Simmering dislike and suspicion of foreigners were stoked again this weekend, with the launch of the Western Cape branch of Operation Dudula.
Hundreds of supporters of the movement marched through Cape Town’s streets on Saturday to hand over a memorandum of demands at the central police station in Buitenkant Street.
The group has been courting controversy in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, where it has been accused of fuelling violence and causing at least one death of a foreign national.
Just to be clear, Operation Dudula says it is not just anti-illegal immigrants, but is also oppose to other social ills like drug dealing, GBV and forced prostitution, amongst others.
But it’s our porous borders and the consequences of illegal immigration that it appears to be most concerned with.
I suspect most reasonable, law-abiding citizens will agree that illegal immigration is something that puts an enormous strain on our over-stretched resources and that government should address it more effectively.
But I’m pretty sure that dancing through the streets and chanting xenophobic slogans is going to do nothing to improve the situation, other than send waves of panic through the community of foreign nationals living among us.
Sadly, it seems that only foreigners of colour are being targeted by Operation Dudula – those from neighbouring African countries and Asia.
The argument is that they are behind most of the crime in our communities and that they are stealing jobs that could be going to locals.
Well, let’s interrogate that contention.
Almost all of the apprehended perpetrators of crime that gets reported, are locals – born and raised in the communities they are terrorising.
Of course there is the occasional foreign national caught committing a crime, but that is a statistical expectation everywhere in the world, not a trend.
I’ll tell what is a trend; the fact that universally, immigrants to a country work exceptionally hard, start businesses and create jobs for the locals.
They are often so grateful for the opportunities to earn a living, raise a family and live peacefully, that they end up being more patriotic than some citizens-by-birth.
As for stealing jobs, nothing stops a local from starting their own spaza shop or parking and guarding my car in town for small change.
What is stopping you from doing it? Certainly not a foreign national.
Like all other xenophobic groups masquerading as social benefit movements, Operation Dudula’s wrath is misdirected and misguided.
The group’s leadership is simply taking a page out of the playbook of anti-immigrant, nationalist groups in other regions of the world, like the USA and parts of southern Europe.
It’s always directed at immigrants of colour; as proven by how Ukrainian refugees are being welcomed by the same people who are fervently opposed to Africans also escaping war zones across the Mediterranean.
Make no mistake about it, the movement is being led by people with political ambitions. And they are using African immigrants as a tangible target for our collective anger and frustration at government’s failings.
But these are our fellow Africans; fellow human beings in search of better prospects.
They are not our pressure release valve; easy targets that can be assaulted and traumatised to voice our frustrations at our socio-political landscape.
Of course government needs to address illegal immigration, but we can’t assume every foreign national is here illegally and involved in criminality.
All the foreign Africans I have come into contact with over the years are honest and hard-working, willing to perform the menial tasks that we are unwilling to do, just so they can feed their families.
They are not the cause of our crises of crime and unemployment.
Operation Dudula is using the ignorant and misguided emotions of the masses to play a dangerous game with people’s lives.