Two major cities in SA are always the playground for the manifestation of sporadic violence targeted at illegal foreign nationals, particularly those from around our African continent, our very own brothers and sisters.
It is important to note that this violence has carefully excluded whites, Indians and Chinese people.
It is mainly black South Africans targeting black Africans from around the continent.
Initially, one of the main motivations was the alleged link between illegal foreigners and crime.
The suggestion was that illegal or undocumented foreigners tended to commit crime.
This may very well be true but as authors of this piece, we have not yet seen such evidence.
Therefore, we cannot confirm or deny that assertion.
There are various worrisome factors at play in this issue of xenophobia. Here are some:
- In handling and processing the matter of undocumented foreign nationals arising from incoming refugees, the system of a country may need to be remarkably expanded, discipline tightly enforced among officials, and the border management system must be watertight. Can we say we have these in place in SA before we blame so-called refugees for being here undocumented?
- How does the border management system respond to the reality of these colonial borders that separated villages and families forcefully? Along SA’s present-day border with six neighbouring countries there are tribes and families that were suddenly split. With the fall of the colonial apartheid system, what have African leaders done about the situation of these communities and families?
- From time immemorial, people have been migrating. Nombulelo, the co-author hereof, is “Zimbabwean” today because of a colonial border but she is of the AmaRhoyi clan in the present-day Eastern Cape, her great-grandparents having migrated from Ndabakazi village in Butterworth with Cecil John Rhodes in about 1899. Jongisilo is South African today, all due to the very same migration. Jongisilo, is of the AmaDlamini tribe from kaNgwane, present-day Eswatini. His branch migrated down some 230 years ago and settled in the present-day Eastern Cape, getting recognised as a chiefdom and having since ruled kwaZangashe territory under the AbaThembu Kingdom peacefully since then.
Another important historical fact is that most of the tribes that occupy territories around present-day SA were actually nomadic tribes with no permanent land occupation.
Equally, no tribe can really claim its presence in the broader Cape area of SA before the Khoi and the San people.
If that is the case, it means we are all products of migration and that status needs us all to relook at our attitude on issues of nationality and nationhood before we classify each other as either domestic or foreign.
Our understanding of what constitutes a tribe or ethnic group as well as who is an insider or outsider has always been fluid and evolving.
Things were not cast in stone, including the languages we speak, which used to be fluid until they were standardised and codified by colonial administrators and missionaries.
The compartmentalisation was necessary for the colonial oppressors to exercise power and control over the subjects.
Note that we used the word “subjects” as the colonised were not regarded as citizens worthy of respect and human rights.
The concentration of the violence in Durban and Johannesburg requires a fresh lens — a serious look at our very recent history as a nation that has grown violent during the last decade of the liberation struggle.
We note with the greatest curiosity the attempt to translocate the violence to KuGompo City recently and the disaster that ensued, with severe damage to people’s property and injuries to people.
In this regard, we ought to ask the questions:
- What is the role of social media fame in all this? Social media has become the new gold. The business-to-business social media management market in SA generated more than $284.6m (R4.6bn) recently and is projected to skyrocket to $953.2m (R15.4bn) by 2030, growing at a massive 22.7% compound annual growth rate, according to the SA Reserve Bank. One individual is reported to make as much as R26m from across all his media platforms. On Facebook content monetisation, one black female is reported to make upward of R150,000 per month. The real question, therefore, is whether we have thoroughly understood these stakes and the role of social media in the quest for nationally appealing content creation?
- Can we really ignore the media’s obsession with the image of a Zulu warrior and the public fascination with the physique of a virile black man in defence of an imaginary freedom? While these images are feeding into the social media frenzy of the 21st century, one is reminded of Prof Hlonipha Mokoena’s book, The Nightwatchman: Representing Black Men in Colonial South Africa. This demonstrates a continuity between colonial identity formation and the post-colonial reimagination of a courageous fighter.
