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Local – CEO and Founder of African Migration, Hafiz Idrees Nungu, believes that political leaders are responsible for fuelling xenophobic violence across South Africa, warning that careless statements from elected officials are inflaming tensions that have already forced migrants to flee their homes.
Nungu said the crisis, which is erupting throughout the country, has seen migrants being targeted, fleeing the country and in some cases, specifically in the Western Cape, forced to sleep in bushes after landlords warned them to vacate their homes ahead of door-to-door searches.
“It’s not a big deal, but it’s going to become a big deal because of our leaders. They are always talking carelessly, mostly the political leaders. When you look at this xenophobia, it’s only one province that is having a problem, and that province is also causing other provinces to have problems.”
Nungu Traces Xenophobia Back to the Zuma Era
Nungu traced the origins of xenophobia in South Africa to the presidency of Jacob Zuma, noting that neither the administrations of Nelson Mandela nor Thabo Mbeki saw comparable unrest. He argued that politicians, particularly those in KwaZulu-Natal, continue to use anti-immigrant rhetoric to distract from their own failures and corruption.
Despite the many claims and accusations levelled against migrants, Nungu said the narrative of an overwhelming foreign population being undocumented, linked to crime and stealing jobs, was driven by hatred rather than fact.
“It was 3.5 million plus or minus — those people are also leaving the country, so it’s only a matter of hatred for the politicians that are saying rumours to say that there are a lot of migrants in South Africa, that is not true.”
Nungu’s Proposed Solution
Nungu stated that corruption is at the root of the country’s deepening social crisis, arguing that money looted by politicians has left municipalities unable to function, youth without opportunities and communities looking for someone to blame.
As such, for migrants to be protected and recognised under the law, documentation was not only necessary but long overdue.
Nungu said the only way to break that cycle was to fully document all foreign nationals, insisting that without it, xenophobia would continue to fester and migrants would remain easy targets for a frustration that rightfully belongs at the feet of government.
“We are just making scapegoats for the migrants. We must just document each and every migrant who doesn’t have a document. That is the only way that we can successfully have this problem fixed in South Africa.”
