Ever since the eruption of widespread xenophobic violence in 2008, the widely deployed claim that “foreign nationals are taking our jobs” is now accepted as fact by many. But statistics and research prove the opposite.
In and among the plethora of other claims directed at international migrants, such as being disproportionately responsible for crime and more particularly drug dealing, that of “taking jobs” has now come to dominate the general discourse of the latest crew of xenophobes.
These include Herman Mashaba and ActionSA; the Gayton Mackenzie/Kenny Kunene duo of the Patriotic Alliance (PA); the misnamed African Transformation Movement; the putative uMkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKVMA); the social media scoundrels of “#PutSouthAfricaFirst”; the so-called “RET” faction of the ANC; the ministries of home affairs and labour; and the most recent addition of political performance artist Nhlanhla Mohlauli and his “Operation Dudula” rent-a-crowd.
In one form or another, they have all engaged in an all-out propaganda war grounded in a concocted, pre-packaged and false narrative of “foreign nationals” as job-stealing villains.
Not only has such a narrative found fertile ground among significant sections of South Africans who are economically poor and politically marginalised, it has now been given some legislative…