The exodus: politics and extra

I swear if you throw a stone at random in Hillbrow, you are likely to hit a Zimbabwean—or some other African: Malawian, Nigerian, Congolese, Ethiopian, Somali, Zambian. Who that stone hits is up to fate. It is in this context that I wish to examine the phenomenon of migration to South Africa, focusing on Zimbabweans.

It would be slightly misleading, though, to try to understand migration solely from the situation in Hillbrow, where hordes of foreigners have made home. And for Zimbabweans, living in South Africa goes beyond that—it is a mixture of history, politics, and extra.

Perhaps, it would be prudent to start with history—the history of the Zimbabwean people. Zimbabwe, like all of Africa, is a multi-ethnic country. The Shona are the largest ethnic group followed by the Ndebeles. If, as it has for long been claimed, Africa is the cradle of all mankind, then South Africa is the cradle of most of Zimbabwe.

I will give you a bit of history.

The similarities of southern African languages have long been of interest to anthropologists and linguists. Sometimes, it would take a keen ear to tell languages apart. Let's take the Shona (Zimbabwean) and Venda (South African) languages. There is a striking similarity between the two languages such that it’d be hard to tell whether you are in South Africa or Zimbabwe if you threw geography to the wind. Historians such as D. N. Beach have linked the Shona and Venda to a South African historical site called Mapungubwe. Archaeologists have claimed that the building style used here is the same one found up north in the Great Zimbabwe ruins. Now it shouldn’t take a keen eye to link the language similarity and building style to a shared ancestor. Of course, there are die-hard separatists who argue that language similarities are probably only evidence of an evolved lingua franca for trading and that the similar building styles could be due to prevailing styles at the time much like Victorian architecture. But I say that once you visit Beitbridge, the centre of these languages, you will notice that the difference between these two languages is like that between your right and left eyes.

Now to the Ndebele tribe and language

If the connection between Shona and Venda is speculative, the Ndebele - South African connection is unquestionable. Here I should note that although the tones are almost similar, the Ndebele that is one of the official languages of South Africa is not the same Ndebele spoken in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean Ndebele language is closely related to Zulu, with a lace of Xhosa. (Zulu and Xhosa are both official languages in South Africa.) The Ndebele language, the so-called Northern Zulu, is a convolution of languages, mostly Zulu. People confuse these two (Ndebele and Zulu) such that the difference between them is the nationality of the speaker.

The Ndebele people of Zimbabwe migrated from Zululand in South Africa during the protracted Mfecane Wars of Shaka Zulu in the 19th century and settled up north in present-day Zimbabwe. They were a chiefdom led by one of King Shaka’s lieutenants, Mzilikazi, who eventually became king upon settling in Zimbabwe. In short, I can say that the difference between Ndebele and Zulu is the same—whatever that means.

Of mining and migration

The theme here, though seemingly blurred by the discourse on language, is still migration. And migration, whatever form it takes, has separated a lot of people the world over.

Labour migration in Southern Africa intensified with the discovery of diamonds in Kimberley in 1870 and gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886, such that by 1911 the South African gold mines had become the major regional employer of migrant labour. Massive labour recruitment was mainly handled by Witswatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA), and it eventually became so rampant, that it became almost a rite of passage for young men to go with WNLA to the South African mines.

“There is a striking similarity between the two languages such that it’d be hard to tell whether you are in South Africa or Zimbabwe if you threw geography to the wind.”

The influence of gold mining cannot be underestimated if one is to understand the migration into South Africa by Zimbabweans. Gold mining patented Johannesburg, eventually christened eGoli which means the place of gold. The gold mining phase marked a new epoch in migration in which people migrated for economic reasons. This largely defines the nature of migration to South Africa at present. The dominance of the South African economy in the African continent has spurred a search for greener pastures. I can recall in 2008—when the world was reeling under a serious economic recession and the Zimbabwean economy was nosediving—that it was not unusual for even a toothpick in Zimbabwe to have come from South Africa, courtesy of a family relative. South Africa has become a regional hub of employment, and my countrymen have flocked there with hope for a better future.

