Worried by the labeling of South Africans as xenophobic, South Africa’s former President, Thabo Mbeki, has insisted that the black population in South Africa is not xenophobic. He held that the xenophobic attacks are usually systematically organized by persons pursuing particular interests rather than a spontaneous reaction of some masses of the people.

 

Xenophobia is the fear or hatred of that which is perceived to be foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an ingroup and an outgroup and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other’s activities, a desire to eliminate their presence, and fear of losing national, ethnic, or racial identity. Prior to 1994, immigrants from elsewhere faced discrimination and even violence in South Africa. After majority rule in 1994, contrary to expectations, the incidence of xenophobia increased.

 

Between 2000 and March 2008, at least 67 people died in what were identified as xenophobic attacks. In May 2008, a series of attacks left 62 people dead; although 21 of those killed were South African citizens. The attacks were motivated by xenophobia. In 2015, another nationwide spike in xenophobic attacks against immigrants in general prompted a number of foreign governments to begin repatriating their citizens. Between 2010 and 2017 the immigrant community in South Africa increased from 2 million people to 4 million people. The proportion of South Africa’s total population that is foreign born increased from 2.8% in 2005 to 7% in 2019, according to the United Nations International Organization for Migration,in spite of widespread xenophobia in the country.

 

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The South African leader was responding to a penal of interviewers at the Toyin Falola interview series. The interview series is the brainchild of the renowned historian, Professor Toyin Falola. Professor Falola, alongside Professor Paul Zeleza, Naledi Moleo and members of a large viewership, on the occasion of Mbeki’s 80th birthday, featured the foremost South African leader on the show. The interview was virtually live-streamed to an audience of over 20 million people which included representatives of the African Union, serving and former heads of state, the academia, and watched in over 31 countries.

Speaking, Mbeki told the audience that “I have been insisting, all the time and I will continue to do so, that the black population is not xenophobic. Part of the reason is because since the 19th century, because of mining in South Africa, you have had people come in from as far as Malawi, Angola and so on, coming to work in South Africa. These black communities live together; they go to work together. If you look specifically in these instances of xenophobia, you can see that they are systematically organized. It is not the masses of the people who suddenly decide to do this to other Africans. Take for instance the first example of this in 2008. That was a planned intervention. It had to do with elections that were taking place in Zimbabwe. People wanted to drive as many of the Zimbabweans out of South Africa to Zimbabwe to vote. Those particular groups of people wanted them to go and vote against President Mugabe and Zanu PF. Intelligence was able to identify even the persons who organized these things and what they had done. Every instance of this phenomenon, you will see that it is organized by various people. Of course it then produces the xenophobic attacks. It doesn’t come from a spontaneous reaction of the masses of the people. Even in terms of political interventions, people who don’t want this democratic experiment in South Africa to succeed use xenophobia as one of their instruments. They try to generate instability. It is systematic; it is organized. There are lots of migrants from Asia. There are various responses to these things which are very specific. But in many instances, I don’t think we as South Africans are xenophobic. We do enough work in order to explain it even to ourselves.”

Among other issues which Mbeki addressed included the impact of the African National Congress (ANC) on South Africa’s political future, liberation struggle and post-independent South Africa, his greatest achievements at age 80, challenges which he encountered while he was president, the impacts of reform programs during the Nelson Mandela administration, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

On South Africa’s political future, Mbeki warned that until the ruling ANC experiences a rebirth, it would be difficult for the nation to experience what it desires politically. “Part of what happened is that the ANC attracted into its ranks a people who were not interested or supportive of the policies and values of the ANC. This problem was identified by the ANC leadership quite early in 1994. We were never able to deal with this problem over the years. The reason is because it is impossible to tell this person who comes and says ‘I am applying to be a member; I am supporting its policies; I am prepared to swear the oath of loyalty’ and stop such person. You will only discover later from their behaviour that they were after something else. The reality in the end is that you then get a considerable number of people who are members of the ANC, which is the governing party, that are driven by motives other than those of a liberation movement. In one of the conferences, Mandela was saying that there are divisions in the organisation. When we investigated the matter, we found out there were not divided about policies but access to power in order to abuse those positions. That is what the scramble is about. That affected the ANC. Since the party in power, it then affected the nation. My view is that we are not going to be able to help South Africa to get out of these challenges of corruption, bad governance, widespread criminality, which amount to disrespect for the law. We won’t solve these challenges until we sort out this governing party which is the dominant political formation in South Africa. Fortunately at the last national conference, the ANC said so. It said we must go through a process of renewal, otherwise the ANC will cease to exist. Unfortunately it has not been done. The critical matter here is to sort out the ANC. This has been the governing party and the dominant political formation in the last 28 years. If it collapses, then we would have to deal with a different situation. But as of now, it is the responsibility of the leaders and members of the governing party to make sure that they rescue it from what it is,” he said.