‘That violence was just the beginning…’

Views on ‘foreigners’ and the May 2008 xenophobic violence as expressed in focus groups staged at the time
David Everatt, October 2009

Part I: Summary
1. In the period April to July 2008, Strategy & Tactics was commissioned to run a series of 22 focus groups, to discuss socio-political issues. The client gave permission for the data to be re-analysed for this project, given the fact that the groups provided a fascinating window onto attitudes to xenophobia just before and after the violence broke out.

2. Virtually all the groups conducted prior to the May 2008 violence exhibited high levels of hostility towards ‘foreigners’, higher than in any previous cycle of focus groups (which have been staged in the run-up to all elections post-1994). They were usually among the first issues raised when the groups were given an open-ended question to start discussion, namely ‘Let us start off talking about what has been happening in South African since the general election four years ago, in 2004. If we think about everything that is going on in the country, what are you most concerned about? What is the main issue that you think about, or talk about with your friends or family?’. The top three issues raised by groups – all the groups - were unemployment, crime and foreigners. These often intersected – participants felt that unemployment was a cause of crime and ‘foreigners’ were taking jobs away from South Africans; and that violent crime was brought to South Africa by ‘foreigners’.

3. The linkages were clear – crime/foreigners, or poor service delivery/foreigners get RDP houses; or corrupt officials/foreigners bribe them; or unemployment/foreigners accept lower wages; and so on. For every negative, the link to foreigners was made by participants in the groups.

4. Across race and class boundaries, hostility to foreigners – to black foreigners, more specifically – was endemic. Poor service delivery and/or poverty no doubt contributed to the flash-points but there was a general level of hostility that cut right across the social fabric as evidenced by these groups. As the report shows, discourse around ‘foreigners’ linked closely to an on-going discourse about South Africa having ‘too many rights’ and becoming ‘lawless’ as a result. This in turn linked to an appalling retrospective yearning for influx control – foreigners, participants repeatedly asserted, were not the problem: it was the massive influx, the sheer number, all “sucking on the system”, that was the problem; and influx control was the solution.

5. Some of the anti-foreigner discourse was simply racist. Foreigners – black foreigners – werw blamed for a remarkable array of social ills, summed up by a woman from Orange Farm:

We don’t want these foreigners. They are taking our children’s jobs. They are the ones committing rape. Girls drink so much liquor because they are being bribed by the foreigners with money.
(African female, 50-59, Orange Farm)

6. But with the racism came introspection, questions about race and identity, among black South Africans in particular. Some noted that racism has become endemic among blacks as it was amongst whites; others wondered why “we black people have a pull-down syndrome” and don’t like to see others succeed; others sounded close to despair:

I don’t have hope in black people. They could change things a bit but they are corrupt.
(African female, 18-25, informal dwelling, Kliptown)

7. The second set of groups was staged in July/August 2008, after the violence had receded. Here participants were asked two specific questions, whether they felt the issues that led to the xenophobic violence had been dealt with, and whether they felt the violence might recur. The xenophobic violence had not ended, as far as participants were concerned. Only one group (and not all participants in it) thought the violence had ended; every other participants and group felt it had merely quietened down but that the issues had not been resolved and neither had the violence. The obvious response is to wonder why the violence did indeed die down, if tempers were so high?

8. The second phase of groups occurred after the violence and the building of camps for displaced persons. In a sad twist, the camps themselves became a focus of envy:

I am not against foreigners….really, I have nothing against foreigners. Our government is too accommodating when it comes to foreigners. When we watch TV in our neighbours’ houses we are amazed to see government providing free food for foreigners when we are also hungry but are not catered for. Government provides foreigners with free maize meal but fails to do the same for us so that we can be able to feed our children. Our children go to bed on empty stomachs on some days.

Government gives foreigners preferential treatment; it is too accommodating towards foreigners. Last week my children and I went to bed hungry for three days; government would not offer us any help even if we approached them for help. Government does not provide us with free maize meal.
(African female, 40-49, unemployed, Evaton backyard shacks)

I say this thing [xenophobia] will never end. They take those people even to church as if they feel pity for them - in the meantime we are suffering. We live in one-roomed houses, in the meantime they are living comfortably. These people working for the government are the ones selling these houses and these outsiders have money. They sell these houses for something like R2 000 to these foreigners. That is why these people are occupying houses that are supposed to belong to South Africans.

It won’t end. These foreigners were chased out of their houses. Now they are told to go back to their houses and if they do and they identify the people who attacked them people will be arrested. Do you see now that this won’t end?
(African female, 30-39, unemployed, Alexandra)

9. Amongst other issues, participants wanted foreigners deported; wanted influx control to manage their entry and movement; believed foreigners bribe their way especially into RDP housing; argued that government is too soft on foreigners; Home Affairs officials in particular are open to corruption involving foreigners; and so on, a litany of anger and unhappiness.

10. In moments of introspection, respondents would argue that foreigners work hard while South Africans are lazy, which (they argue) will be among the reasons for violence flaring up again, as the following sequence illustrates:

I cannot deny what she is saying; Johannesburg is filthy, there are too many of them here and that they are making Johannesburg dirty. When foreigners started flocking to South Africa we were not doing anything to uplift ourselves, we were confused and had no idea how to make money. This changed when they arrived; truly speaking they showed us means through which to make money, they gave us a light in that regard.

They are self-employed and are hard workers. When we saw what they were doing we soon realised that we can also do the same and make money in the process. Most of them own hair salons and plait people’s hair for a fee; now we want to do the same thing which is why we don’t want them here anymore. Now that we are aware that plaiting hair is a means to make money we don’t want competition so we want them to go back to their countries so that we can use their ideas to make money. When they first arrived they found us doing nothing now we have realised that there are more ways to make money.
Yes; it is like we were blind and they have opened our eyes.
We are jealous.
They have woken us up, we were sleeping.
(African female, 40-49, unemployed, Mofolo/Soweto central)

11. Above all, respondents – from unemployed to professionals, across all race groups – complained that foreigners accept low wages and crowd South Africans out of the labour market. Professionals complained of Zimbabwean engineers who were both talented and cheap, while others noted that foreigners would take any job at any wage, which South Africans would not do. This mingled with common complaints about both casualisation of labour and the use of labour agents

12. Only one group failed to raise the issue at all; and only one individual (out of the +-120 people in the first round of groups) reminded others of the positive aspects that they should be remembering, that “we need to accommodate these people because they are Africans” – but immediately went on to note that “The only thing I’m concerned about is the influx of these people”. In this context – where the best the participants could manage was a single ‘yes, but…’ – ideas about integration seem light years away from the reality on the ground.