Neva Makgetla
14 May 2008
opinion
Johannesburg — THE recent pictures of xenophobic violence in Alexandra bring to mind the near-civil war that raged there before 1994. They underscore the difficulty of finding constructive and effective solutions to social problems, instead of just blaming the "other" -- defined in this case by nationality.
The failure to deal with xenophobia reflects in large part the failure to face up consistently to the realities of SA's position as the core of an inequitable and exclusionary regional economy, long characterised by high levels of migrant labour. From that standpoint, the solution isn't to romanticise or demonise the continent, but rather to support development in neighbouring countries.
In the mid-2000s, SA accounted for only a fifth of the population of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), but almost three quarters of its gross domestic product and capital formation, and close to two thirds of its trade. In manufacturing and financial services, SA contributed more than 85% of regional output.
But that does not mean that SA somehow stood as an economic island. Rather, dependency ran two ways. While SADC countries needed SA for investment, goods and services, they provided a core export market for SA manufactures, construction and business services.
Migrant labour has long been a big part of the regional equation. For most of the past century, the South African state systematically imported labour from the rest of southern Africa, channelling it into the worst-paid, most oppressive forms of employment.
Complex systems were built up to facilitate the import of labour -- from the provision of special work permits to the mines' recruiting stations across the subcontinent.
The economies of Lesotho, Mozambique and Malawi, in particular, relied for decades on the export of hundreds of thousands of workers to SA.
From the early 1980s, however, the South African economy stopped creating lower-skilled employment on a mass scale, with huge job losses in mining and farming, and stagnation in domestic services. The result was mounting joblessness in SA, as well as neighbouring states. Yet the economies across the SADC could not expand employment overnight.
It is hardly surprising, then, that southern Africans have continued to migrate to SA in large numbers. Increasingly, they have provided an important source of skills, with an impressive presence in the higher echelons of the financial, academic and health services, among others. But visas for lower-skilled workers have largely dried up, constraining their options and ability to bargain for decent working conditions or indeed any formal employment.
In short, the roots of heavy migration to SA lie in the structure of the regional economy. In that context, the disastrous situation in Zimbabwe has further increased the numbers involved.
Meanwhile, ordinary South Africans still face high rates of unemployment and crime. In these circumstances, it is fatally easy to blame foreigners because they compete for economic opportunities. Indeed, as long as foreign workers are denied legal status, they have no choice but to accept marginalised occupations with the worst pay and conditions.
Unfortunately, neither the government nor civil society has constructed the new refugee problem as a social challenge requiring collective action. Instead, all we see is the apparently endless media coverage of border crossings, deportations and police harassment -- and now the tragic pictures from Alex and Mamelodi. The problems of dealing with the influx have been left largely to communities and individuals. That isn't working for anyone.
In the long run, SA needs to be far more practical and effective in ensuring development across the region. More immediately, we require a major effort to receive migrants, meet their immediate economic and social needs and protect their rights.
Makgetla is sector strategies co-ordinator in the Presidency.
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