- What is causing foreign nationals to live so harmoniously with cohesive rural communities in SA, such as in the Eastern Cape, despite the much-publicised violence in the cities of Durban and Johannesburg? These contradictions and paradoxes require an in-depth examination for us to arrive at an informed scholarly understanding and appreciation of the complexities we are facing as the people of Africa.
- Does SA regard it as a crime for people to cross its borders without the requisite travel documents? Are undocumented immigrants actually “illegal”? What’s the role of corruption by SA’s own government entities, departments and politicians in perpetuating this unsavoury situation? Are there some sectors of our political and business communities who are benefiting from both the uncontrolled migration and the escalating tensions? Are the migrants undermining SA’s sovereignty or is the current problem a manifestation of SA’s deep-rooted problem of defining its vision, identity and positioning within the family of African nations?
As someone who loves unity among Africans and who stands at the forefront of promoting the Xhosa language in Zimbabwe and beyond, Nombulelo speaks as a proud Xhosa woman from Zimbabwe.
She is struggling to understand this so-called xenophobic violence because ultimately, its consequence is to uproot and detach her from her own umbilical cord, which is in a village called Ndabakazi.
With this history in mind, she asks:
- How is it possible that present-day occupants of SA turn on fellow Africans from other nations, calling them “foreigners,” attacking, killing and name-calling?
- Why does this culture of xenophobia seem most dominant in cities such as Johannesburg and Durban, while in many rural areas, so-called “foreigners” coexist peacefully with local communities? What are the root causes?
Addressing the sixth Bi-National Commission in Gaborone on May 21 2026, the president of Botswana, advocate Duma Boko, took a moment to address three members of the SA government delegation in isiXhosa.
He specifically pointed out water and sanitation minister Pemmy Majodina, mineral mineral and petroleum resources minister Gwede Mantashe and deputy defence minister General Bantu Holomisa.
In this moment, Boko seems to have deliberately sought to illustrate the very point we make in this piece, that we are all products of migration.
His isiXhosa language was fluent and deep, resembling the same articulation you would expect from an Eastern Cape isiXhosa-speaking villager.
Boko was born into the Xhosa community of Mahalapye in Botswana.
Mahalabye is a historic settlement where the Xhosa people and their culture have been preserved for more than a century.
Centred around the culturally exclusive “Xhosa Ward,” the community reflects the rich, multi-ethnic heritage of the region.
The story of Nombulelo and that of Boko replicates itself a million times very easily around the Southern African countries.
From Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and all these other SADC countries, you will find tribes connected by blood to those found in SA.
These are brothers and sisters, and this begs the question: is it naivety, ignorance about history or is it competition for economic activity that is making brother turn against brother and sister alike?
Or are there other deeper and more fundamental present-day root causes?
We would like to implore the leaders of our countries to initiate a much more serious programme on the re-awakening of the African child to attain historical knowledge about Africa.
There is sufficient content which can be used at schools on a more serious and co-ordinated matter as part of the curriculum and in social dialogues to create this awareness.
Authors such as Dr Cheik Anta Diop (Pre-colonial Black Africa), Prof Irvin van Sertima (They came before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America) and even Frantz Fanon’s The wretched of the Earth are all works that immediately spring to mind.
Having outlined the above, we are not oblivious to the glaring problem of mismanagement of resources and the decline of a human rights culture in other parts of the continent, especially Southern Africa.
It is imperative that the wanton destruction of the pillars of economic growth by our own leaders is confronted head on.
The rise of totalitarianism, most often masqueraded as democracy through questionable elections, contributes to the rise in economic migrancy and the breakdown of trust between citizens and their respective governments.
- Jongisilo Pokwana ka Menziwa, chief of kwaZangashe village, writes in his personal capacity. He is director of Vusizwe Foundation for Oral Historical Research and is a published author and Maria Nombulelo Masoka, Xhosa native from eMbembesi in Zimbabwe and a media practitioner
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