The South African Negrophobia: Sub-imperial Blowback, Scapegoating and a Major Threat to Continental Unity

The current anti-migration protests in South Africa evoke a strong sense of déjà vu, recalling similar incidents in 2008, 2015, 2019, and 2021/2022. The 2008 incident looms large, claiming 62 lives, injuring 670 people, and displacing over 100,000, with Zimbabweans, Malawians, Somalians, and Mozambicans as the primary victims. Deeply entrenched as a violent phenomenon directed mostly at African migrants and, to a lesser extent, South Asian migrants, between 1994 and 2024 about 127,572 forced displacements took place, 5,310 stores were looted and 669 people were killed in the repeated xenophobic attacks. From May 2026 to the present, over 178,000 African migrants have left the country due to deportations by the South African authorities, while others have preferred to accept repatriation offers from their governments and the South African government. By August 2026, Zimbabwe recorded 115,000 returnees, Malawi 56,000, and Nigeria and Ghana both recorded over 1,000.  

The current xenophobic attacks are organised by March and March, a citizen-led social movement founded and led by Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma. The movement first gained prominence by demanding the exclusion of undocumented foreign nationals from public health care, before spreading anti-migrant politics countrywide. The attacks have resulted in vigilante raids, violent attacks, nationwide shutdowns and mass protests. In mid-2026, hundreds of thousands of mostly young, unemployed South Africans actively participated in organised demonstrations demanding the deportation of undocumented immigrants; door-to-door citizen arrests of undocumented migrants, who were then handed over to the police; physical assaults; workplace harassment; targeted killings; and the looting of foreign-owned small-to-medium businesses.

Three densely populated and economically developed provinces are the hotspots for current xenophobic attacks: the Gauteng Province, primarily in Johannesburg, specifically in the central business district, Jeppestown, Tembisa, Yeoville, Hillbrow, Soweto, Alexandria Park, and the informal settlements of Thembelihle and Thokoza, and in Pretoria, where marchers protested at the Union Building; the KwaZulu Natal Province, particularly in Ladysmith, Durban, and Umzimkhulu; and the Western Cape Province (notably in Delft, Kraaifontein, Bellville, Mossel Bay, Lutzville, and Vredendal). 

The government’s response to the attacks has been mixed. On the one hand, we have seen government officials repeatedly condemn xenophobia, vigilantism and Afrophobia as criminal acts. The police arrested 900 marchers for assault, looting and immigration violations on 30 June 2026. On the other hand, the government’s inaction towards the organisers, who to this day are walking scot-free while organising fresh protests, setting new deadlines for the deportation of undocumented foreign nationals, and receiving widespread media coverage from many news agencies, not only lends credence to anti-migrant politics but also eviscerates the government’s credibility in its condemnation of such acts as crimes and consequently guarantees recidivism. The case in point is that President Cyril Ramaphosa held a meeting with the organisers of the anti-migrant protests on 29 June 2026 emphasising that protesting is a democratic right of every citizen but that it should be conducted peacefully and within the confines of the law. Given the government's continued tolerance of the organisers, and following the massive nationwide shutdown on 30 June, the March and March organisers have set a new deadline of 30 September 2026.

Manufacturing the Other

South Africa has for some time been facing a set of intersecting, overlapping, and mutually exacerbating existential neoliberal crises that compound each other, from increased racialised, class-based, spatial and gendered inequalities to extremely high unemployment rates and low-paid, precarious work, democratic regression,  a general macroeconomic breakdown and social disarticulation, and many more. 

The knock-on effects of these multiple crises are many. First, the general weakening of state–society relations (i.e., a hollowed-out social contract as state legitimacy continues to weaken amid dwindling people’s confidence, faith, and trust in government). Second, the radicalisation of the far-right – pitted against the decline of classical left politics. Third, scapegoating the government’s failure to deliver on its promises to foreign nationals, particularly the undocumented ‘African Other.’ 

 The far-right in South Africa deploys a familiar playbook: designating the migrant other as both a strategic and existential threat to economic security, public safety, national security, and national sovereignty. In the US, the Make America Great Again (MAGA) frames it as a border crisis; in Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) frames it as protecting the ‘Christian Occident’ and resisting the dilution of German culture; in the UK, Reform UK frames it as a Small Boats crisis; while in South Africa, the far-right frames the African migrant as the ‘other’. In this tense political climate, far-right political parties such as ActionSA and the Patriotic Alliance, and social movements such as March and March and Operation Dudula, have been gaining traction with their necropolitics, ultranationalism, and xenophobic politics.

