Special Broadcast - Prof. Noor Nieftagodien: What Is Driving South Africa's Immigration Debate?

In conversation with Prof. Noor Nieftagodien, historian, author, and academic, this episode explores one of the most debated and emotionally charged issues in contemporary South Africa. The conversation also reflects on broader questions facing South Africa today: inequality, unemployment, community tensions and  democratic institutions. Prof. Nieftagodien offers historical context and critical analysis on how societies respond during periods of uncertainty and social change.

Transcript

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 0:00

My first question, Prof, is maybe as a opening um as a historian uh this moment in South Africa where social forces seem to be in an antagonistic path to produce what many people seem to compare to one the 2008 moment of anti-immigrant uh violent outbursts on the one hand, but we have since understood that it is fundamentally Afrophobic or who could say it's actually just about black people, African people, some Asians, but in the main it's about black people. So before we we go to what this antagonistic product is going to look like and what it means, um I do want a sense of historicization of South Africa's communities that this place we live in has always been a place of diverse African people. If you could give that sense of historicity, because uh when we start talking about it, it might look like we are talking about people who arrived 10 years ago or in 1994. Just a sense of the history of precisely who are these people that this place has been uh important to the shape and the manner of their lives.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah. You know, the the the kind of history of this place um is so fascinating because we uh at this current moment where there is a convergence of multiple crises, uh people uh resort to an understanding of South Africa uh that is very narrow and very limited and has limited basis in the history of this region. Um I think it's also important, you know, when one tries to understand this deeper history to also locate what is happening in South Africa today in a global context. Um, because the world, global history is about movement of people uh from uh the origins in Africa, you know, to the rest of the world. People have always moved. Uh what uh modern capitalism and nationalism has done is to um give particular kinds of political meanings to borders in the creation of the nation state, national identity, and so on. And of course, in our context, that has been uh driven by a colonial and imperialist project to create nations and borders uh out of a world, and we take our continent, uh, which for most of its life, for 99% of its life, did not have those uh political borders. In the context of South Africa, uh, I think that there are probably two broad moments to think about. The one is the uh pre-19th century moment, especially with the Berlin Conference, which coincides with our mineral revolution. And the period before that, uh going on for uh you know many centuries, if not millennia, was one of open movement, you know, where people uh moved around. And the most important example probably uh is that of the Korsan people uh who migrated across the southern African region all the way to uh the uh central, what we know as Central Africa today, for a long time. Okay. Um, and and that's important because when we think about who we are, uh, why we define ourselves in particular ways, we need to understand that these are very contemporary, very modern phenomena that we are talking about. That doesn't invalidate what people think now. Uh, but we need to have a much longer historical understanding uh in order to demonstrate that uh we at the southern tip of the continent have been connected to the rest of the continent for millennia. And identities that have been produced over time have those connections. But of course, we then have the intervention of colonialism, we have the mineral revolution, we have the rapid development of capitalism in South Africa based on the mineral revolution. Interestingly, of course, as we know, the modern South African economy uh was developed or based on the exploitation of African labor. By that I mean people across the Southern African region. Um, so it's it's deeply ironic when people say today uh that uh African foreigners are undermining our economy, when in fact this modern industrial mineral energy complex, that is the South African economy, you know, uh has been based for many decades on the exploitation of labor from across Southern Africa, particularly uh places like Malawi. And I'm making that point in particular because Malawians are uh being attacked uh, you know, in this uh current wave of xenophobia, uh Mozambicans, Zimbabweans, Basutu people, etc. Um, and uh in a sense, the uh both the creation of borders, the impoverishment of uh uh other parts of Southern Africa is an outcome of the way that capitalism developed in the southern tip of the continent, in particular around the gold mines, the coal mines uh which are concentrated in what we call South Africa today. So that that that deeper history is important not only to understand uh the constant and continuous movement of people who have occupied this part of the African continent over millennia, but also to understand how uh the particular phenomena of nation states came about uh uh in relation to the development of the mineral energy complex in South Africa. Now, if we fast forward to 2008, um it's really uh important to recognize that um that happened at the moment of economic crisis, the 2007 economic crisis. Okay. Now, what we had prior to that was the uh various contradictions playing themselves out, which go back not to 1994, although the you know various people have developed critiques of the neoliberal framework of gear, etc., and how that contributed to cementing the mineral energy complex and cementing South Africa's role in the extractive uh economy globally. But the underlying structural crises, you know, uh go back to the essence of South African capitalism and the contemporary uh form of that and the contemporary uh crises emerged in the 1970s already. And what one has from the 1970s are you know are attempts by capital to try and manage the crisis and find ways of dealing with the crisis from which you know one has the emergence of the mass movement against apartheid that threatens not only apartheid but capitalism and why capital intervene to rescue capitalism and basically say we're prepared to forego apartheid as long as the system can remain in place. That's an oversimplification of the process, but I'm making that point because at different points, where I'm getting to is that at different points, capital responds to crises that it confronts in different ways. Okay. Um, and uh in the from the mid-1980s, it was about creating the conditions for a negotiated settlement in the line. Um and what one has uh you know in the post-94 period is a uh is political stability, a dependence on the ANC to hold the center, put in place institutions that would simultaneously provide constitutional democracy, which is something we should celebrate, right, uh, and uh create the conditions of stability for the continued uh accumulation of capital. Okay. Um, but we have crises, right? The South African economy remains locked in a structural crisis, okay, which produces all sorts of fissures, uh contradictions, and the like. Uh and what one has, you know, from the 2000s, and Richard's appointment uh a crisis in 2007, uh, is that South Africa gets knocked very seriously by the global economic crisis. You know, VAVI refers to that period uh as a kind of a jobs bloodbath, right, where hundreds of thousands of people lose their jobs. So you have a crisis emerging. Now, when one has economic and social crises, poor people, the working classes can respond in multiple ways. Okay. Um one of those ways could be progressive mobilization. And one saw how the trade unions at that point in time march in their tens of thousands against a jobs bloodbath for the creation of jobs. But it also creates various other contradictions, feasions, and so on. And it's in that context where one can have the production of conservative right-wing politics. Now, I'm making that point, but I can just very briefly say that um when one looks at what happened in South Africa at that time in 2008, we must locate it in what is happening internationally, because one has a similar set of processes unfolding, where, for example, in Europe, in the United States, the unfolding economic crisis creates tensions and contradictions, and one has a mobilization, particularly by right-wing politicians. Today we see the Tommy Robinsons, we see Trump, Elon Musk, that kind of cohort of people articulating similar anti-immigrant xenophobic politics. It's one way in which the elite respond to the crises that they face. Uh, to mobile to create divisions within the working class, the poor, globally identify groups of people who they scapegoat to blame for the problems of society in order to deflect attention away from the underlying primary causes of the crisis. And we see this with the Fortress Europe, the massive anti-immigrant politics that take root in Europe, and we see that today, uh, that uh have also taken root in the United States. And the key targets of that scapegoating have been black people. Okay, everywhere, right? Everywhere, right? So anti-immigrant politics is a, in a sense, a continuation of the ideology of colonialism. Um and it's about blaming poor black people, the former colonial subjects, as bringing their problems into the global north, into white society, undermining uh apparently uh the stability, the modernity of white society. And therefore, the politics of trying to get rid of immigrants, meaning mainly, not exclusively, but primarily black people, away back to their colonial homes in order for the global white north modernity to repain to retain its superiority. Now, that politics finds a home in South Africa. Okay. Um, and uh the fact that there are black people who mobilize xenophobic and aphrophobic politics does not uh uh excuse them from the uh from from the connection to this kind of anti-black politics that is mobilized elsewhere. But one needs to understand it in the context of these economic and social crises that create the conditions. Okay. And in my opinion, when one understands the conditions that make it possible, but not inevitable, that makes it possible for those uh uh kind of politics to emerge, one can begin to understand why it is that um it gains traction among certain sectors of South Africa's uh population. And I would say to kind of end off on the uh the first question that you've asked, um, that uh that 2008 uh uh you know uh could be seen, in my view, um, as a more uh um kind of spontaneous eruption uh of anti-immigrant xenophobic politics. The response to that was uh driven by mass organizations, both in the trade unions and social movements in poor areas that put a stop to it quite quickly. More than 60 people were killed, and there was intense violence, particularly in Ikuru Leni and other parts of Gauteng, and also in KwaZulu-Natal, but it came to a halt quite quickly. Okay. Uh what one sees now, I think, is quite different from that. There's important common elements, what drives xenophobia, what drives anti-black, anti-immigrant politics, uh, but it's clear to it's it's becoming clearer that the current wave of xenophobia is more orchestrated uh than the one we saw uh in 2008.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 14:56

