In 2005, while I was studying in a little South African town, I could already notice some tensions towards foreign students: several times cars matriculated from Zimbabwe were damaged within the campus! I couldn’t understand why people who are educated would commit racist crimes. A Zimbabwean friend explained to me that he felt resented by his black South African classmates, as most Zimbabwean students got the best marks. Indeed, Zimbabwe used to have the best school system in Africa, and most Zimbabweans are very well educated and speak excellent English, whereas black South Africans have been kept undereducated during the apartheid regime until 1994.
2 years later, I’m back in SA, in Cape Town. The first thing I noticed was that there were lots of foreigners in this city! Almost every time I was in the train, reading Francophone magazines, my neighbour would read it with me, as there as many Congolese refugees in SA. Thousands of Mozambicans, Somalians, Malawians, Zimbabweans, Congolese, etc. found asylum in SA, escaping from famine, war, political oppression or poverty.
Many Mozambicans would work in the mines, most Somalians would run businesses, most Congolese would be car watchers. Many of them were well educated and were looking for better jobs, but in order to survive, would accept any job at any salary.
And this is part of the problem. They are now accused by black South Africans of stealing their jobs and of keeping salaries low by accepting to work at any cost. With 40% of unemployment (officially 25%), South Africa struggles to alleviate poverty, and the low education standards of many black South Africans (which are the results of the apartheid regime) represent a big obstacle to the improvement of the situation.
So, when food prices increased, and many families weren’t able to eat enough, what had so far been “somehow tolerated” became unbearable, and some hungry, angry, desperate people went as far as beating, burning, killing foreigners (apartheid taught them well…), looting their shops, kicking them away from their communities. As a result, almost all foreigners escaped and refugee camps were created.
I volunteered and visited some refugees in Soetwater refugee camp a few times before my voluntary service was over. They were shocked, desperate, living in poor conditions, between a rock and a hard place: they couldn’t go back home, but couldn’t go back to their communities either, it would have been too dangerous.
At the time I am writing, almost 2 months later, the situation is the same for them. The UN finally intervened (after Mbeki’s denial of the crisis situation…), but what they provided is apparently still not enough to comply with Human rights of refugees.
What just happened in SA, is for me what is soon going to happen to us (Europeans) if we carry on leading unfair economical and political rules. For instance, if we carry on providing low price food thanks to our agricultural subsidies and at the same time forbid African states to subsidize their own agriculture, we’ll just kill their economies, leading many people to seek for asylum in rich countries. But when resources and employment will become scarce, as it is starting now, the same kind of violence against foreigners is doomed to happen in our - so far - peaceful societies.
If the rules were fair for all countries in the world, international aid would be much less needed, and much less Africans would need to look for asylum in other countries.