Afrophobia

Because many victims of the recent anti-migrant politics in South Africa were fellow black Africans from across the continent, the developments are more accurately described as anti-blackness or Afrophobia than as xenophobia. It is therefore crucial to revisit the questions of negritude. Negrophobia is an African and a global problem, not unique to South Africa: In 1969, under the Aliens Compliance Order, Ghana deported about 2.5 million undocumented West Africans. In 1983, under the Expulsion of Aliens Order - somewhat of a blowback of the 1969 Aliens Compliance Order in Ghana - Nigeria expelled about two million West African migrants, of which an estimated 1.2 million were Ghanaian nationals. In Zimbabwe, between 1983 and 1987, about 20,000 Ndebele people were killed during the Gukurahundi massacre, and in 1993 over 140,000 of the over 230,000 Mozambicans who had fled the civil war to Zimbabwe were deported to Mozambique. The ongoing systematic enslavement, torture and human trafficking of undocumented Sub-Saharan African migrants in Libya by armed gangs on their way to Europe is another illuminating case of antiblackness on the African continent; as is the Rwandan genocide of 1994 that saw the systematic murder of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. A compendium of past and present black-on-black violence linked to informal internal and cross-border migration would explain Ghana’s abortive attempt to have the recent South African xenophobic attacks treated as a standalone agenda item at the African Union Executive Council, and would argue for a broader continent-wide discussion on migration. 

Migration As A Sub-imperial Blowback

Nonetheless, the perspectives focusing exclusively on Afrophobia ignore a crucial aspect:

the problem with migration is, in many parts of the world, a colonial or imperial blowback.

I know this is a controversial charge, given the economic, social, state and ecological challenges posed by migration - especially by undocumented migrants, most of whom simultaneously occupy double-illegality and double-vulnerability statuses. But hear me out. Many times there is a significant correlation between human mobilities and ‘the journeys of capital’: people often emigrate to either their former colonisers or to places which their resources (i.e., both natural and human) helped to develop. In Africa, migration patterns reflect a jigsaw fit with the three broader colonial categories the continent is divided into: Anglophone Africans mostly go to the United Kingdom, Lusophone Africans to Portugal, while Francophone Africans go to France. 

While South Africa has never been a colonial power over any African nation, during the colonial era the UK used it as a colonial launchpad and imperial outpost to conquer neighbouring countries such as Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. Resultantly, South Africa, from the heydays of colonialism to the present, has been Africa’s subimperial power. By serving as an outpost of global imperialism on the continent during and after colonialism, it has maintained the dominance of its finance capital, both private and public, across Africa’s extractive, internet, telecommunications, tourism, banking and finance, retail, insurance, and specialised manufacturing industries. 

To further put this sub-imperial dominance into perspective, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has a market capitalisation in excess of $1 trillion and accounts for at least 60% of the total market cap of all African stock exchanges put together. Furthermore, Africa’s 20 biggest companies are South African-owned and headquartered, with most of their subsidiaries dotted across the continent. This is why a closer, more nuanced analysis reveals a significant correlation between the concentration of South African investments in certain African countries and the number of migrants from these countries domiciled in South Africa, both documented and undocumented. They are following their money. 

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions

A myriad of retaliatory measures were instituted by many African countries in response to the xenophobic attacks in South Africa. Collectively, these measures range from boycotting, divesting and sanctioning South African investments, goods, services and music. Ironically, these are the very measures with which the South African liberation movements relentlessly campaigned against the successive apartheid regimes. The international solidarity it attracted from other progressive forces helped immensely to dismantle the apartheid regime and usher in democracy in 1994. 

While no African country has issued a formal retaliatory statement to suspend or cut economic ties with South Africa due to diplomatic rifts in the wake of xenophobic protests, lawmakers and the general public are pushing for that, resulting in many South African transnational corporations (TNCs) doing business in many African countries (in Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Uganda, and other places) facing both existential and strategic threats. Ghana and Nigeria have also demanded reparations from South Africa for the loss of their citizens’ property following the anti-migrant protests. 

While acknowledging and condemning the xenophobic attacks as criminal acts rather than government policy, the South African authorities denied blanket reparations for all affected migrants, arguing that claims should be supported by credible documentation and that they must comply with South African law. 

In parallel, a form of cancel culture is beginning to emerge across the continent, targeting South African cultural influence. According to the South African Justice and Constitutional Development Minister, Mmamoloko Kubayi, several South African artists have recently had their shows cancelled in many African countries. For instance, in July 2026, a few days after the June 30 2026 deadline for migrants given by the anti-migrant organisers, South African Afro-pop music group Mafikizolo was removed from a high-profile concert lineup in Zimbabwe. The African hatred for South Africa was further illuminated during the opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup between South Africa and Mexico, when many African fans supported Mexico instead of South Africa. 

Last but not least, in July 2026, two Ghanaian nationals, Emmanuel Kotin (a security and counter-terrorism analyst) and Palgrave Boakye-Danquah (a former Ghanaian government spokesperson on security and governance), filed a petition with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against South Africa over a “pattern of widespread and systematic attacks” against African migrants. The duo argued that:

For years, African brothers and sisters have been killed, beaten and driven from their homes in South Africa… While we commend individuals in South Africa who have condemned these acts, the pattern, scale and recurrence of the violence raise serious questions about the failure of state authorities to prevent, investigate, and punish these crimes (Muia & Jones, 2026, para. 15-16).