Sticking to the uh structuralist analysis you are uh uh deploying the capitalist uh social crisis that defines 2026, are you able to there is obviously a dramatic uh global financial crisis in 2008 and instead of everybody saying we're suffering because of the banks, we're suffering because of the financial systems, uh they produce a different explanation, a scapegoat.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yeah.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 15:35

We're suffering because of the foreigner. What is the social crisis in 2006 that uh informs this explanation? Yeah, but you mean 2026. 2026, yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

So this yeah, this moment. Yeah. So so uh um, you know, the 2007 crisis is almost a kind of eruption, okay, globally. Um what one sees uh happening in South Africa, and this uh manifests itself in other parts of the world as well, is a prolonged, a protracted crisis, okay? Um and it's both socioeconomic, it's also political. It's about how poor people view the political class as the elites. There's a sense, I think, this is again a global phenomenon, that the political and economic elites don't care about poor people. That they espouse various policies, they sound liberal, they sound progressive, but in practice, their policies don't address the underlying crisis faced by poor people. So there is a crisis uh of legitimacy, of political legitimacy. But that's not dissociated from the socio-economic crisis. Um, because what one has seen in South Africa is that we've not recovered from the 2007 crisis. We are still in that prolonged crisis. And some people talk about a long wave of depression, right? Whereas in other societies there have been kind of blips of economic growth. We've not been able to get out of that prolonged depression. And so that as a consequence of the prolonged depression, we have all the uh consequences of the socioeconomic crisis. So for me, amongst the most important are structural unemployment. And if once is, you know, the other things like gender-based violence, housing crisis, the proliferation of informal settlements, uh the decay of uh service delivery, all of those things have kind of combined to create a moment or conditions where it becomes possible uh for opportunistic forces to mobilize. Because it's easy to point out to the failures of the elite. You have to look at Johannesburg, you have to look at any part of the country. It's not the problem with that.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 18:07

Does the narrative come to exhaustion? Sort of the that does the truth come to exhaustion where it is now boring to point to the obvious fact of your problem is the ANC, your problem is uh Standard Bank um uh that have continued to make profits, as well as FNB, as well as the mines, as well as uh the big corporations, they continue, they have not stopped making money. Absolutely. Not a single day did they ever declare losses? They continue to make money, but the ANC, the DA who are running your lives, they are the problem. Yeah. What happens? Does that come to a point where it gets exhausted as the truth and you need a new truth? Well, this is important what is the what is the sociology there?

