Yonela Mlambo
Cape Town - I have previously decried intellectual starvation in the country concerning migration and immigration.
Accordingly, I took it upon myself to pen a brief article to inform the public about the historiography of migration and immigration in South Africa. In the article, I signified how migration and immigration in South Africa are historically buttressed in race, and anti-black in an inter-sectional manner and dovetailed in racialised capital accumulation that pitted oppressed Africans against each other.
A few months after the publication of the article, the phenomenon of zama-zamas erupted and saw chauvinistic make-me-believe I am a community activist mushrooming. It unequivocally called for the deportation of illegal migrants and securing of “our” borders against them.
Typical of politicians of never wanting to be left behind community activists, the chauvinist make-me believe I am a community activists entered the fray and decried that the illegal migrants are depleting South Africa’s public resources.
Unfortunately, to an unthinking mind, the chauvinist make-me-believe I am a community activists and revolutionary political leaders called for South Africa to secure its borders to mitigate against the depletion of public resources, and to end crime in the country.
Moreover, to the unthinking mind, on the one hand, the latter is to be elevated to the higher echelons in the governing party and subsequent to the government, while on the other hand the chauvinist make-me-believe I am a community activists must be praised for their patriotism.
To the ordinary person in South Africa, I suppose, it is imperative to ask themselves, where the zama-zamas are selling their gold – and who are they selling it to?
Moreover, who is the primary and the biggest beneficiary of the zama-zamas’ illegally-mined gold prior to imbibing the community chauvinist make-me-believe I am a community leader and revolutionist politicians?
Capitalists have a propensity to connive with politicians in a covert manner for mutual benefit while deceiving the public.
Unfortunately, the public uncritically accepts the capitalists’ and politicians’ deceptions.
After securing the borders and deportation of the illegal migrants, capitalists would be able to effectively pit South Africans against each other for the limited employment opportunities.
History has no blank pages. For instance, in the late 1980s and early 1990s history informs us how circular hostel migrants from the then Natal were “othered” by “township” dwellers and seen as outsiders who came to take “our” jobs, which resulted in conflict.
The conflict saw the opportunist cultural organisation called the IFP manipulating the hostel dwellers and deviating them from the racialised, capitalist South African economy that systematically excluded them. The IFP ethnicised the conflict through convincing the hostel dwellers to believe they were being attacked because they were Zulus, to garner support.
It is important for South Africans while they are in the process of formulating modalities to govern migration, to be cautioned against the imposter and idealistic pan-Africanist nostalgic political party, the EFF. The EFF’s position on migration is a disaster in the making that serves to legitimise afro-pessimists’ view that Africans are lawless, thus Europeans have a duty to bring law and order to Africa.
Africans had their ways of governance, not limited to migration and immigration. Therefore, in dealing with migration and immigration, South Africans must be ever cognisant to never isolate migration and immigration from the racial, capitalist-engineered South African economy that continues to exclude Africans; be cautious of the chauvinist make-me-believe I am a community activist; the so-called revolutionist politicians; and the idealistic pan-Africanist and nostalgic political party.
Mlambo is an MPhil Candidate at UCT
Cape Times