South Africa’s Anti-Immigrant Unrest Tests Its Pan-African Standing

“My greatest takeaway from the marches is that they are less about immigration and more about the nature of South African politics, and the degree to which it has become captured by people willing to use the language of hate, threats of violence, and actual violence to shape the country’s political future.”Prof Loren Landau, SARChI in Mobility and the Politics of Difference, African Centre for Migration & Society

As South Africa grapples with its worst wave of anti-immigrant unrest in years, Landau warns that the marches reflect a deeper crisis of governance, not a legitimate debate on immigration. Politicians who lack genuine solutions to economic inequality, poverty, and unemployment are using immigration to advance their political careers.