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Yeah, so this is important. You know, I was uh on uh on a on a radio station early one morning, like at one o'clock in the morning, right? In fact, it was a station called Power FM, right? Um uh and people called in, right? Um, because I made these points. And uh a few people called in to say, we know what the problems are, you're not telling us anything new. What we're dealing with is we know that uh there is poverty, the lack of jobs, and therefore what we've got to do is to look after ourselves first. Okay, so when someone like me says it is the underlying crisis about capitalism, people call them to say, yes, we know. The problem that we have now is that more and more people are giving up on the possibility at this point in time of changing the underlying crisis that we have, of facing the underlying problems that we have, meaning, in short, the capitalist system. That's the root cause. I think many people will recognize and say we agree with that. More and more people are saying, but we don't know whether we can change that. We may get rid of the ANC as the main political party, but who's lining up to take over from the ANC? The Democratic Alliance, the MK Party, et cetera, et cetera. They're not going to do any better. Our lives are not going to get any better, even if new parties come in. And they'll say, look at what's what's happened in Cape Town, what's happening in our local area. The political elites, so I think the the point we can make is that people are making the argument that the political elites, it doesn't matter which party hat they wear, will not change our lives. So how do we change our lives where we live? Now, xenophobia anti- anti-immigrant politics gets you nowhere. It's not going to change your life. But we're going through a phase where that idea has been popularized. Okay, um, that if we deal with what we can deal with, with what is visible, right? Right, and that visibility, of course, has multiple meanings. There's a visibility which is a racialization, it's an anti-immigrant, it's a you know, kind of ideology. It becomes visible. They are the people at the spousal shops that you can see. They're the people in the uh uh, you know, in the retail sector, etc. etc. So what I'm saying, in my view, anyway, is that we have uh uh um we have we we are witnessing a shift away from recognizing um the fundamental problems, and even where there's a recognition of that fundamental problems, more and more people are. Saying, let's deal with the problem where we're at. And now that does not automatically lead to identifying immigrants as a problem, right? Because it could be something else. It could be your local entrepreneur, it could be your taxi boss, et cetera, et cetera. Now, in my view, recognizing the context still does not get us to why it is the immigrant, the African immigrant that becomes the main scapegoat. And for that, one has to look for the answer to who is behind mobilizing Afrophobia, xenophobia. So it's not natural. There's nothing natural about xenophobia.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 22:53

It could have been GBV. So take us through these conditions that make. I mean, uh there's a set of questions. The first one is jobs, the second one is uh spazer shops, and the third one is crime. I mean, we can take them in whatever order.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Yeah.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 23:15

How come these became somehow satisfactory explanations?

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Yeah. So let's take crime, okay? Um, because crime is a big problem in our country. Uh most people, especially in poor areas, daily face crime of various sorts. Women face GBV daily, the criminal gangs, uh, drugs, etc., etc., and violence. Um and what one has seen systematically over many, many years, and it starts with the figure of the Nigerian in the 1990s already, that is identified in the media as the exemplar of criminality in South Africa, imported from West Africa into South Africa, uh as if there was no crime in South Africa. So you have uh you know, in the media the idea that if you go to Hilbrow, you know, Nigerians are the drug dealers, they're involved in sex trafficking, they've got gangs. So what one has had, and this is not new, the key point I'm making is this is not new. This goes back to the 1990s already, where the the uh uh uh particularly in the media, and of course then one has politicians, and more recently, someone like Erman Mashaba uh you know propagating these views, right? That you have uh uh black uh uh African immigrants being at the center of criminality in South Africa. So when, and people have done this research, okay, so what one sees is how the criminalization of all African immigrants has become normalized in the media. So when you have reports of one or other arrest or one or other crime, it's now normal to preface that report by saying an African immigrant, a Zimbabwean, etc. And yeah, etc. etc. Okay. When the police uh you know get involved in these anti-you uh criminal uh you know cleanup campaigns, they'll it will be reported that the police arrested 200 criminals. But when one looks at what they're reporting, it's often people who are undocumented, who are criminalized. Okay. So we now have in uh in South Africa, and I think the media is very complicit in this, a normalization of the idea that uh immigrants are responsible for crime, and that crime in South Africa is largely uh largely accounted for uh by illegal, undocumented immigrants. And what one also has is a conflation, okay? So March and March will say, but they're only against undocumented immigrants. This is nothing new. This is what has happened in the United States. This is what's happened in Europe. In a sense, they are taking from the playbook of uh xenophobes across the world. But we also know from those examples in the United States and in Europe that the idea that you're only against those people who don't have the proper documents is a thin end of the wedge. In fact, it's a politics that is about xenophobia and against all immigrants. The idea that it's only against so-called illegal, undocumented immigrants is just a way of trying to provide some cover for this mobilization of anti-xenophobic politics. Um what I'm suggesting, and you know, other people have made similar arguments, um, is that uh we're in a situation now, and this is one of the important differences with 2008, is that xenophobia and people you know in Operation Doodoo will say proudly, call me a xenophobe. I don't care if you call me xenophobic, as long as I am able to do what I want to do. Okay. Um, whereas in 2008, when we criticize people uh uh as being xenophobic, people were defensive. They uh they tried to explain their politics differently. March and March, Operation Dudu, uh uh the Patriotic Alliance, Action Essay, these are openly anti-immigrant, xenophobic organizations because it has become normalized. And what one has seen over the last 10-15 years is how the media has contributed to that. You listen to most media's uh you know uh houses now, there's no questioning, there's no critique. Every report of March and March is that uh they are dealing with a real problem. Okay, and in fact, over the last week, and maybe I am late to this, but in the last week I have detected on certain stations reference to March and March as a civic organization, as part of civil society. This, by the way, echoes the way that mainstream media referred to Afri Forum. AfriForum is a racist organization. But there was a time when they were referred to in the media as a civil society organization, okay, until they propagated ideas of a white genocide. Now that has fallen away. Uh, and one can see a similar uh uh you know normalization, sanitization of March and March and Operation Gdula to give the impression that they represent civil society, that they are that they have political and social legitimacy, uh, even though you know these are you know xenophobic organizations.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 29:21

