President Cyril Ramaphosa went on national television this week to say South Africans are not xenophobic. But the Human Sciences Research Council data tells a different story: those willing to welcome all immigrants dropped from 26% to 15% in four years, while the group that wants no immigrants at all grew from 30% to 42%, the highest hostility on record since 2003.
Rob Rose and Zukile Majova are joined this week by Patrick Smith from Africa Confidential to dig into the real story behind the headlines. Zuks has a different answer to the data – in his village in Mthatha, an Ethiopian shopkeeper has lived inside a South African homestead for decades, protected by community norms, because that is how things actually work on the ground. The marches are real, the frustration is real, but the target is wrong. The real story is a decade of state failure, porous borders, broken promises and politicians, from the ANC to ActionSA, using immigrants as a scapegoat in an election year.
Patrick widens the lens – Nigeria expelled 3-million West Africans in 1983, Ghana kicked out 500,000 Nigerians in 1969, and from Texas to Middlesbrough there is a global moment of ethnonationalism being weaponised by governments everywhere.
Sharp Sharp is a podcast on South African politics, money and power from Currency News and Scrolla.Africa. New episode every week.
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