The politics of migration and xenophobia: the present state

The issue of migration to South Africa will always be embedded in politics: politics in the exporting country and politics in the host country. Many Zimbabweans have fled the turbulent economic environment in Zimbabwe, which is mostly dictated by politics. Other foreigners, mostly Congolese and Ethiopians, have fled conflicts in their home countries.

“South Africa has become a regional hub of employment, and my countrymen have flocked there with hope for a better future.”

In Africa is Not A Country, Paul Adensami claims that once apartheid was over in South Africa, the black South Africans immediately created their own system of apartheid towards the foreigner whom they referred to as the kwerekwere. This term is as dehumanising as the word nigga or kaffir. I find it to be even more disturbing considering that it comes from fellow black men—black on black—and it birthed xenophobia.

It takes less than a day of scrolling through Twitter to notice the keyboard politics of migration, and how it has taken a twist with hashtags that fan xenophobia. It seems the lines between being a patriot and being xenophobic have become blurred for many people. Sometimes, it seems that politicians deliberately stoke these tensions to divert the limelight from pressing issues that seek redress. Thus, the foreigner has become a scapegoat for every evil deed that happens in South Africa, sometimes for issues that have no basis that one wonders how the logic of the keyboard politicians on Twitter works.

In all this entanglement, there is one figure that foreigners, especially Zimbabweans, worship when it comes to migration politics, and that is the firebrand politician Julius Malema. To borrow from one Nigerian scholar, the issue of borders indeed ossifies relations between people, even those of the same colour. There is this distance, this otherness, that belonging to another nation conveys which some people capitalise on to commit atrocities against other nationalities.

Not with Malema! This South African politician is not afraid to go against the wind of politics and take a stand against what he perceives to be unjust. He has on numerous occasions likened Zimbabwe to any part of South Africa, taking a sober realism stance that xenophobia is not the way to address the issue of the influx of foreigners into South Africa. On numerous occasions, he has lambasted the leadership in Zimbabwe for failing Zimbabweans and calling for a regional focus on issues that affect the region. The Economic Freedom Fighters, the political party founded by Malema, founding manifesto states that “no amount of sustainable socio-economic development and stability will be realised in South Africa unless the state plays an active role in the economic development of the African continent”. This is a true realisation that African states are interconnected at many levels, that perhaps Africa is one country, that the world is a global village. It is like that Osama Bin Laden’s note to Barack Obama stating there will never be peace in America unless there is peace in Palestine.

It is quite dangerous to ignore the issue of persuasion as it essentially leads to incitement to sinister deeds. It starts with one careless tweet aimed at a foreigner; more people join in, and tempers flare out of control. This is an issue that America, following the insurrection at the Capitol, is still grappling with—with all fingers pointed at former President Donald Trump. It took cheap politicking, in an environment that had all the logs for a bonfire, for such an attack to happen, and the South African society needs a vanguard against such.

So many people seeking relevance in the South African political context simply bemoan the borders as the reason for the influx of foreigners, which is a level of inanity far beyond grasp. The exodus has to be looked at differently, with a critical analysis of exporting nations as the sources of migration. This is Africa: borders should be seen as colonial artefacts and a semblance of security formalities, not used to deter the movement of people across nations. Even countries with the most stringent of border patrol policies fail to deter illegal migration. Acknowledging that people move, for whatever reason, and then setting about to help them might actually stem the growing tide of migration the world is witnessing.

Africa is one country!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Willard Tendai Masara is a Psychology graduate who, like many Zimbabweans, migrated to South Africa in the hope of a better life. He was a member of the Writers Club at university where he would write and sell short stories to other students. He is an independent researcher with particular interest in migration. He is currently working on a novel.