You were coming on in a thread. South Africa has uh consistently been a crime-ridden country, and we could take the uh charts and sort of develop a graph of the murder rate uh from '94 and all of that. So it's clearly you have a situation where the political elite is unable to respond to a real problem, which is murder, uh robbery, cash in transit, as well as many other murders. And you can take the hot spots, they are always the same. Top ten police stations. It's like a league. Like a soccer league. Yeah, yeah. This this year it's in under on top, uh, and then followed by Dell, followed by Mlazi, GP's town, Alex, and all of that, depending on which crime you're looking at. Next year, same police stations but different. You know? Consistently, you can look at that for 20 years. They are unable to deal with this. It seems so convenient to say the reason we can't deal with this is because of an undocumented person. Did I understand you correctly to be saying in relation to crime, the figure of the foreigner is a scapegoat for a problem that nonetheless the state finds it convenient today that you are letting them wash their hands, that indeed the reason we couldn't deal with this crime is is is and uh if that's the case, prof, I do want to bring an interesting dynamic here specifically about uh this crime question. Incidentally, this is during one of the most dramatic commissions of inquiry where since July last year, after General Salamkonaz took to the media, blew the whistle, we have been spoiled to see that we have a problem with the police now. General after general, embedded with organized criminals. That explanation, how come it didn't dispel? How come the force of the evidence that was coming out of the Malanga Commission couldn't counteract public truth around the blaming of the foreigner?

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Well, I think that there are probably two interconnected explanations, right? Um, and I I hope that more research will be done on this. Uh, and so I'm just offering initial thoughts on it. Um The first is that um if one takes xenophobia and the very deliberate mobilization of it in South Africa at the moment uh as an important way of understanding what is unfolding, um then uh we have to ask ourselves: why has this mobilization escalated at this point in time? Right? Um and um um if this mobilization and escalation is importantly about deflecting attention away from the underlying problems that we face in our country, both socioeconomic, political as well, uh, then uh surely it must also be understood as deflecting a trying to deflect attention away from the what the Madlanga Commission has been exposing about the police. Okay?

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 33:18

So there was a possible explosion directly linked to Madlanga that is being deflated to a different area of society.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

I I I think that uh there's a uh there's an interesting coincidence of these things. Okay. There's obviously also the upcoming local elections, I think, in which those forces, particularly the political parties that are assisting, fomenting the xenophobic violence, hope to uh take advantage of as well. Um and we can see how even in parties that have traditionally, such as the ANC, uh, been against xenophobia, how the politics of xenophobia uh uh uh are creeping into uh certain parts of the ANC as well. So there's a political opportunism. What I'm suggesting, uh, and I want to be careful not to veer into the realm of conspiracy theory, simply to point out that there's an interesting coincidence uh of these processes. Um and of course, Operation Dodo has been around for some time. Um and uh March and March has gained traction over the last few months. Okay, so why is it? The local elections is one explanation. I think that the what's happening at the Madlanga Commission and what it's revealing about the rottenness uh in the police uh uh in the police force is is interesting. Uh, because it also uh I found it interesting that in the last few weeks the police have sort of stepped up to say we are going to deal decisively with illegal immigrants, right? And then you have reports of people being busted to the border. It suddenly appears even uh, you know, uh at the kind of border uh agency sort of waking up that we can, you know, uh get people through the border. So there's this sort of impression, I think, being created uh that the state and the police in particular, the border management authority are now kind of stepping up, that they're dealing with this crisis. And and for me, the idea that the that is uh that we are facing a crisis, and even President Ramaposa in his state of the nation address framed it in the same way, right? Where he uh came out and said that yes, we do have a crisis. Now, where does that come from? This is a manufactured crisis, okay? Um, so when the president agrees with the xenophobic forces that we have a crisis, that becomes the main focus of society. The deadline of June the 30th has meant that everyone in the country, except for this morning when Bafana Bafana won, and we will forget about it by this afternoon, and then we return to June the 30th, right? So the entire country's attention is now focused on June the 30th and on this being the primary crisis. For me, that is the question. Why has this been manufactured as the crisis in South Africa? When, as you've said, the Madlanga Commission has revealed systemic, deep rottenness in the police. We know about all these other crises that you've mentioned, of unemployment, etc. But the president agrees that this is the crisis that we have to confront. And now all our society needs to mobilize, and therefore organizations like March and March are seen to be reasonable. It's also why I think they're now being called a civil society organization to normalize them, to say, actually, these are not mad people, they're not xenophobic people. The excesses, you know, the kind of attacks on people, the killings are excesses. It's not what they are really. Okay. It's the sanitization of this. And what we can see is this process of normalizing and legitimizing the uh xenophobic politics, because the president has said this is the crisis.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

