The New Face of Prejudice

It is the kind of row that happens all the time in South Africa. A local woman, confronted by a Nigerian immigrant, told the man to go home where "millions of black people" needed him. You "should not have run away" from your own country, she said. Incensed, the Nigerian's colleague demanded she retract her comments. She refused.

Just another day in South Africa? Well, yes, except that this heated exchange took place not on the mean streets of Johannesburg, where locals and immigrants from across Africa regularly clash, but on the floor of the South African Parliament last September. Both parties are black Africans. Enyinna Nkem-Abonta, the Nigeria-born Trade and Industry Spokesman of the opposition Democratic Alliance, now a South African citizen, had angered South Africa's Deputy Minerals and Energy Minister Lulu Xingwana, a Xhosa from the Eastern Cape, by questioning the African National Congress government's policy of Black Economic Empowerment.

While South Africans struggle with the country's racist legacy, they are also confronting another painful social rift: xenophobia. Many citizens, both black and white, are alarmed at the number of black immigrants who have arrived since the first democratic elections in 1994. In that time, hundreds of thousands of people have come to South Africa, most of them illegally, from countries such as Angola, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Immigrants are routinely blamed for the high crime rates, the growing illegal drug trade, financial scams and rising unemployment.

Xenophobia has become such a problem that South Africa's Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) ordered an investigation to determine how widespread it is. Evidence from groups representing immigrants suggests that foreigners are regularly discriminated against by police, the Department of Home Affairs and private companies. The SAHRC report will be presented to Parliament soon.

Nkem-Abonta, who has a Ph.D. in economics, says he's developed a thick skin since moving to South Africa in 1994. He dismisses his run-in with Deputy Minister Xingwana as "just politics," but has encountered hostility toward foreigners elsewhere. At an interview for a job at a major South African state-owned enterprise, Nkem-Abonta says, the first question was, "'Where do you come from?' When I told them, one of the board members said, 'I have no questions for you.' He looked around at the others and they all agreed. I would get shortlisted for these jobs and then never make it past the interview."

Other immigrants face much worse. Many of South Africa's illegal newcomers cram into cheap rented apartments in inner-city Johannesburg, where they are easy prey for the city's slumlords and companies from restaurants to construction firms looking for cheap labor. The fact that they will work for much lower wages than South Africans makes them targets for attacks by locals angry that they're taking the few jobs available. "We come here to help ourselves," says Sam, who arrived from southern Sudan four years ago and says he's been beaten up at least half a dozen times in the notorious Johannesburg suburb of Hillbrow, where he lives. "But life's tough here. There's no welcome mat at the door."