SA’s immigration debate is no longer only about undocumented migrants, border management or xenophobia.
It has become the mirror reflecting something much deeper: a growing disconnect between the aspirations of our constitutional democracy and the lived realities of many South Africans.
As citizens call for stricter immigration enforcement while others defend the constitutional rights of foreign nationals, the national conversation has become increasingly polarised.
We are repeatedly asked whether South Africans are becoming xenophobic.
It is an important question. But perhaps it is no longer the most important one.
The more urgent question is whether South Africans still recognise themselves in the constitutional project we embarked upon more than three decades ago.
In May 2008, I was not in SA. I was attending a General Assembly of the African Youth and Adolescents Network on Population and Development (AfriYAN) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, when news broke that foreign nationals were being attacked back home.
I remember standing in airports watching international news. Homes were burning. Families were fleeing. Africans were attacking fellow Africans.
I was travelling with a South African passport. On its cover, in French, were the words Afrique du Sud.
Immigration officials would read those words, pause, and look at me. Their expressions conveyed concern, disbelief and disappointment.
For the first time, I realised that a passport carries more than citizenship. It carries the reputation of a nation.
When I returned home, I witnessed the devastation left behind by the attacks.
Two years later, in March 2010, the late Oprim Dazana, then education officer of the Eastern Cape office of the SA Human Rights Commission, invited me to Johannesburg for the launch of the SAHRC’s report on the investigation into issues of Rule of law, Justice and Impunity arising out of the 2008 public violence against non-nationals.
Dazana and I worked together on several human rights initiatives.
He believed that constitutional rights meant little if they were not understood, defended and lived by the public. May his soul continue to rest in power.
As I listened to the commission present its findings, I believed SA had been given more than a report. It had been given a roadmap.
The commission concluded that the violence was not simply an eruption of hatred.
It pointed to governance failures, weaknesses in migration administration, poverty, unemployment, fragile social cohesion and failures of the rule of law.
Yet somewhere along the way, we transformed a governance report into a morality debate.
Every time tensions resurfaced, we asked whether South Africans were xenophobic.
Far less attention was paid to whether we had addressed the governance failures that the commission warned would continue to undermine social cohesion.
Perhaps the immigration debate is revealing something we have been reluctant to confront.
SA has changed profoundly since the Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955 and since the constitution came into force in 1996.
The values of dignity, equality, freedom and the rule of law remain our constitutional compass.
The context in which those values must be lived has changed dramatically.
The Freedom Charter emerged from the struggle against apartheid. It imagined a democratic SA in which those denied dignity, citizenship and equality would finally enjoy them.
The constitution transformed many of those aspirations into binding law and embraced a vision of constitutional democracy founded on universal human rights.
Three decades later, SA is confronting challenges that have become central to public debate: persistent unemployment, widening inequality, regional migration, pressure on public services and declining confidence in state institutions.
The constitutional values have remained constant. The country has not.
That does not mean the constitution has failed. It means our democratic conversation must continue evolving alongside the society it serves.
Many South Africans increasingly ask whether the liberation struggle they supported was primarily about restoring dignity and opportunity to those dispossessed under apartheid, or whether democratic SA also embraced a broader constitutional commitment to universal human rights that extends, in many respects, beyond citizenship.
Whether one agrees with that question or not, it is being asked.
Ignoring it will not strengthen constitutional democracy. Engaging it honestly just might.
The constitution itself offers guidance. It protects many fundamental rights for everyone within SA while reserving political rights, including voting and standing for public office, to South African citizens.
It therefore asks us to hold two principles together: respect for universal human dignity and respect for the rule of law.
A constitutional democracy should never require us to choose between them.
Every year, parliament invites South Africans to make submissions as part of the annual constitutional review process. That is an important constitutional obligation. But is it enough?
How many South Africans know those invitations exist?
How many understand the work of the Constitutional Review Committee?
How many people engage constitutional questions through written submissions to parliament?
Perhaps SA has confused public participation with public engagement.
A notice on a website, a newspaper advertisement or an email address for submissions may satisfy a legal process. But they do not necessarily create a constitutional conversation.
Perhaps what SA needs is not another constitutional review. Perhaps it needs a constitutional conversation.
One that reaches community halls, schools, churches, universities, taxi ranks, workplaces and digital platforms.
One where citizens can openly discuss rights and responsibilities, migration and belonging, governance and accountability.
One where difficult questions are met with dialogue rather than division.
The tragedy of 2008 is not simply that violence occurred. The tragedy is that we were warned. We were given a roadmap.
Yet many of the conditions identified by the SAHRC remain unresolved.
Immigration is not the crisis. It is the mirror. And perhaps the reflection staring back at us is not asking whether South Africans have abandoned the constitution.
Perhaps it is asking whether we have stopped having the constitutional conversations that keep democracy alive.
Khanyisa Dunjwa is a social justice activist, writer, social commentator. She writes on politics, gender justice, and health. She is the founder of Khanyisa Dunjwa Writes, a boutique writing service focused on policy and advocacy. This opinion is written in her personal capacity.
Daily Dispatch
