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Who is really behind South Africa’s rising xenophobia? This analysis explores the economic and political forces driving anti-immigrant violence.
By IMRAAHN ISMAIL-MUKADAM
The banners are back. The torches are lit. And once again, poor, black African migrants are being hunted through the streets of our townships.
The March to March movement and Operation Dudula present themselves as grassroots citizen uprisings. But step back and look clearly. This level of coordination, media savvy, and cross-provincial mobilisation does not emerge from tavern corners. It is organised, structured, and well-resourced. This is not organic anger. It is manufactured discontent with a clear objective: regime change through ethnic division.
Let me state plainly what many are afraid to say. These movements are anti-black and anti-African. They never march against white monopoly capital. You will not see them outside the estates of Clifton or the boardrooms of Sandton, where 70 per cent of agricultural land remains under white ownership and eight of the ten richest South Africans are still white men. Instead, their fury is reserved for a Somali spaza shopkeeper or a Zimbabwean refugee eking out a living in Hillbrow.
Why? Follow the money. The township economy is worth over R600 billion. Shoprite is aggressively expanding into townships through its Usave brand. Boxer plans more than 500 new stores in underserved areas. Every immigrant-owned spaza shop harassed, looted, or burned is a customer who must now walk to a formal retailer. The question is uncomfortable but necessary: who is funding the organisations softening up the competition?
And what of the contradiction in their slogan that ‘foreigners’ must ‘go back to their own countries and fight for their freedom’? During apartheid, the Frontline States took in thousands of South African refugees. They sacrificed blood and treasure for our liberation. They did not demand visas or ask us to ‘fight for ourselves’. To now turn on their children is historically illiterate and morally repugnant.
Even more telling is the selective vision of those who rage against poor African migrants while ignoring wealthy European immigrants. The requirement to invest R5 million (quadrupled from earlier thresholds) gives European property buyers and dual citizens infinitely more economic power than any undocumented hawker. Why do these movements not march against the Europeans driving up property prices in Cape Town’s Atlantic Seaboard? Why not demand answers about the number of Israeli dual citizens with military backgrounds living comfortably in our suburbs? The damage they do to housing affordability and economic sovereignty is far greater than any survivalist migrant selling fruit on a roadside.
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Most undocumented immigrants live in the same squalor as their South African neighbours – cramped backrooms, leaky shacks, menial labour. What sets them apart is not privilege. It is grit, ingenuity, and supportive networks. They are not stealing jobs. They are creating economic nodes where none existed, employing local youngsters, paying rent to local landlords, and buying from local wholesalers. To burn their shops is to burn your own neighbourhood’s oxygen.
And let us not forget: African migrants built this country. Slaves from Mozambique built the Cape. Indentured labourers built the sugar plantations. Today, immigrants – documented or not – contribute over R27 billion annually in taxes. They are part of our economic fabric, whether the xenophobes admit it or not.
Yes, we need better border control. Yes, undocumented migration must be regulated. But the militants’ solution – mass deportation and vigilante violence – will not create a single sustainable job. It will simply replace one chaos with an even greater chaos.
There is a credible alternative. We need economic integration with clear rules. Require local equity targets – for example, 30 per cent South African ownership in immigrant-run spaza shops. Mandate employment quotas for local hires. Create government-sponsored mentorship programmes where South African informal traders partner with immigrant entrepreneurs to share skills and supply chains. Enforce tax compliance and formal registration, then open the door to state-backed micro-loans and protection from both criminal extortion and vigilante violence.
This transforms a chaotic, underground economy into a viable, lucrative growth sector. It stimulates local economies, expands the tax base, funds service delivery, and creates genuine opportunities for all.
Most critically, we must reject the notion that children born in South Africa to at least one South African parent should ever be made to feel unwelcome in the land of their birth. We are not Trump’s America. We do not separate families.
The real threat to South Africa is not a Somali shopkeeper. It is a well-funded, politically orchestrated campaign to turn neighbour against neighbour – tribalistic, right-wing, and likely financed by the very white monopoly interests that benefit most from a divided and destabilised nation.
The Frontline States did not sacrifice for us so that we could become xenophobic bullies. We are better than this. Or at least, we used to be.
Imraahn Ismail-Mukadam is a community activist and the CEO of Inspire Network.
