William Gumede: Mbeki must face up to South Africa's xenophobia

Long-standing official denial of xenophobia is at the heart of the terrible violence against foreign African refugees spreading through Johannesburg. For years, warnings by local rights groups that the regular attacks in townships, rural towns and inner-city slums on foreign Africans will soon escalate have been ignored by the South African government.

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Yet in spite of the bloody attacks, the South African government and President Thabo Mbeki's response has been staggeringly unconvincing. Astonishingly, the police are blaming a "third force" of shadowy individuals supposedly behind orchestrating the attacks. To do so is to ignore spectacularly not only the deep-seated prejudice against refugees from poorer neighbours but also the resentment generally against African immigrants.

Poor Africans from the rest of the continent seek refuge in South Africa, a relative haven of prosperity and stability compared with the disintegrating countries that they come from.

Mbeki – typically – says he will set up a committee to investigate the causes of the bloody attacks, but in the meantime the death toll rises, with thousands homeless and living in fear of the next attack. The police cannot cope, but the government has been reluctant to call in the army to help, saying it is not yet an emergency.

Given its immediate history of overcoming colonialism and racialised segregation, South Africans were supposed to be more tolerant. But in spite of Mbeki making African solidarity the pillar of his presidency, both black and white South Africans still view their country as a subcontinent outside or separate from the rest of Africa.

Furthermore, up to now South Africa has not developed any effective policy to deal with the largest mass immigration into the country – not only from Africa, but from the hotspots of Asia and Eastern Europe – in modern history.

The ANC government has been paralysed over whether it should have a European-style fortress policy, switching on an electric border fence erected by the apartheid government to keep the Africans out, or open up the borders to desperate refugees fleeing instability elsewhere. During apartheid, many neighbouring countries supported the ANC. This often came at great costs to those countries, whose infrastructure was bombed into ruins by vindictive apartheid South Africa governments. Not surprisingly, and rightly, the ANC government feels it has some moral obligation to destitute Africans fleeing oppression in their own countries. But in the vacuum over the lack of an immigration policy, the home affairs department has adopted a tough stance against refugees.

The xenophobic sentiment cuts across race and levels of income. White farmers pay black immigrant workers pitiable wages. Black professionals think white companies use them as "scabs", rather than appointing more local blacks. Africans are regularly accused by the police, media and local politicians of fuelling the country's high crime rate. Police routinely stop and search foreign Africans, sometimes even mistaking locals for foreigners, and deport them if they don't have their identity documents with them. Corrupt police force members often extract bribes from African foreigners to shield them from arrest or deportation.

The specific incidents in Alexandra, which started the violent attacks, had much to do with the failure of government to deliver services to the poor. The trouble was sparked by a combination of grievances over lack of delivery of local services, such as housing, and the economy's failure to create jobs, as well as perceptions of local corruption.

In these townships, there is a feeling that foreigners bribe local government officials to access housing and trading licences, while locals have to wait for years. Some South African-owned small businesses have also been attacked, for allegedly employing "foreigners" and not locals.

Furthermore, the poor in South Africa have little influence on ANC policy, and the newly democratic institutions are often indifferent to them. Having no outlet for their grievances, those on the bottom rung vent them on foreign Africans.

Making South Africa's infant democracy, institutions and leaders more responsive and accountable must be part of the solution to the problem of xenophobia. It would also help if Mbeki abandoned his policy of propping up African dictators, and assisted the democratic forces in African countries run by despots. But sadly, in the eyes of outsiders, the latest incidents will probably only confirm thier view of South Africa as prejudiced towards people from the rest of the continent.

WM Gumede is the author of 'Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC'