UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Global Security Fellows Initiative
Occasional Paper No. 7
Speaking with Many Voices: South African Immigration Policy, April 1994 -- December 1995
by
Ms. Maxine Reitzes
October 1997
ISBN #1 900741 15 6
©Maxine Reitzes 1997
1. Introduction
2. The Problem with the Problem
3. Government responses
4. More
panic than plan?
5. Disunited Union?
6. Nationalism or Pan-Nationalism?
7. Conclusion
References
and sources
1. Introduction
Since the first national democratic election in South Africa in 1994, immigration has become highly controversial. An apparent increase in the number of foreigners illegally entering the country has been accompanied by a rise in xenophobia.
The new government’s responses are diverse and inconsistent, as politicians struggle to come to terms with a growing and apparently intractable problem that seems to have taken them by surprise. This study seeks to review the immigration policy debate from April 1994 – December 1995, and posit some tentative explanations for the apparent contradictions and incoherence that characterise government response.
2. The Problem with the Problem
One possible reason for the inconsistencies in government responses is that no one is quite sure of the extent and nature of the problem. Statistics are unreliable, and claims about the socio-economic impact of illegal immigrants are largely unsubstantiated.
Statistics seem to show a dramatic increase in illegal immigration since 1992: official figures range from 2 million to 8 million. But quantification is beset by difficulties. Given that the persons ‘counted’ are illegal, and that their entry into the country is therefore often undocumented, there is no reliable means of calculation. Thus George Orr of the Department of Home Affairs claims that 3 million is a reliable estimate. This figure is derived by taking the 600,000 people who have entered legally but temporarily, but of whose departure there is no record, and extrapolating this by means of a complicated formula. But the formula and the calculation it produces seem largely speculative.
Much of the migrant population is in a constant state of flux, compounding the problem of quantification. Many who are deported re-enter the country, so that one person may be counted many times. Furthermore, many are transient, trading artefacts which they bring from other African countries. They exit with the proceeds, procure more goods, and return to sell again. Many also enter to find work, take remittances back to dependants, and then re-enter. Sometimes they are apprehended; sometimes not.
The definition of ‘illegal’ immigrants is also contested. An official of the Affected Foreign Residents in South Africa Association (Afrisaa) notes that many black foreigners have lived here for longer than 20 years. They have been economically active; some own property, and have married locals. They have therefore fulfilled residence requirements, but have not been granted the legal status of temporary or permanent residents. Black foreigners who entered South Africa before 1991 were debarred from applying for legal status by the racially exclusive conditions of the Aliens control Act. Orr rejects the view that people who would have acquired legal residence if they had been white should receive it: ‘Just because a person got away with it for 10 years doesn’t mean we will reward him for breaking the law’, he declares.
The distinction between illegal immigrants and refugees – applied mainly to Mozambicans – is also open to challenge. Chris Dolan, a researcher at the Rural Facility of the University of the Witwatersrand, argues that the distinction between political refugees and economic migrants is spurious. Mozambicans in rural areas have been largely defined as refugees, and were granted this status by ‘homeland’ governments, while those found in urban areas are defined as illegal aliens. Policies of voluntary repatriation from rural areas and forcible deportation from cities have reinforced this divide. But the distinction is arbitrary, because many ‘illegals’ arrive as refugees and, because rural jobs are scarce, must migrate to the cities.
Some illegal immigrants buy South African identities, legally or illegally, and are therefore not counted as illegal. Some are ‘adopted’ by local families: a South African citizen swears an oath to authenticate the status of the immigrant to a magistrate, who then issues legal South African documents. Others obtain forged documents by bribing officials – corruption in the Department of Home Affairs and among police is widespread, and some officials have recently been prosecuted. Many illegals avoid arrest by bribing police officers, only to be re-arrested and forced to pay another bribe.
During the 1994 election, controls were weak and many illegal immigrants were granted documents enabling them to vote. Many also registered for the local government elections in November 1995.
Some who enter legally as visitors and then overstay their welcome approach a local police station, claiming they have lost their belongings, including their papers. They fill in a form recording the loss, and are issued with emergency travel documents. Corruption occurs in some of these instances as well, as applicants are required to pay for the forms.
According to research in Mpumalanga, Home Affairs officials are ‘selling’ Mozambican immigrants to farmers, who pay for documents legalising the status of Mozambicans, but keep the papers. If the workers leave the farms they can be arrested, as they have no documentary evidence of their legal status. They are the property of the farmers, who are protected from prosecution as they have the documentary evidence that the workers are ‘legal’.
Untested assumptions about the socio-economic impact of migrants abound, and fuel accusations against them. In the popular imagination they are responsible for exacerbating unemployment; undercutting wages; increasing criminal activity; increasing the housing shortage; undermining social services; and increasing the spread of diseases such as Aids. But none of these claims have been tested and substantiated.
Policy is therefore responding to a phenomenon whose extent and impact are barely understood.
3. Government Responses: The More Things Change ...
In the past, immigration policy was informed by the logic of apartheid. Previous governments encouraged the immigration of skilled whites in an attempt to redress the skills shortage and increase the white population. An immigrant had to be ‘readily assimilable by the white inhabitants’ and not a threat to ‘the language, culture or religion of any white ethnic group’. While sectors of the economy, most notably mining, have depended on labour from neighbouring states, these black migrants were (and are) not granted permanent residence, and were not permitted to bring their families or own property here.
Latterly, control has been justified on the grounds of economic necessity. Orr claims that emigration under apartheid made it necessary to attract immigrants, but that growing unemployment from 1990 onwards forced a change in policy. This is a similar argument to that of the last National Party (NP) minister of Home Affairs, Danie Schutte:
Where South Africa in the past actively encouraged people to settle in this country, the present state of the economy now compels us to be extremely careful and restrictive. . . .
But since it is common knowledge that those who were encouraged to settle were white, some allege that a more restrictive policy is racist, aimed at curbing a large influx of black immigrants.
A more moderate policy towards black immigrants, which might have been expected from the post-apartheid ideological shift, has not materialised. On the contrary, the legislation which informs the government’s formal response to illegal immigrants is the Aliens Control Act of 1991, which has been labelled ‘possibly the most draconian apartheid leftover on the statute books’.
Section 43 of the Act gives any police officer or immigration official the right to declare anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant a ‘prohibited person’. Section 55 stipulates that the courts have no jurisdiction over ‘any act, order or warrant of the minister, an immigration officer or master of a ship performed or issued under this act’. South Africa does not carry the legal costs of an illegal person. Thus current procedures afford suspected offenders little opportunity to contest the decision of the authorities: they may only challenge their deportation from outside the country. According to Orr, this section of the act will have to be scrapped as it contravenes the bill of rights.
There is more continuity than change in the official policy of ‘keep them out and send them home’ which seems to be supported by the ministries of Home Affairs, Safety and Security, Defence and the Department of National Intelligence. More stringent amendments to the act are proposed by the Department of Home Affairs, which is informed by an interdepartmental government committee established in August 1994.
Officials who implement the act have been criticised for being racist, not only by those who bear the brunt of the law, but also by some in government: The premier of Gauteng, Tokyo Sexwale, has claimed that no action is taken against illegal immigrants from Europe. A police liaison officer, Govindsamy Mariemuthoo, has stated that no police officer is allowed to discriminate, but immigration policy has been dubbed ‘the new apartheid’:
[Al]though pass laws requiring every black person to carry an identity document were abolished in 1985, blacks would still be wise to carry their IDs when in Johannesburg. A stroll in Hillbrow or a shopping trip at the Smal Street Mall in the city centre without your ID could get you arrested if you are mistaken for an illegal immigrant and you are black.
4. More Panic than Plan?
Behind the ‘clampdown’ on illegals, however, lies much official confusion. Government departments and politicians have, by their own admission, been caught largely unawares by the enormity, complexity and seeming intractability of dealing with large-scale black immigration.
As Sexwale’s charge shows, the government does not speak with one voice on the issue. There is no consistency in responses from different government departments, nor is there consensus among officials within departments. Although the establishment of the interdepartmental committee whose brief is clearly to tighten control in an attempt to co-ordinate responses, it does not seem to have produced more coherent policy.
Some departments whose policies are directly affected by the issue have not even begun to address it. Neil Cameron of the Department of Health said in February 1995 that ‘at the moment the issue of illegal immigrants is not very high on the department’s agenda, but it soon will have to be dealt with’ – despite the fact that Orr claims that 2.2 million Rand was spent on foreigners in Johannesburg hospitals in 1994. Stephen Laufer of the Department of Housing said it ‘is not looking at illegal immigrants ... It would be a diversion to deal with them. We are looking at the dimensions of the housing problem overall.’ Illegal immigrants might be included in figures indicating the housing backlog, ‘but we’re not sure by how much’.
Officials say the Department of Labour plays little role in the interdepartmental committee: it is ‘only called in if labour issues arise. Not much from a labour point of view crops up.’This is surprising, as one accusation against illegal immigrants is that they exacerbate unemployment. Labour officials say their only role is to inform Home Affairs of the availability of unemployed South Africans who can perform the same jobs as foreigners applying to immigrate – a Home Affairs selection board decides on the basis of this information whether foreigners will take jobs away from South Africans. An official implies that this procedure is overly friendly to immigrants: because unemployment registration is voluntary, figures are not a true reflection of the numbers of jobless, and their skills. One Department official, echoing the position of Home Affairs and much popular sentiment, added:
We can’t be very positive about having illegal chaps here taking the bread and butter out of our own people’s mouths. But there are a lot of specialised jobs which we haven’t got people for. We need specialised people from abroad to share their expertise with us.
Since domestic pressure to act against immigrants is now accompanied by a need to forge co-operation with neighbouring states, the most ambiguous approach comes from the Department of Foreign Affairs, which faces an obvious dilemma: it is difficult to extend a hand of friendship to countries whose nationals are being harassed. According to David Laubscher of the Africa Desk, ‘the issue is a serious diplomatic problem’ which is worsened ‘when the local population takes the law into their own hands’. Locals ‘do not distinguish between refugees, legal foreigners and illegal foreigners. This creates a diplomatic problem, when legal foreigners are victimised.’
But citizens are not entirely to blame for expressing anti-foreigner sentiment that could damage foreign policy. Some departments encourage the xenophobia that creates diplomatic headaches: the minister of Home Affairs, Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi and others inform citizens that illegals undermine the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), and Laubscher himself adds: ‘The economy and infrastructure cannot absorb or maintain these people.’ Citizen surveillance of illegals is also encouraged by the prospect of monetary reward. Following a Home Affairs directive, an Aliens Control Unit official said police would pay about 300 Rand for tip-offs of illegal aliens. While, since January, only some 10,000 Rand has been paid for help in apprehending illegals, this approach is likely to fuel the xenophobia Sexwale and others in government have condemned. And, although Buthelezi and other champions of immigration restrictions repeatedly distinguish between legals and illegals, the differences are so blurred that it would be hard for citizens to make the distinction that Laubscher urges.
Government inconsistency is further shown when a Foreign Affairs official says that switching on the electrified fence on the Mozambican border would alienate the country’s neighbours, while the South African National Defense Force calls for the electric fence along the Mozambican border to be switched on and extended; its deputy minister, Ronnie Kasrils, says it will not be switched on; and its minister, Joe Modise, establishes a black commando unit to act against illegal border crossers and thieves. In an implied criticism of moderate statements issuing from some in government, Orr complains that ‘not all departments are on the same wavelength: Foreign Affairs doesn’t always know what’s what; Home Affairs has to deal with the problem on the ground’32. Buthelezi, too, laments ‘mixed signals’ from the government. The most frequent sender of an alternative signal is deputy president Thabo Mbeki, who has reminded South Africans that:
Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Botswana and other countries to which we fled in the 1960s did not call us illegal aliens. They said, ‘we are going to support our brothers and sisters from South Africa so that they can go home.’
Similarly, an ANC document notes:
While South Africa’s people experienced discrimination ... at home, the people of other countries fell victim to barbaric destabilisation policies which ... inflicted damage estimated at $65 billion on the economies of neighbouring countries. The region sustained us during our struggle and our destiny is intertwined with [it]: our people belong with each other.
But Laubscher responds:
South Africa has no moral obligation to accommodate the citizens of neighbouring states. [It] only has a moral obligation to accommodate refugees. Destabilisation has been a contributing factor to migration, but there are other more substantive reasons, such as economic decline.
Nor is this view unanimously held within the ANC. Penuel Maduna, deputy minister of Home Affairs, asks: ‘How does one compute a moral debt?’
A further contradiction may be posed by South Africa’s stated commitment to a culture of rights which may be eroded by anti-immigrant curbs. But the rights argument is a double-edged sword. A communication from Home Affairs argues:
The overriding consideration should always be protection of the inherent rights of South African citizens or permanent residents to employment opportunities ... [immigration policy] ... truly protects the public interests.
Buthelezi, responding to criticism by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, church groups and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said he was trying to protect the interests – rights? – of the poor. While refugees fleeing a country as a result of a well-founded fear of persecution have a right to migrate, the term ‘economic refugee’ is a misnomer.
As mentioned above, the distinction between refugee and economic migrant is nebulous in practice. The UNHCR notes:
It can be difficult to make a clear distinction between refugees and non-refugees. It has always been common for large-scale economic migrations to be accompanied by politically motivated exile or flight, and vice versa ...
Maduna tries to reconcile the human rights dimension with a commitment to the Aliens Act:
[O]ur job at Home Affairs is to carry out our aliens control function within the framework of the Aliens Control Act, 1991, with the necessary compassion and also with due regard to the human rights provisions in the constitution.
However:
History has shown us time and again that hunger and fear are driving forces which are much stronger than even the most sophisticated alien control measures. South Africa has become the country of survival for many people.
This point raises another strand in official thinking: one that sees regional development as the key to a solution. The deputy minister of Foreign Affairs, Aziz Pahad, argues that illegal immigration must be addressed through regional development. Here, his colleague Laubscher agrees: southern Africa must be seen as a regional unit, and it is important to develop the region.
The minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfred Nzo, favours a long-term regional development policy. He is hopeful that South Africa’s membership of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) will help it tackle illegal immigration from other countries in the region. He stresses South Africa’s role in helping these countries to develop internally, so that there would be no reason for their citizens to migrate. Maduna is also hopeful that regional co-operation will help to stem the tide:
Every step should thus be taken to make (neighbouring) countries economically viable. Once Southern Africa has reached economic maturity the tendency of world migration can be addressed as a joint effort.
However, the ability of this approach to curb immigration is open to question. Laubscher notes:
South Africa does not have the money to make a difference in economic development in the region, but it has the skills, expertise and technology. The transfer of skills and technology to assist the development of the region, and thus stem the influx of immigrants from neighbouring countries, is a long-term policy.
There are differences here too, between those who see development as a substitute for immigration control and those who see it is a complement. In the former camp is Rob Davies, ANC member of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, who proposes a distinction between migrants from the region and those from further afield. He contends that immigration policy should be informed by enlightened self-interest, and points out that deportations and repatriation will place more strain on the infrastructure and job markets of neighbouring states. This will exacerbate pressures to migrate. Pahad acknowledges that South Africa must have an immigration policy, but gives the assurance that the government will resist a tendency towards xenophobia. Others, however, imply that regional development can be mixed with continued control.
Similarly, some in government place their hopes for control on co-operation between countries in the region – despite the fact that SADC, which would presumably have to co-ordinate control, is considering a protocol on the free movement of persons. A Home Affairs official insists that regional agreement on control is nevertheless politically feasible since SADC governments ‘are not keen’ on free movement, recognising that it ‘... is impossible because of disparities in African economies. These proposals are 100 years ahead of their time.’Statements from other African countries raise doubts about this prognosis.
As well as eliciting contradictory government statements, the issue has produced surprising alliances across political divides: Freedom Front leader General Constand Viljoen and former uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) commander Tony Yengeni agree that the country cannot afford an estimated 210 million Rand a year to maintain border patrols, and that the only solution is regional development.
To this end, another curious alliance has emerged between Viljoen and the governments of South Africa, Mozambique, Angola and Zaïre regarding the settlement of white farmers, represented by the Free State and Transvaal agricultural unions. Johan Hartman of the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU) has denounced government promises of tough action against illegals, declaring: ‘You cannot force them back.’ This stance has much to do with the fact that, as Hartman acknowledges, farmers are employing large numbers of illegals. The agricultural unions are promoting the scheme as a means of stemming the tide of illegal immigrants, by transferring jobs, technology and skills across borders. The initiative has been welcomed by the South African president, Nelson Mandela, and the ANC secretary-general, Cyril Ramaphosa – but denounced by the National Party Minister of Agriculture, Dr Kraai van Niekerk, who complained that farmers seeking opportunities ‘between land mines’ could lack safety, and be accused of creating a new colonialism. He added that the marketing of produce grown in neighbouring countries could undercut the prices of South African farmers.
As Viljoen’s and Yengeni’s comments show, there is no agreement on the feasibility of control. As Buthelezi promises tighter controls, a senior official in his department confides that the task is as impossible as implementing the pass laws. Colonel Brian van Niekerk of the Aliens Control Unit confidently asserts that public pressure will ensure that: ‘The long-term trend is undeniably towards greater, not less, government effort and capacity to control international immigration’, Mbeki insists that the sum currently spent on repatriation is ‘money down the drain’, as most illegals return within a few days.
5. Disunited Union?
Inconsistency on policy is not restricted to government. Perhaps the most coherent position comes from the ANC-aligned Cosatu. Proposals in a research report presented by its think-tank, Naledi, and formally endorsed by the federation include: supporting the long-term goal of southern African economic union, including the free movement of labour; opposing xenophobia; giving preference to South African citizens in filling jobs, subject to allowing some access to the labour market by specified numbers of citizens from neighbouring countries; fair treatment and hospitality for refugees in accordance with international standards; equal treatment and conditions for all workers, South African or foreign; tougher penalties on employers who breach labour standards and exploit illegal immigrants; a review of the country’s existing policy on legal immigration; rooting out immigration-related corruption; accepting past admissions to South African citizenship; and avoiding witchhunts.
Cosatu, which has a significant foreign membership, has always stressed regional solidarity rather than immigration control. But its leaders may find it difficult to convince its members. At its congress last year, tensions emerged between the leadership and shop stewards. In 1994, the Pietermaritzburg branch threatened to strike in protest against illegal immigration, and called on Buthelezi to deport illegal immigrants. Its local chair said it would not allow local workers to remain unemployed while jobs went to people who did not have the right to live there.
6. Nationalism or Pan-nationalism ?
How do we explain the lack of consistency in the government’s response, which closely mirrors that of the citizenry?
An explanation may lie in the ambiguity of nationalism. Under apartheid, white South Africans generally defined blacks as ‘other’, nationally and on the rest of the continent. Many black South Africans identified whites as ‘other’, and blacks – nationally and on the rest of the continent – in terms of an inclusive pan-Africanism. After apartheid, this relationship seems to have become paradoxically inverted: many black South Africans do not seem to blame whites for their socially and economically inferior positions and the frustration of their expectations – they (largely) blame the black outsider. There are two possible reasons for this:
Firstly, the perceived shared historical experience between South African and foreign blacks has broken down; and secondly, old relations of difference between South African blacks and whites are perceived to have eroded.
The struggle against apartheid forged a kind of solidarity among black ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, sometimes articulated through the rhetoric of pan-Africanism. Black South Africans were victims of a discriminatory policy, as were nationals of neighbouring states, as a result of destabilisation or the migrant labour system. Denied identification with the (white) South African nation and barred from enjoying the rights of its citizenship, some black South Africans sought identification with those who had similar experiences, within and beyond South Africa’s borders. In much of the popular imagination, South Africa’s territorial boundaries became blurred.
Now that this fight is over, black South Africans are accorded the rights and entitlements associated with democratic citizenship. Recognition of the coincidence of South African citizenship with national boundaries may have resulted in identification of the ‘other’ as existing beyond these boundaries. The rights of black South African blacks are, formally at least, no longer threatened by, but shared with, the local ‘other’. For some, the newly perceived threat to these rights is the foreign ‘other’ who does not share their citizenship, and is therefore not legally entitled to these rights and entitlements.
