In May 2008, a wave of brutal xenophobic violence swept through townships in SA.
The carnage started in Alexandra, a township north of Johannesburg, where the poor working-class community turned on migrants from neighbouring Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi.
We were in the throes of a global financial crisis that had been caused by excessive speculation on property values by financial institutions in the US.
Banks were effectively giving out sub-prime mortgages to people who could not repay them, resulting in them defaulting.
This collapsed the global banking system, leading to massive job losses across the world.
The global financial crisis caused SA’s first recession in 19 years, driven by a collapse in commodity demand and manufacturing.
The result was catastrophic, with more than one-million jobs lost, plunging millions of households into poverty at a time when the Thabo Mbeki administration had reduced public expenditure and some safety nets for the poor.
Against this backdrop, foreign nationals became a target for South Africans who, as is often the case with xenophobia, misdirected their anger at vulnerable people who were being accused of “stealing” jobs and placing a burden on public services.
The tensions came to a head in May when locals began targeting migrants.
The attacks, largely targeting African migrants, resulted in at least 62 deaths, more than 100,000 displacements, and widespread looting. Thousands of people were injured.
The part of the story often untold is that 33.8% of the 62 people killed in this xenophobic violence were South African nationals.
That is 21 locals killed, mistaken for foreigners.
This was inevitable, for when physical characteristics and accents are used to determine who is a foreigner and who is not, locals are bound to die.
After all, there is no way to tell who is a South African by mere physical characteristics.
The stereotype of foreigners as dark-skinned and with heavy accents is as unscientific as it is bigoted.
By this mindless standard, many South Africans, myself included, could easily pass for migrants.
After all, being Bantu people, we share many similarities regardless of which region of the continent we were born in.
The violence and bigotry of May 2008 has found expression in the US, where, over the past few weeks, the state of Minnesota has been the site of state-sanctioned brutality.
The country’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), whose mission is to “conduct criminal investigations, enforce immigration laws, preserve national security, and protect public safety”, has been on a rampage, detaining and brutalising residents of the state capital, Minneapolis.
ICE agents have been unlawfully detaining anyone who looks like a migrant, including children as young as five.
This is in line with the Donald Trump administration’s policy of ridding the country of the very migrants with whose sweat and tears the US economy has been built.
The cruel irony and horror in Minneapolis is that the vast majority of those being detained are US citizens.
A few weeks ago, ICE agents brutally shot dead an unarmed woman, Renee Good.
She was an American.
A few days ago, another person was brutally killed by ICE agents.
Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse, was shot multiple times after being savagely beaten by agents who have turned the streets of Minneapolis into a war zone.
He too, like Good, posed no threat to these agents.
And he too, like Good, was an American.
A campaign that is supposed to be targeted at migrants has so far led to the deaths of “pure” Americans, and those detained are predominantly documented migrants and American citizens.
This is the face of the bigotry that SA experienced in 2008.
It is a demonstration to the world that when migrants are scapegoated, brutalised or targeted through violence, everyone is at risk, and everyone pays the price.
The Herald
