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The pervasiveness of anti-immigration sentiment and rhetoric in South Africa reflects the failure of a nation-building project. In difficult material conditions, where structural transformation is wilfully not pursued, appealing to the notion of the nation, or sentiments of exclusion and belonging, become critical. Class solidarity has all but run its course. What remains is to cling to metaphysical categories. Think of the US following the fallout from the 2008 financial crash. No transformative measures were implemented to stem the tide of economic despair. What emerged was the appeal to a national imaginary, embodied by the slogan Make American Great Again.
Affirmative action policies and employment equity measures failed to strengthen a nation-building project. While these measures served a legitimate ethical imperative, they also strengthened the ANC’s grip on state coffers and deepened patronage networks. Unfortunately, other crucial initiatives to promote national cohesion have been neglected. For instance, indigenous language development policies, outlined in the Constitution are not realised, due either to a lack of funding or simple state capacity deficits. The state’s unwillingness to elevate indigenous language in a context of the continued dominance of English fuels precarity. Neglect of cultural markers such as language, contributes to national insecurity which can result in a politics of ethnic, racial and national chauvinism.
In this election year, there is clearly a consensus among political parties on the question of immigrants. While some are more hardline than others, there is broad agreement that immigration is the central question of our time, as critical as poverty, inequality and unemployment. Herman Mashaba, leader of ActionSA, is vocal about supporting the anti-immigration movement ‘March and March’. The Patriotic Alliance, led by Gayton Mckenzie, were the originators of the common refrain ‘Abahambe’. The ANC, while not overtly supporting the movement, have through their silence, tacitly condoned its logic and political reasoning. Even the EFF, the most vocal critics of anti-immigration, are not without complicity. Recall in 2022, when the EFF staged widely documented site visits to restaurants to verify that illegal immigrants were not being employed. The fact that only the EFF has thought to resist anti-immigrant politics, illustrates that parties see it as a crucial vehicle through which to communicate to voters, separating the potential voter from other segments of the community.
The selected text for PARI’s annual reading group for this autumn/winter period is Nicholas Kuipers’ States against Nations. Kuipers poignantly asserts that, when emerging from major social conflict such as war or decolonisation, state-building and nation-building are not reciprocal or reinforcing. Kuipers presents a trade-off between state-building – which involves categories such as state efficiency and capabilities – on the one hand, and nation-building on the other. For instance, securing some level of redress through regulation for a previously oppressed group can positively affect nation-building, but the absence of meritocracy in a state bureaucracy will have obvious drawbacks on state functioning and efficiency.
In the book Kuipers recounts the fundamental, historical disagreement between the leadership of what would become Malaysia and Singapore after the decolonisation of British Malaya. Singapore opted for a strict regime of meritocratic appointments in the public service. While Malaysia wanted to pursue a programme of affirmative action to secure employment in the public service for the majority ethnic Malays, who under the British, were excluded from the bureaucracy in favour of the minority ethnic Chinese. Eventually, while Singapore can be said to have a well-functioning state, it seems to sorely lack a national ethos. While on the other hand, Malaysia sacrificed, particularly in its early years, some state performance and efficiencies for nation-building.
After the democratic transition, SA followed a similar route to Malaysia. While the mainstream media latched onto the notion of a ‘rainbow nation’, it was incompatible with the ANC’s conception, which is that SA possesses different national groups, with Africans positioned as the true bearers of the national destiny. Securing appointments in the civil service for African people therefore, reflected a project of nation-building in motion. But despite these efforts, the prevalence of an anti-immigrant politics demonstrates a deep failure to foster nation-building in the context of diversity. The lashing out against immigrants indicates a deep sense of national insecurity.
Concerning cultural signifiers, at this month’s PARI seminar series, Dale Mckinley of Kopanang Africa, alluded to the numerous recorded incidents where proficiency in South Africa’s indigenous languages became the medium to demonstrate national belonging. It is not without irony, that the neglected issue of indigenous language became the crucial litmus test for belonging in SA’s current climate. This kind of purity test would be different say, for unwanted Arab and African immigrants in a western European country, where belonging to the nation is enmeshed with phenotypical racial characteristics, what sociologist W. E. B Du Bois referred to as skin, hair and bone. In South Africa, despite the relative difficulty in separating insiders from outsiders based on phenotype, the supposed slight variation in skin tone, bone structure and hair texture have also become a visible marker.
South Africa during apartheid was a unique case of an industrialised economy simultaneously governed on a legislated system of racial oppression. This produced a perception of exceptionalism. South Africa, however, is in fact, an unremarkable country in the community of nations. While embers of a perceived moral authority remain dimly lit – such as in taking Isreal to the ICJ for genocide – it emulates the ordinary and typical sentiment of its western counterparts, most clearly illustrated by the hegemony of anti-immigration.
Within progressive circles, anti-immigration is claimed to be a symptom of state failure. This is true! But the question is, why are people’s righteous anger directed towards the poor and vulnerable, and not the state?
The mainstream anti-immigrant current reflects a failure not only of state capabilities but nation-building as well. The strategic decision by political parties to use it as an electioneering tool, points to a profound crisis of party politics in South Africa. Parties seemingly lack imagination and the creativity to speak to the material conditions of voters and thus lazily resort to cheap tricks to communicate with a disillusioned electorate.