South African citizens are now free to construct their national identity. In pursuit of national reconciliation, South Africans face the challenge of trying to work out what they hold in common in the midst of diversity. In the early days of transition, the one identifying feature they can all now acknowledge and share is citizenship, which bestows upon them equal legal status. And seeing that, to date, it is for some the only identifiable characteristic that signifies who ‘we’ are, it also designates ‘them’. It seems that, for some, the identification of ‘them’ is much easier and more obvious than the definition of ‘us’.
Similarly, on the political front the ANC has finally captured the state and may feel disinclined to cede any sovereignty which might be associated with making territorial boundaries more permeable, or make state resources available to non-South Africans.
There are some who still urge pan-Africanism. They claim that
It is only blacks who have suffered from this crackdown. They will deport someone from Transkei to Mozambique because he or she is too black to be South African. Black is beautiful, and South Africa is for beautiful people like blacks.
Others claim to be
very disappointed with people calling our African brothers ‘aliens’ ... South Africans should remember that one ideal of pan-Africanism seeks to destroy borders created by ‘foreigners’.
Similarly:
South African ... black sisters and brothers – you are embarrassing black people throughout the world. Calling a black brother an ‘alien’ and the man who plundered and raped you for more than 300 years a ‘brother’ is ... a shame...
Popular sentiment may be more accurately reflected by the response that:
Africans appear to believe that their skin colour gives them an incontestable right to be international citizens on this continent. The Universal Charter of Human Rights and African Charter of People’s Rights have not conferred such rights on anyone. These documents acknowledge that everyone has a right to nationality, and that no one should be denied the right to change it. It can be argued, however, that countries have an equal right to control who comes into them and enjoys that right.
This rhetoric of exclusive nationalism can also be used to mobilise against real or perceived threats to social and economic interests: Buthelezi has used the language of nationalism, claiming that ‘it is unpatriotic to employ foreigners’.
No longer able to blame an unrepresentative government for their ills, the poor and unemployed are shifting the blame to foreigners. Some black South Africans explicitly advocate a new apartheid: ‘When will the government reinstate influx control? The sooner they do that the better. I now fear for the future of my children, who could get Aids.’
It is also possible that many do see white social and economic privilege as an obstacle to the realisation of expectations, but believe the adversary is too powerful to oppose. Illegal immigrants, on the other hand, are conspicuously without rights and vulnerable. Most black South Africans also occupy a similar socio-economic position to most illegal immigrants. Thus they are more likely to come into contact with one another – in townships and in informal settlements, and in competition for the same jobs and services.
The most sharply distinguishing feature of illegal immigrants is the ‘otherness’ of their nationality. Thus they are called ‘grimbas’ and ‘makwerakwera’ because of the way they speak English. Because of their social proximity, the immediacy of their perceived economic competitiveness and their visible ‘otherness’, the foreign ‘other’ presents a more obvious target for attack than the local ‘other’ – and, at times, an opportunity to treat the former as many were once treated by the latter: in Mhala, reports Dolan, half the Mozambicans live in ghetto-like areas on the margins of local settlements. They commonly provide cheap labour to local villagers, who engage them for menial tasks. If one local ask another to perform such a task, the response is likely to be: U nga ndzi endli Mupoti, which translates as: ‘Don’t treat me like a Mozambican.’
The most often-stated, explicit reason for anti-immigration sentiment is economic necessity. Responding to a newspaper editorial attacking xenophobia, a reader wrote:
You ... have regular jobs, you have bread and butter on your tables every day, and it is clear... that you do not care about local black people who bore the brunt of apartheid and who were promised the heavens by the ANC, which has done nothing of substance to date.
What is clear is that anti-immigrant sentiment is widely held by voters. The issue is already a political football: the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) was the first political party to address it, threatening ‘physical action’ against illegals unless the government took ‘drastic steps’ to deal with the issue. The Alexandra Civic Organisation was accused, during the anti-foreigner campaign in Alexandra in January this year, of relying on illegal aliens for votes during the municipal elections. In a bizarre twist to ‘nationalism’, a National Party (NP) organiser has founded an organisation supporting illegal immigrants. The executive of Coreimo (Concerned Refugees and Immigrants of Mozambique) consists of NP activists, and the organisation is run from the NP office in Bushbuckridge. NGOs in the area claim Coreimo is providing refugees with identity documents in a bid to boost the NP’s performance in the municipal elections.
