Apartheid Racism and Post-apartheid Xenophobia: Bridging the Gap

Media images of Africa seems to suggest that the continent is characterised by mass exodus to the Global North. Most African migration actually occurs within the continent. Conflict and other governance challenges, as well as poverty and relative deprivation all contribute to human mobility within the continent, as well as overseas. On the continent, South Africa is the most preferred destination by immigrants – the country has a robust economy and constitutionalism firmly grounded in the respect for human rights. Xenophobic violence has continued to erupt in the “new” South Africa and I attribute this to a culture of violence in South Africa originating from apartheid. Immigrants in South Africa experience multiple forms of discrimination and oppression which manifest in covert and overt experiences of xenophobia. Looking at South to South migration, in this chapter I investigate the consequences of intra-African migration, and particularly how xenophobia in the post-apartheid state is grounded in South Africa’s racist past, and argue that immigrants are surviving in a “post-apartheid-apartheid” South Africa.