And therefore, our attention again is deflected from what the underlying crisis. How your important question about, you know, uh, why is it that these uh well understood, recognized, acknowledged, acknowledged crises like unemployment, like violence, like crime. We know that these are these things, okay? But our attention has now been shifted away from dealing with those things and explaining the underlying crises to saying this is a crisis. This is why, right, um, some of your friends, I don't know whether they're still your friends, okay, like Floyd Chivambo, right, will say the middle classes are complaining, okay? Um, whereas the working classes, and then he is now given uh March and March kind of Marxist language to deploy in their statements, right? Um, that it's it's one can see, right, that it's about legitimizing on the one hand the xenophobic politics and also saying it's the comfortable middle classes who can complain about the underlying crisis of capitalism, of unemployment, etc., but talk from the safety, the comfort of the middle class homes. The real working class politics is represented by these xenophobic organizations. Now, of course, that's a falsehood. It's opportunism, but it's gaining traction.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 39:00

What explains that? I mean, this is uh a student from uh some of your uh renowned lectures, yeah, yeah. Corridors at Vets Invest, yeah. How does a person like that and will forget a little bit about my uh my bias? I'm evoking yours. How does a person How does a person arrive? Is it electoral opportunism purely?

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Well, I I don't know, right? Uh um but the way I read it is electoral opportunism, right? Um there may be other things involved um that I don't know, but from a superficial uh observation and from the statements that are made, I see opportunism, right? Um and I think it uh uh it conforms to the opportunism of other political parties um who have come to the conclusion that mobilizing uh against immigrants, mobilizing Afrophobia is a way of getting votes. Uh and also, I would guess, of getting funding. And so there's a there's a an important question that lurks behind a lot of this, and that is where's the funding coming from? How is it that key figures of March and March, you know, can be in different parts of the country day after day? Okay. Um, there must be funding behind it. Now, I think a lot more research needs to be done. There's a lot of speculation about, you know, key business figures being behind it. Um, and I hope that over the next period uh research will reveal who is behind it. In the same way that one has seen at the global level how someone like Elon Musk uh is prepared to support in the UK Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson. Now, that um uh relationship between the super rich globally and conservative right-wing xenophobic organizations is playing itself out in South Africa as well. What we don't know yet sufficiently, and people have mentioned names and so on, but what we what we don't know yet is exactly who's behind it. I think that one can guess that there are similar processes of the political of the economic elites who want to benefit from uh uh uh intra-black violence, intra-poor violence, okay? Weakening the organizations, weakening the movements in communities, uh, in order not only to, because you know we we keep saying escapecoating and deflecting attention. That's one element, but it's also about undermining the possibility of movements in poor communities organizing themselves against uh the underlying kind of problems in society. So it's about dividing people. Uh and what is the overarching objective about dividing people? The overarching objective is to maintain the status quo. Okay, uh, because the real opposition to the status quo will come from poor people being organized. This is against that. This is kind of undermining that, uh, which of which in itself is uh reinforces existing weaknesses, the fragmentation of organizations. So one can see how all of these processes uh you know converge in order to maintain the status quo. So what what what what I'm suggesting, uh, you know, more research needs to be done, and I'm sure that there are people who are doing this. Um certainly there are people who have followed social media trends and have pointed in directions to show that there is coordination. And so when there's coordination, it means that there must be figures and funders behind the coordination. We need to lift the veil in order to find out who's being behind this because uh 2026 movement is not spontaneous. Okay.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 43:14

What is the worst outcome? 30th July arrives. What are the possible directions South Africa takes from there?

SPEAKER_00 43:31

So I think that there are multiple uh worst case scenarios. Um I mean, obviously the first one is humanitarian. Um uh, you know, uh people being killed, communities being disrupted. And if we remember 2008 and the the images of people being burnt, being killed, um, that will be the immediate horrible outcome of this wave of xenophobic violence. And we must always remind People that in 2008 it was not just Mozambicans being burnt or Zimbabweans being killed. Many South Africans were killed, particularly in Gauteng. And what one had as well was an ethno-nationalist mobilization, okay, uh, that led to South Africans being killed. So the idea being kind of punted by the uh xenophobes that this is against non-South Africans will again prove to be false. We've already seen this, right? People from Lumpopo being attacked in Gauteng, okay, uh, because they may be speaking Tsibenda, Shang'an, etc. So that will happen. So the first problem is the humanitarian crisis, the violence that will be unleashed, the normalization of anti-immigrant aphrophobia, xenophobia is a genie you cannot put back in the bottle. Because once it gets rooted in people's psyche, in the ideas, when March and March disappears or something new comes about, that those ideas, the politics will remain embedded in our organization, in our movement and in our communities. And we can see that across the world. Okay. And therefore, uh we are going to have to live with this as an important element in our politics, in our social lives. And I can see it, even at university, right, uh, where young people who you would think have a critical view or engage critically with what is being said in the media, espouse these ideas. You know, I had a book launch, and you know, someone asked a question about xenophobia, and I responded in the way that I'm responding now. And someone else got up and said, But you middle class, you you know, you don't understand. And the young people were applauding this person. And I said, But why? Why are you applauding? Okay. Um, and it's and and and that to me reflected a kind of the this normalization of xenophobia. So, in the long term, um, we are going to have to deal uh with this policy. It's not just a spontaneous eruption, it's being embedded. And this has been a long-term project. So for me, that is one of the key problems that we're going to face when we think about how do we overcome this, right? So, uh, and how do we build a different politics that not only stands against uh Afrophobia, xenophobia, but that transcends it and offers something different and alternative, but it's going to be hard work, right? What that means, uh, secondly, is that those organizations, those parties uh that espouse uh anti uh uh anti-immigrant xenophobic politics will become more powerful in this country. Okay. Um the idea, um, which of course comes out of the anti-apartheid movement, that our ethics, our politics, our ideologies uh are informed by emancipatory visions. Of course, there's still it's some of that is still there, but it has dissipated, it's fragmented.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