In a recent seminar at the Centre for Policy Studies, the Kenyan scholar Professor Ali Mazrui noted that South Africa was not unique in its xenophobic response: he pointed out that it is following a long tradition in Africa – Nigeria had expelled Ghanaians, Uganda had victimised Asians, and Idi Amin had been accused by Ugandans of being Sudanese. In Zambia last year, president Frederick Chiluba threatened his predecessor, Kenneth Kaunda, with deportation on the grounds that he was an alien: Kaunda’s parents were Malawian, and Zambia’s minister of Home Affairs insists that Kaunda himself is therefore a Malawian and must be deported.
However strong anti-immigrant sentiment may be among voters, the evidence suggests overwhelmingly that control is simply not feasible. This presents South Africa’s political leaders with a problem: how to deal with a popular demand that cannot be met.
7. Conclusion
The use of the qualifiers ‘some’ and ‘might’ in this discussion indicates the tentative nature of the explanations on offer, since the issue has yet to be fully researched. To explain more fully the apparent contradictions in policy, and in citizen response, there is a need to ascertain the nature of South Africa’s political culture, and identify more clearly who is responding in which way, and what assumptions inform their reactions. The nature of immigrant culture(s) also needs to be researched. Far more research is needed on the actual effect of immigration on the economy and society.
Only such future research will enable policy-makers to achieve a greater understanding of the issue and its social, political and economic implications, and help them to formulate appropriate, enforceable and cost-effective policies.
— References and Sources —
Newspapers surveyed
Business Day, The Star, The Citizen, EP Herald, Financial Mail, Finance Week, Beeld, Weekly Mail & Guardian, The Cape Times, Sowetan, The Natal Witness, Sunday Times.
Interviewees
Cameron, Neil. 1995. Department of Health.
Group meeting with Department of Labour, including Messrs Fischer, Reich and Bekker. 1995.
Hartman, Johan. 1995. Transvaal Agricultural Union.
Laubscher, David. 1995. Africa Desk, Department of Foreign Affairs. Laufer, Steven. 1995. Department of Housing.
Maphosa, Gideon. 1995. Chairperson of Affected Foreign Residents in South Africa Association (Afrisaa).
Orr, George. 1995. Department of Home Affairs.
Van Rensburg, G. 1995. Department of Home Affairs.
Other Sources
African National Congress, Department of International Affairs. 1993. Discussion paper: foreign Policy in a New Democratic South Africa. Johannesburg: African National Congress.
Charney, Craig. 1995. Voices of a New Democracy: African expectations in the new South Africa. Research report no 38. Johannesburg: Centre for Policy Studies.
De Kock, C., Schutte, C. and Ehlers, D. 1994. Perceptions of Current Sociopolitical Issues in South Africa. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council.
Dolan, Chris. 1995. ‘Aliens Aboard: Mozambicans in the New South Africa’, Indicator South Africa 12(3).
Independent Electoral Commission. 1995. The Report of the Independent Electoral commission: The South African elections of April 1994. Johannesburg: Independent Electoral Commission.
Maduna, Penuel. 1995. ‘Illegal Immigrants as a Domestic Issue’, in Southern African Migration: Domestic and regional policy implications, edited by R. de Villiers and M. Reitzes. Workshop proceedings no 9. Johannesburg: Centre for Policy Studies.
Reitzes, Maxine. 1994. Insiders and Outsiders: The Reconstruction of South African Citizenship. Policy Issues and Actors (8) 1. Johannesburg: Centre for Policy Studies.
Richmond, Anthony. 1994. Global Apartheid: Refugees, Racism, and the New World Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Toolo, Hilton and Bethlehem, Lael. 1994. ‘Migration to South Africa: problems, issues, and possible approaches for organised labour’, in southern African Migration: Domestic and regional policy implications, edited by R de Villiers and M Reitzes. Workshop proceedings no 9. Johannesburg: Centre for Policy Studies.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). 1993. The State of the World’s Refugees. New York: Penguin Press.
Van Niekerk, Brian. 1995. ‘Illegal immigrants: their negative contribution to safety and security in South Africa’. Paper delivered to a seminar hosted by the Institute for Defence Policy, Midrand.