independent from the general service delivery protests. All of these events are related. It is the same outbreak of socio-political discontentment and economic dissatisfaction ravaging South Africa.
[1] ‘Kwere kwere’ is a derogatory word used in the South African context to mean foreigner.