Um the kind of generations of people who grew up with the idea that uh Ubuntu was not just a kind of vague, abstract notion. It was the way that we in fact relate it to people every day. Um it was uh not just a kind of cultural phenomenon, it was about who we wanted to be uh in our struggle for emancipation and in building a new society. Uh those things don't happen automatically, they are not part of our DNA, they're built up over time. And we have seen how those ideas have come under systematic attack, and this wave of xenophobia is an important expression of the attack on those ideas. And in that context, it's kind of conservative populism, right-wing populism that becomes ascendant. Now, uh, we have seen how, if we look at the government of national unity, how those parties that have been on the periphery and even marginal 10, 15 years ago are now at the center of politics. Okay, they may not yet be the majority, but they're at the center. And it's quite likely uh that they will continue to grow in the next period. So as the uh ANC fragments, as its hegemony has unraveled, and I think that we will get confirmation of that in the local elections again, uh, what takes its place? Uh I think what what we've got to fear will be not a single party, because I don't think that there's a single party that can replace the ANC immediately, but will be a coalition uh uh defined by right-wing politics, conservative politics, in which xenophobia, anti-immigrant politics will be one important thread. Um and I think that is a dangerous outcome. Um, I think it puts South Africa on a path uh of uh of conservatism uh that will create conditions in which things like gender-based violence, homophobia, racism, etc., will be allowed to flourish again. Now, those ideas have always remained present in our in our politics, in our social lives, but in the context of the post-liberation period of the constitution, uh, we succeeded in pushing against those, you know, undermining those kind of conservative uh uh kind of social ideas and political ideas. But this the situation has been created for the flourishing of those ideas again. So my great fear is not just that we uh that this wave of violence, of xenophobic violence, uh will lead to a humanitarian crisis, but is a reflection of a much deeper shift to the right, uh in which uh which which will not be overcome by security intervention. Right? We may be able to put a halt to a particular march, but it's the politics, the normalization of these sort of right-wing ideas that will remain with us for the foreseeable future.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 50:46

In everything that you've just said, it doesn't look like there's an outcome in which the problem of unemployment, of industrialization, of inequality, poverty is being resolved by any of these outcomes. No, I don't think so. So in a way, does the crisis continue but in different terms of reference? Is that the age we are entering into in a sense like conservatism, but which what happens to these problems? Do they become worse? Do they is it is is there gonna be a honeymoon a little bit with the new status quo of finally I can be xenophobic without somebody thinking I'm saying something wrong that I don't like uh other Africans, which gives room to I don't want to live with uh maybe this or that nationality, racism, homophobia, uh that people will be saying, but I that's not this is how I feel. Yeah. How does that translate to the original problems that we spoke about? Uh what happens to them in that environment of conservatism?

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Well, I I think it's really important for us and uh to uh to recognize that we do have a deep problem. Okay. Um I think that one of the issues that we've confronted in the last 30 odd years is the continuous hope that people had that the system can produce a benign outcome. Uh, that our constitution, the ANC, um, our policies, etc., uh were designed uh to create uh uh a better democracy and uh socioeconomic development, etc. Um I think probably the majority of people now believe that's not going to happen. Um and uh it's certainly come from the political or economic elites. And so we are entering or we are already in a period of transition uh in which the direction that we're going into is a dark direction of conservatism. I feel that we need to recognize that and confront that rather than delude ourselves into thinking that somehow our constitutional system, the constitution itself, parliament, etc., will produce a different outcome.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 53:44

You think they are also under threat? These foundations, they maybe we we should state it a bit. The foundation here is the rule of law. Yeah. Uh maybe put it differently or more rigorously, equality before the law. That uh men, women, races excuse me, we we we all have the rights. Um constitutional supremacy uh as opposed to parliamentary supremacy. But it looks as well, I mean, very foundational as well to all these things is the integrity of South Africa as a state. Because they are still those who have passions or uh uh dreams of cessation is the threat or the process or the transition as you put it, we are entering into a questioning even of those things.

SPEAKER_00 54:55

Well, I'd I'd put it this way. I don't think that we have an imminent threat, okay? Um I think that they have there are um louder voices, including from parties in parliament, okay, about aspects of the constitution. And the constitution has always been challenged, okay, on things like the death penalty, for example, okay, just to use the most obvious example. Um I think that there's also a robis uh to our constitutional democracy, both in parliament, the judicial system, etc., etc. So I don't think that we um uh so when I say that we're heading in a conservative direction um and uh that we need to acknowledge that, I'm I don't want to be alarmist and say that we face an imminent threat. Of course, there are noises about secession from the Cape, okay? Those noises I think will also gain more traction in places like Guazulunatal, for example, right? Um but it's also they're also countervailing forces, and they are located in many places. The one is within the democratic constitutions, um institutions rather, and in kind of broader civil society. So the point I was going to make as well was that even as one acknowledges the uh this moment of crisis and the shift to the right in our politics, uh, we must also remember that there are movements, that there are organizations, even in the poorest areas where people have been mobilizing for a long time against the uh uh the kind of manifestations of the socioeconomic crisis. And it's those organizations, by the way, that are now in the forefront of campaigning against xenophobia. Um they are weaker now than they were in 2008. Uh the most significant example of that weakness is the trade union movement, uh, which was an important foundation on which the anti-xenophobia politics was built in 2008. But it was also community-based organizations. I was doing research in Alex at the time uh of 2008, and in an area called Swetla, right? It's kind of one of the kind of poorest informal sections in Alex, it was community people in Switzerland that mobilized within hours against xenophobic uh you know uh gangs in that area, including in Switzerland but also around Mandala hostel.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

