SUBMISSION FROM THE CENTRE FOR ANTI-RACISM AND ANTI-SEXISM( CARAS) TRUST
November
The Centre for Anti-Racism and Anti-Sexism (CARAS) Trust has worked in this field in South Africa for ten years now.
CARAS has had personal experience of xenophobia not only when for a while, engaged a volunteer from Zambia in a joint project with the SAHRC on racism in Education, but also as an issue which is consistently raised in the workshops it conducts.
The 600 plus workshops of +- 20 participants each entitled "Understanding Racism and Sexism and developing good practice" have been conducted in the education, business, parastatals, NGOs and community sector. The three day workshop provides opportunity to explore attitudes and how this finds expression in discrimination (race, sex, ethnic, age, class etc.) and how such negative attitudes towards black "aliens", when combined with fear and extreme nationalism feeds xenophobic verbal expressions and actions. It also provides opportunity to explore how selective "amnesia" results in forgetting the contribution our neighbours on the African continent made for the liberation of our country.
It is the contention of CARAS Trust, on the basis of its work for racial and gender justice in general and the workshops in particular is that racism is deeply embedded in the structure of our society - it is systemic and based on ideology of white superiority. That ideology of white superiority was/is internalised both by white people and by black people. So during the apartheid years some "coloureds" and Indians tried to pass for whites and today still wish to place themselves closer to white than to blacks and can therefore be depended to pass on the racism to those they perceive to be "further down the ladder".
Unfortunately such hierarchies breed other racial and ethnic hierarchies: so what was encouraged was a pecking order of different ethnic groups, each seeing themselves as better than the other and of course the 'Shangaan' being right at the bottom.
An often heard expression which we need to debrief in our workshops is that of "well what do you expect of Shangaans" and each ethnic (morafe) groups now carries assumptions, stereotypes about the other!
All black ethnic groups, according to the findings in our workshops, collectively develop negative attitudes to "black aliens" and invariably refer to them derogatively as "makwerekwere" (Ironically, given how the ideology of white superiority functions, those attitudes do not prevail for "white aliens", who, on the contrary are seen to be making an important contribution to the development of our nation).
There are factors in SA, as in other countries of the world, (as some of us experienced in exile) which further feeds xenophobia: fear of the unknown, high levels of poverty and increased competition for resources, services, jobs. (The parallel here is that white people who under apartheid legislation were illegitimately conferred with "privileges": jobs, resources/wealth, services and dignity now experience a sense of loss when the same "privileges" need to be shared with others as required by the Employment Equity Act, the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair discrimination Act and BEE.
So wherein lies the solution: while attitudinal change and promotion of the culture of human rights entrenched in our constitution is paramount and needs resources, these efforts will be wasted if they do not go hand in hand with addressing those issues which encourage competition and an attitude of "you are taking what belongs to me": my home; my job; my health service; my unemployment benefit; my piece of the payment. It is also important to recognise that once a few negative attitudes to "black aliens" take root these will feed others, even if they are not rational: so all Nigerian (i.e. all 140 million of them) are money launderers and drug lords; all Nigerians are involved in car high jacking syndicates; all Nigerians are involved in sex trafficking.
In the same way as white racism will in part be dented by programmes which, push against the deficit thinking about black people, by celebrating black contributions to the development of the world, so we also need programmes which demonstrate our neighbours on the continent in a positive light and contradict afro pessimism. But as earlier indicated our government (National, Provincial, Local) needs to urgently action those commitments to delivery, to housing, to job creation and poverty alleviation. It’s a bit difficult to be generous when my family is starving.