Madams are no longer hiring South Africans, preferring Zimbabweans these days.
Malawians are taking all the jobs in hospitality — go to any restaurant, hotel or bed and breakfast, you’ll find a Malawian at your service. Watch out for Nigerians, they will scam you out of your last cent. They have turned Central in Port Elizabeth into a no-go zone, you can’t go to the park at the Donkin anymore. The Nigerians are running the show, pimping our women and selling drugs to our children; things can’t go on like this, we must stop them.
These foreigners are also stealing our women. Don’t touch the cash in the till in a Somali-run spaza shop otherwise your fingers will fall off.
From Alexandria in the Eastern Cape and Alexandra in Gauteng to Khayelitsha in the Western Cape and KwaMashu in KwaZulu-Natal, this is the minefield of stereotypes and vitriol directed at Africans that most black South Africans navigate daily.
THE SPIRIT, TONE AND LETTER OF THE NEW IMMIGRATION GREEN PAPER IS LITTERED WITH TROPES ABOUT HOW SA IS MORE ADVANCED
South Africans’ hostility is peppered with derogatory terms that reinforce the enmity towards Africans who come from other parts of the continent.
In the late ’90s, there was a story doing the rounds in Kwazakhele, Port Elizabeth, that a Zimbabwean had cast a spell on a nemesis that turned the person into a talking goat named Bongani.
Conjecture, suspicion and innuendo colour the lived experiences of fellow Africans in our midst.
The 2008 flare-up of violence against fellow Africans in South African townships came as no surprise to many — in fact, it was "shocking" that it did not happen sooner. The underlying tensions had been around, simmering away for a while.
The curious aspect of the bigotry reserved for African migrants, as well as those from parts of Asia, is that their European counterparts are not met with the same level of intense contempt.
It is mind-boggling that someone can spit venom about the influx of Zimbabweans into SA, while also happily being a cleaner in the home of, say, a German couple who have come to the country to work for Volkswagen in Uitenhage.
Africans are misconstrued as takers who have no meaningful contribution to make, even though they tend to set up stalls in townships, which are starved of investment.
Africans are also typecast as helpless spongers who have come to SA to clog an already burdened system.
This is despite the fact that there is a high degree of resilience among Africans who come to SA.
In Zwide, Port Elizabeth, there’s an interesting South African Tourism billboard featuring blacks in traditional regalia, sporting animated smiles and captured mid-dance around a bonfire, entertaining what look like European tourists.
But one seldom sees this type of billboard featuring Africans, Chinese, South Americans, Indians or other groups, even though statistics show there is a growing interest in SA as a tourist destination from those markets.
The spirit, tone and letter of the new immigration green paper is not helpful either, as it is littered with tropes about how SA is more advanced than its peers in the region and serves as a reception hub for economic migration from Southern Africa and the rest of the continent.
The presence of migrants from other African countries is couched as problematic, something that needs to be curbed.
The irony is that the green paper purports to espouse an Afrocentric immigration policy.
As long as this othering of Africans persists, the ugly scenes that played out in Rosettenville and Pretoria will persist.
• Phillip is news editor.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.