Um because it was an area, a township that had deep roots of social organizations, of street committees, of civics, of social movements, etc. And those organizations remain uh relatively strong even in 2008 and push back immediately against xenophobia. We are seeing again in Johannesburg today as we speak, okay, uh scores of organizations being revived, offering humanitarian support, offering to mobilize against March and March's uh efforts around June the 30th and July the 2nd, okay, when they're proposing to march in the south of Johannesburg. So, you know, amidst this crisis, we are seeing not only the reactivation of organizations, but existing organizations. And the most kind of prominent of them are organizations like Abakla Le Pase and John Dorla, Cry of the Excluded, Abakhlali Pase Freedom Park in the south of Johannesburg, community action networks, and other organizations that are coming together, be it in Kensington, around the Jeppe Hostel, in Malvern, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. So we've been talking about crisis and the dark moment that we are in, but we must never forget that there are activists, ordinary people and poor people. So this, and I'm I'm emphasizing this point because it goes against the arguments of the likes of Floyd Shivambu that people who are against xenophobia are just middle class people. The most significant organizations that have fought against xenophobia consistently are based in poor working class areas, are the poorest of poor people in informal settlements. It's not middle class people like you and me. The people who've had to bear the brunt of this every day in their lives, not only of unemployment, of gender-based violence, but of xenophobia, are in the informal settlements. Women in Tembisa, right? We had a meeting over the weekend where people were coming from Freedom Park, from Tembisa, uh, from Tembilichle, right? Young women who are fighting every day to kind of keep their children alive, but are also fighting against xenophobia. This is this is where the hope lies. Okay. Now we may be in a much weaker position than we were 18 years ago, but the kind of progressive emancipatory politics, the real politics of solidarity and Ubuntu remain embedded in the organizations. Um, and that is where we need to focus our attention, uh, because we can be overwhelmed by how terrible things are. But if we are going to expend any energy, it must be to contribute to building those organizations. Because that is where the issues, and you know, we've used the term social cohesion, solidarity, Ubuntu, emancipatory politics, that is where it's going to succeed or fail. Okay. And these parties that are mobilizing uh xenophobia, that's what they want to break. They don't, you know, they they they don't give a whoot about the middle classes, because we're safe behind our high walls. Okay. What they want to break are the likes of Abachlali, Crive the Excluded, the trade unions, the women who are getting together in places like Timbilichle, organizing themselves, protecting uh, you know, uh people from other parts of the continent because they're living together, they're working together, not just in economic relations of the sponsor shops, but they're living together in the same areas. They have to share the same tap where often there isn't water. That's where the solidarity is being built, and that is what we have to give attention to in order to think about what the other options are. So we've spoken about, you know, where uh mainstream politics is heading and is dragging, you know, desperate people with them, okay, as people are kind of thinking desperately about how to overcome their problems. But at the same time, there are people in poor communities that have been offering for a long time alternatives. What the media is doing is very rarely give attention to those alternatives. Rather, they amplify the likes of March and March and Operation Dodoula. Very rarely do you hear about what Abakhlali Basim Jondolo is doing. Okay. What Cry X is doing, what people in communities are doing, because that doesn't fit the narrative of the African immigrant being the source of all of our problems. If they were to focus on that, they would get a very different picture of what is taking place in our country.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:02:33

The final question maybe uh relates then to this hope. Um it has to translate into a coherent politics. And this isn't the case of the post Soviet Union. The inability of the left to go beyond a network of grassroots initiatives to constitute a coherent program for the reorganization of the masses with the means of production to take a destiny into their hands. This inability we keep getting to this moment of multiple re uh shaping of conservatism, of liberal conservatism. They seem to be the only games in town. Because of this inability for these grassroots movements to truly come into some form of coherent uh to dream big again. You know, like the 20th centuries. To dream big again and to to take a uh this bold step again uh of destiny that we're going to again make a claim on the future. Uh maybe I know this is tough uh to to put you in that corner. Is is that coming to an end as well? Will this hope finally or what will it take for for this hope to break into that moment once more where it's just not a network of grassroots movement? But they they emerge and not allow um look at what you just say. I mean, this network of small conservatives, Afrophobe by itself hating scoundrels inside cabinet, uh with um the constitution in their hands and speaking against the ideas that made it possible for their presence in cabinet. And these are a small, not to X, you know what I mean? These whole moments, these pockets of hope, have always been part of the South African sort of story, yeah, the story of the global South.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:17

Yeah.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:05:18

What does it take for for that to translate into a coherent political program?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:23

Yeah, this is a big question, right? Um and it's a question that we're gonna have to grapple with. Uh well, we've we, and I say we, you know, collectively uh have over generations kind of grappled with this. Um and I, you know, I I want to be very careful not to kind of offer, you know, shorthand answers that uh are not adequate. Um, but I'll make the following points. Uh firstly, I think that we've got to recognize that the project of building a progressive left movement um that has a mass basis cannot be Separated from what happens in the kind of uh amongst the poor, the working class.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:07

