SOCIAL MOVEMENT RESPONSES TO THE XENOPHOBIA

A CASE STUDY OF THE SOWETO ELECTRICITY CRISIS COMMITTEE,
THE ANTI-PRIVATIZATION FORUM
&
THE COALITION AGAINST XENOPHOBIA

Trevor Ngwane & Nonhlanhla Vilakazi

University of Johannesburg, Centre for Sociological Research

Part I: Executive Summary
1. An investigation into how three social movement organisations responded to the xenophobia violence that broke out in South Africa in May 2008 reveals that participation in such organisations by ordinary working class people makes them to be less xenophobic and even likely to help the victims of xenophobia rather than join in the attacks. Members of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee and the Anti-Privatisation Forum were positioned by their organisations prior to the xenophobia attacks to respond in a progressive way to these. These two organisations were also central in the formation of the Coalition Against Xenophobia that publicly united different civil society organisations against xenophobia. However, the response of individual members appears to vary according to how well their organisation provides leadership, education and guidance to its members, among other factors. The SECC seemed to provide the most systematic and consistent influence and activity around these issues and its members were the most active and for longer than the other APF affiliates in organising against xenophobia and reaching out to the victims.

2. Political understanding provides the ideological framework within which individuals evaluate the world and respond to its challenges. Alternatively an undeveloped political understanding or consciousness opens a person to being swayed by the self-serving and circular arguments of the xenophobes. Membership in a social movement organisation and adherence to a progressive political philosophy or position, such as revolutionary Pan Africanism or democratic socialism, tends to provide individual social actors with an ideological foundation for opposing attacks against African immigrants in a country like South Africa. Preventative work is very important in the battle against xenophobia. Progressive political education including programmes that accentuate a feeling of solidarity between people from different countries discourages the acquisition of xenophobic attitudes and greatly reduces the likelihood that the person will join in xenophobic violence. Such programmes are best organised by social movement organisations with a progressive leadership; wish such leaders more likely to challenge, persuade and win over members who have caught the xenophobia virus. A vision of a new kind of society where all are treated equally and with respect irrespective of race, creed, sex, sexual orientation or country of origin, where all forms of oppression and exploitation, including xenophobia, have been eradicated, is necessary to inspire and guide the struggle against xenophobia. This is because the analysis of the social movements studied suggests that it is the capitalist system itself, its history and its nature that is at the root of xenophobia. Competition, individualism, divide and rule, colonialism, racism, tribalism and apartheid were all seen as closely related to the development of the capitalist system. From this point of view, the struggle against xenophobia is a struggle against the capitalist system itself.