While South Africa dismissed the ICC petition as baseless and opportunistic, the petition echoes South Africa’s audacious action of formally filing a landmark case on December 29, 2023, against the State of Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, arguing that Israel’s war on Gaza violated the 1948 UN Genocide Convention and constituted a genocidal act, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Israel dismissed the case as baseless and opportunistic. 

African Governments: Another Contradiction

This is not the only paradox in this story. We should not forget that the very governments condemning anti-migrant politics in South Africa, such as Spain - a primary gateway to Europe for African migrants through the Canary Islands, its enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta, and its land borders in North Africa - are the main reason many Africans are flocking to South Africa. At the same time, it is the exclusionary, prebendary, predatory, neopatrimonial and necropolitical politics of many African governments that are driving citizens out, and the nearest democratic republic where they can settle and flourish is South Africa. The central logic of these government models is to centralise both power and wealth in the hands of the few political and business elites, while failing to create and spread wealth among their peoples. African citizens are not voluntarily leaving their countries of origin; rather, they are pushed from one precarious situation into another, with no option but to seek greener pastures elsewhere. 

This situation therefore presents many African governments with an intractable contradiction: they condemn the South African government and its citizens for failing to protect or for ill-treating their citizens - while they themselves produced the very conditions that pushed these citizens to migrate in the first place. At the same time, for the South African government, the fact that the country is the preferred destination of migration vindicates the government’s position that South Africans are not xenophobic; if anything, the country is suffering as an island with a widened democratic space that allows everyone, including foreign nationals, to thrive and roam as they wish. From both perspectives flows the idea that the central question of the day is not South African xenophobia but rather why Africans are leaving their countries of origin.

Impact, Implications, and Way Forward

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa has featured prominently in world news — first for its handling of the crisis, and now for a very different reason. At home, rising xenophobic and Afrophobic violence stands in stark contradiction to the progressive image the country built internationally: a defender of human rights, a champion of the Global South, and a standard-bearer for anti-apartheid and negritude politics.

Put differently, South Africa is now turning against the very people — the racialised citizens of the Global South in general, and African "others" in particular — whose cause first won it global standing as a voice for the Global South.

Thus, from the foregoing analysis, the net effects of the recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa are threefold. First, further international isolation of South Africa at a time when it needs strong support and solidarity, following its diplomatic rift with the US due to its close ties with Iran; its Expropriation Act of January 2025, which the US government has branded as government-sponsored race-based discrimination legislation; its filing of a genocide case against the State of Israel over the war in Gaza; and “white genocide” allegations concerning the treatment of the Afrikaner minority.

Second, degrowth and deindustrialisation of the South African economy; as South African capital is spread across the African continent in many economic sectors (e.g., banking and finance, retail, telecommunications, tourism, mining), we have seen several cases in which South African companies were indiscriminately targeted in many African countries for BDS. At the same time, the impact of the exodus of many migrants has been severe. In the agricultural sector, reports reveal that following the anti-migrant protests that drove out undocumented African migrants, citrus fruit in the groves stretching from the Eastern Cape to Durban remains unpicked mid-harvest, while sugarcane in KwaZulu-Natal’s sugar belt remains uncut mid-harvest and grapevine farms remain unpruned and unharvested. At the same time, the sudden exodus of many skilled and experienced undocumented machinists from Mozambique and Malawi has left unfilled gaps in clothing factories across the country, leaving many struggling to meet orders while others are contemplating closing shop. Likewise, all sectors where undocumented migrant workers dominate have experienced similarly unprecedented challenges – from construction, retail, hospitality, illegal mining, and the township economy, to small-to-medium-scale businesses.

However, the major drawback is the weaning of South Africa’s subimperialism as the continent’s economic powerhouse and the reordering of Africa’s political and economic architectures - with some countries preferring economic nationalism while others opt for strategic coupling and recoupling with old and new friendly nations and transnational corporations. Crucially, these two implications collectively pose both existential and strategic threats to continental unity at a point when Africa needs it most: to collectively fight against both the superpowers and middle powers scrambling for control and ownership of the supply chains for Africa’s critical minerals and rare earths. 

In conclusion, this piece offers two recommendations. First, international solidarity movements should defend and advocate for the urgent regularisation and peaceful stay of undocumented migrants in South Africa. Second, these same solidarities should push African citizens to demand accountability from their own governments, rather than simply emigrating to escape the problem.

There is a bitter irony here: countries rich in both natural and human resources are shedding citizens in search of a better life elsewhere. African governments that condemn South Africa's anti-migrant politics should face equally sharp condemnation for the economic mismanagement and political authoritarianism driving their own people out. Ultimately, Africa's industrialisation, transformation, and democratisation are the only lasting answer to both problems.