So one cannot conjure up a movement if it doesn't if it's not rooted uh in uh the communities, in the factories, on the farms, where people are. Okay. Um and as we've discussed uh you know this morning, uh there's a social crisis, okay, when people um are, you know, whether in the Western Cape or in the Gauteng, where you your your uh you know your neighborhood is controlled by gangs, uh, where there is gender-based violence, where schooling is dangerous, etc., where the kind of uh just survivalism uh uh you know characterizes uh neighborhoods. It uh becomes more difficult to build sustainable organizations, even though those efforts are made and it shows there are many examples to show how that can succeed. Um so that's a the that's one has to recognize that and think about how one organizes differently under those circumstances. And there are many examples in South Africa and globally where that has been done, but we also need, and this is a second point, we need a medium to long-term vision. Often progressive organizations uh have uh uh kind of a sort of short-term vision. Um, and so they imagine if you kind of get people together in a conference, in a meeting, then the problems will be solved once you've issued a very good statement, right? And I'm making that point because the recent uh conference of the left uh, you know, had all of those problems associated with it. At the end, the statement looked like a very good statement. Okay. And then what? Okay. Um, radicals and you know, um progressives can issue statements. Okay, that doesn't solve those are important, but it doesn't solve the problem. What we have to do is to think differently about how we organize. And that organization must have a long-term vision. It's about how we rebuild organizations in communities, in workplaces, that are not just about espousing broad political ideas, but that confront and deal with the day-to-day issues that people have. If you take hunger as an issue, and we can go back to what uh the Black Consciousness Movement did in the 1970s, the Black Panther Party did in the same period in the United States and elsewhere, uh, where uh dealing with simultaneously uh the problems people face daily, such as hunger, and link that to your politics. That's what we've got to do. If we satisfy ourselves with issuing statements, uh with having correct analysis, we'll be that we're not building movements, and those movements need to be deeply rooted, deeply embedded in our communities. That's not just about organizing a march for service and liberty. That's important. Okay. But once the march is finished, people go back to the problems that they face. The women who stand on the roads to block traffic, they go back into an informal settlement where they face gender-based violence. So, you know, our politics need to be kind of rooted there, and that's where we need to build. Because we've got to build an alternative movement that is rooted in uh communities, in the poorest communities. And then from there or simultaneously build a different vision. Because you're absolutely right. In the mid-20th century and in South Africa in the 1970s, 1980s, we had a vision. We had an ideology. There were competing ideologies, but broadly, we had an ideology rooted in emancipatory politics. We knew what the enemy was.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:59

Um that needs to be rebuilt, but it can't be built in the abstract, it needs to be rooted there. But I want to make this point as well. Often, you know, and I work and operate in spaces where I hear this often, um where some activists will say that if you do the kind of critique and you write left-wing articles and left-wing analyses, that is too abstract. Okay. So what one has seen is this kind of division that has emerged between struggles on the ground. And I'm using that term deliberately because that's the term that South Africans use, like we're on the ground, and therefore, we're on the ground, and therefore we have a better understanding. And there's been a disconnect between um for want of a better phrase, uh, between grassroots, on-the-ground struggles, um, and the intellectual labor of producing left-wing politics. And the two have not converged in the same ways that they did in the 1970s and 1980s, not without problems, but there was a much greater convergence. Um, we need to build that convergence again. And one of the important differences between the 1970s, 1980s, and now is that um uh many, the vast majority of the left-wing intellectuals that now exist come from the ground. They're black, to put it bluntly. Okay. Um, and so there should be greater possibility of convergence. Because we as, and I'm making very broad statements, you know, that that are obviously more complicated. But in the 1970s, some of the towering left wiki left-wing intellectuals or white university academics, okay, were connected to movements, but they didn't come from the working classes of poor. There were exceptions, many exceptions, but that's the one one kind of uh kind of way of putting it. That's very different now. So the the possibility of convergence exists, okay? But that is what we've got to build. Um, because we do need that broad ideology, this broad vision of what emancipation looks like. And I'll I'll end off on this point. Uh, and I know I'm not providing a magic wand uh to uh to to answer all of the questions. Um we have to remember that many of the questions have already been answered. Yeah. Um because the critique of the system exists globally. You're there, you can't Google, it's there. How to build movements, it's there in writing and in our experience as part of our kind of memory of struggle, it's there. But we've not succeeded in putting into practice those things in a sustained way. And for me, that is one of the issues. There's a generation like my generation, maybe not yet your generation, of people who've been active since the 1980s. And I can see it in my generation and people who I interview from previous generations, they tired.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:27

And one keeps on saying, well, actually, we can't give up now.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:32

Uh we need this sort of long-term vision and we need to rebuild from the start. Not entirely, but we need to have a long-term vision of how we rebuild. If we can get over that, then I think that uh the movements that exist already uh can be rebuilt, can be strengthened, can be deepened, can be expanded, and we must have a national vision. I think that is an additional problem of localism. Uh, one of the important differences with the 70s and 80s is that as the movements re-emerged in the 1970s and black consciousness was critical in this, okay, it gave a sense of a clear analysis, diagnosis of the problem, and had a vision of what the solution might be. Whether one agreed with it or not, but it had that vision. And the trade unions contributed to that, the student movements contributed to that, developing a national vision, right? A national set, a set of ideas and organizations that had a national vision and also, and this is really the point I'm going to end off on, is an internationalist vision. Our politics is too inward-looking, right? And that inward-looking character of the politics reinforces ethno-nationalism, xenophobia, anti-immigrant, conservative nationalist politics. The internationalism of our politics in the 70s and 80s, which was Pan-African, was black consciousness, was about the international working class. Okay, all of those things combined, uh meant that we were our ideas about emancipation were outward looking, that we understood that our problems were not just our own problems, that our problems were connected to a global system. That connection, I'm afraid, has largely been lost. And the current wave of xenophobia and aphrophobia is an important manifestation of that lack of internationalism, the lack of Pan Africanism. And so these are many, many things that we've got to do. But I think that there are enough people around to do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:38

Professor Noor Niftikdi Danidi. Thank you very much.

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi 1:15:43

Okay.