Every few years, South Africa returns to a painful and unresolved question: why does hostility towards foreign nationals keep resurfacing?
The demonstrations on 30 June, organised by groups including Operation Dudula and March and March, once again placed immigration at the centre of national debate. Supporters argued that stronger action is needed against undocumented migration, saying that uncontrolled migration places additional pressure on jobs, public services and struggling communities.
These concerns cannot simply be dismissed.
A country has the right to manage its borders, enforce its immigration laws and ensure that employment regulations are respected.
But South Africa’s xenophobia problem is bigger than immigration.
The anger directed at foreign nationals is also a reflection of deeper frustrations — decades of inequality, persistent unemployment, weak economic growth, declining trust in institutions and a growing sense among many citizens that the promises of democracy have not translated into economic security.
Foreign nationals have increasingly become the visible face of problems that are far more complicated than migration.
The danger is that by focusing only on foreigners, South Africa risks addressing the symptom while ignoring the causes.
A crisis shaped by history
South Africa’s relationship with migration has always been complex.
From the late nineteenth century, the country’s mining economy relied heavily on migrant workers from neighbouring countries, including Mozambique, Lesotho, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
Under colonial rule and apartheid, migrant labour was managed through systems that controlled movement and encouraged competition between communities. Labour divisions were used not only for economic purposes but also as a tool of social control.
Although apartheid ended more than three decades ago, many of its economic consequences remain.
South Africa today has one of Africa’s most sophisticated economies, but also one of the world’s highest levels of inequality. The World Bank has repeatedly highlighted the country’s extreme income disparities, where wealth and opportunity remain concentrated among relatively few people.
For millions living in townships and low-income communities, political freedom has not yet delivered economic security.
This gap between democratic expectations and economic reality has become one of the foundations of public frustration.
Many South Africans expected democracy to bring faster improvements in employment, housing and living standards. Instead, millions continue to face unemployment, poor public services and limited access to economic opportunity.
Unemployment created the conditions for blame
South Africa’s unemployment crisis sits at the centre of today’s tensions.
Statistics South Africa continues to report unemployment above 30%, with young people particularly affected. For many young South Africans, unemployment is not a temporary setback — it has shaped their entire adult lives.
Economic research has consistently shown that migration alone is not the cause of this crisis.
Analysis cited by Reuters and other economic researchers points instead to structural problems: weak economic growth, declining manufacturing competitiveness, unreliable electricity supply, limited investment and insufficient job creation.
The challenge is not simply that too many people are competing for jobs.
It is that South Africa has not created enough opportunities for a growing working-age population.
But structural problems are difficult to see.
A weak investment environment is invisible.
Poor governance is invisible.
A foreign-owned shop on a busy street is not.
In many townships, businesses owned by Somali, Ethiopian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Chinese entrepreneurs have become part of the local economy.
Many of these businesses have succeeded through family networks, longer working hours, competitive supply chains and lower operating costs.
For some local traders, however, this success is experienced as competition in an economy where opportunities already feel limited.
The perception becomes powerful:
Someone else is taking what should have been ours.
Whether that perception reflects the full economic reality is a more complicated question.
But politics is rarely shaped by statistics alone.
It is shaped by lived experience.
The politics of blame
The rise of anti-immigrant movements reflects this frustration.
Supporters of organisations such as Operation Dudula argue that they are responding to communities that feel abandoned by government. They point to weak border controls, undocumented migration and concerns about jobs and public services.
Critics, however, argue that such movements risk turning legitimate concerns about immigration management into broader hostility towards foreign nationals.
Both realities exist.
South Africa does face challenges related to immigration governance. Border management requires improvement. Labour laws need stronger enforcement. Employers who exploit undocumented workers should be held accountable.
But immigration cannot become an explanation for every social problem.
South Africa’s unemployment crisis did not begin with recent migration.
Municipal failures did not begin with foreigners.
Crime cannot be reduced to nationality.
These challenges are linked to much deeper issues involving economic policy, state capacity and social inequality.
The appeal of blaming outsiders is understandable because it offers a simple explanation for complicated problems.
Fixing unemployment requires long-term economic reform.
Fixing governance requires rebuilding public institutions.
Fixing inequality requires difficult structural changes.
Those solutions are far harder than identifying a visible group to blame.
Fear, crime and identity
Crime has added another layer of complexity.
South Africa faces serious challenges involving violent crime, organised criminal networks and weak law enforcement.
When communities feel unsafe, they naturally search for explanations.
Foreign nationals sometimes become part of those explanations, particularly when individual cases involving migrants receive widespread attention on social media.
However, this does not mean crimes committed by foreign nationals should be ignored.
It means individual cases should not automatically become explanations for national trends.
Crime is influenced by many factors, including poverty, inequality, unemployment, policing failures and the availability of illegal weapons.
Reducing it to migration alone risks misunderstanding the problem.
The same pattern appears in debates about belonging.
During periods of economic pressure, distinctions between legal migrants, undocumented migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and long-term residents often become blurred.
People are increasingly judged not by their legal status, but by whether they are perceived as insiders or outsiders.
That is when economic competition becomes identity politics.
South Africa needs solutions, not scapegoats
South Africa needs a serious conversation about immigration.
It needs effective border management.
It needs fair enforcement of labour laws.
It needs a system that distinguishes between legal migration and unlawful activity.
But it also needs to confront the deeper reasons why public frustration has become so intense.
Removing foreign nationals will not solve unemployment.
It will not repair failing municipalities.
It will not restore economic growth.
It will not reduce inequality.
The country’s real challenge is not simply deciding who belongs.
It is creating a society where more people — especially young South Africans — believe they have a future.
Foreign nationals have become symbols of frustration.
But symbols are not causes.
Xenophobia is not South Africa’s only crisis.
It is the symptom of many crises left unresolved.
The country will not overcome those crises by finding new groups to blame.
It will overcome them by confronting the failures that made blame so attractive in the first place.
By Quan Liang