South Africa’s Anti-migrant Campaigns Use the Language of Democracy: Why That’s Dangerous

Anti-migrant campaigns in South Africa are increasingly being framed as acts of community protection. Protesters present their efforts as a response to community concerns about crime, unemployment and failing public services.

Leaders of these campaigns claim that weak border controls, ineffective immigration enforcement and undocumented migrants have contributed to deteriorating living conditions in many communities.

These campaigns are framed as “clean-ups”, “community protection” or removing “illegal foreigners”. But this is using democratic language to justify othering. It can legitimise the exclusion of migrants by casting them as outsiders, which could increase the probability of violence.

In 2024, the March and March group emerged in Durban. It led “clean up” campaigns to rid the city – and the country – of “illegal foreigners”.

Under these campaigns, vigilantism peaked. Protesters made citizens’ arrests of street vendors suspected of being undocumented. They shut down businesses owned by suspected “foreigners”.

Now, the group has set 30 June 2026 as a deadline for undocumented migrants to leave South Africa. And as the date approaches, anti-migrant mobilisation is intensifying across the country.

Groups are taking advantage of increased socioeconomic hardships. But instead of linking these to deeper structural causes, such as inequality, poor governance and economic stagnation, frustration is being directed towards the 3 million migrants in South Africa (about 5% of the population).

We have spent many years as researchers and activists involved in grassroots politics, social movements and popular struggles in South Africa. Our work has included extensive research on anti-migrant mobilisation, including the recurring episodes of xenophobic violence and exclusion that have shaped South African politics since the mid-2000s.

Drawing on our findings, we argue that the leaders of the current wave of anti-immigrant activity have the same playbook as previous campaigners. They use the language of community protection, active citizenship and people’s power to turn social and economic frustrations into campaigns against migrants.

But the line between “community protection” and organised exclusion is extremely thin. When ideas such as citizenship, safety and accountability are used to draw that line, they can make exclusion appear legitimate while weakening everyday security for everyone.

The danger is that daily life becomes organised around constant boundary-making. This means belonging is closely policed and violence can become a means of enforcing those boundaries.

The rise of anti-migrant mobilisation

The first major xenophobic attacks in democratic South Africa started in 2008 in Alexandra, a working-class township, just a walk away from the ultra-rich Sandton City. The attacks then spread to different parts of the country.

The ruling African National Congress denied that it was xenophobia, claiming it was mere criminality. Xenophobia contradicted the “rainbow nation” image of ubuntu and human rights that the leaders of national liberation had cultivated after taking power.

Since then, xenophobic attitudes and attacks have continued in parts of the country.

Operation Dudula was born in 2020, targeting migrants from other parts of the continent. It is an organised movement with a programme and a leadership. It organises marches, and often dominates mainstream and social media with its messages and presence.

Operation Dudula is a separate organisation from March and March. But the two are closely connected through their anti-migrant mobilisation. Both take real grievances and turn them into a simple message: migrants are the problem.

In this process, democracy becomes the idea that some groups have the right to decide who belongs and who does not.

A key example is the April 2022 events in Diepsloot, North of Johannesburg. Residents protested about violent crime, frustration with policing and government failure. These concerns were real and widely shared. But during the protests, Dudula leaders encouraged people to take matters into their own hands.

Zimbabwean migrant Elvis Nyathi was set alight and killed by a vigilante mob of about 30 local men, after they identified him as an “illegal foreigner”.

Our research suggests that when migrants are repeatedly described as dangerous, it can create conditions where violence becomes easier to justify in the name of “community protection”.

Our argument is that anti-migrant campaigns invoke the notion of active citizenship and reinterprets it to espouse a politics of hatred of the black foreigner.

Thus, migrants become victims of the weaponisation of protest and grassroots democracy. They are scapegoats for the problems faced by South Africans.

Instead of challenging big business, capital and landowners, anti-migrant campaigners fight the man or woman on the street who has nothing, and who has been dispossessed by the economic and political processes that caused them to become migrants.

There is also a wider, global pattern: across many countries, political movements link everyday hardship to anti-migrant ideas, presenting exclusion as common sense or self-defence.

What next

Our research suggests that responding to this issue requires more than reacting after mobilisation and violence occur. It requires addressing the conditions that allow scapegoating to grow.

First, structural problems must be taken seriously by anyone who wishes to address poverty and inequality. People face unemployment, inequality and failing services. If these conditions do not change, anger will be directed towards vulnerable groups.

Second, language matters. Terms associated with anti-migrant campaigns like “illegal foreigners”, “criminals” and “clean-ups” are not neutral. They shape how people think and act, making exclusion seem normal or even necessary. Public debate should focus on concrete evidence, accountability of those in power, and structural solutions.

Third, the answer cannot be to divide poor and working-class people according to nationality. South Africans and migrants often face the same problems of unemployment, poverty and insecure livelihoods. Building solidarity against the system of capitalism (white monopoly capital in particular) is more likely to improve people’s lives than treating migrants as the cause of hardships.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the killing of migrants is a reminder of where othering can lead when it becomes normal to decide who belongs and who does not. Once this logic takes hold, it rarely stays limited to one group. In moments of crisis, it can expand to other vulnerable people. This was seen during the country’s May 2008 xenophobic violence in which 21 out of the 62 people killed were South African.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Read More at the Source