An eerie video is doing the rounds on TikTok. In it a man, seemingly operating all alone – Iskhakhaka (traditional Zulu shield) strapped to one forearm, a sjambok in his other hand – is walking briskly through what appears to be a downtown taxi rank in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal. Happening upon street vendors, he viciously lets loose with his whip. Occasionally, he is polite enough to first ask a question, ostensibly to weigh up the hawkers’ vernacular proficiency.
Mostly though it seems that the physical appearance of his victims is enough to determine their immigration status. Or that they are shangaan, often synonymous with verboten in the vulgar epistemology that’s increasingly gaining traction amongst the go-home lynch mob. Never mind that historical record clearly shows that amashange are, for the most part, descendants of Soshangane, a Nguni chief who fled up north during Shaka’s bloody conquests. In these hateful times, they are often reduced to undesirables who use muti on women and will readily accept slavish wages from stingy employers.
The witch-hunt has barely begun but for the faint-hearted the nerves are already on edge. One of those videos that tug at one’s heartstrings is that of a Zimbabwean barber being accosted outside his salon. He’s visibly frightened, compliant, and by the time he has been instructed to immediately close his business, the listlessness in his face is so unmistakable that when he has lifted his young child tightly to the chest, you scroll by because it becomes emotionally taxing to watch any more. It’s painful, it smacks of Hutu-ism and it seems like a PG trailer of the gratuitous barbarism that 30 June has in store should government fail to move fast enough.
These are just a few in a stream of startling videos circulating on the socials but stand out because of the sheer – I don’t know exactly what to name it – impunity, heartlessness or possibly a manifestation of the latent intolerance and pent-up rage and disillusionment that’s fast unraveling and likely to culminate in bloodshed and twisted bodies.
In their current manner, it is difficult to make sense of March and March – yet another confrontational wing of the ‘abahambe’ cabal. Are they genuinely patriotic activists simply running their mouths, or Zulu ethno-nationalists doing the bidding of faceless political puppet masters or simply nothing more than a ghetto gestapo eager to round up and eliminate suspects in the dead of night? On the one hand, they frame themselves as peaceful protesters who just want South Africa to work in the benefit of its citizens.
However, the argument of Gandhi-esque pacifism soon falls flat when one sees the random and unprovoked vigilante whippings and beatings that are recorded and circulated like some browbeaten warning – FAFO. F***k around and find out. It’s only a matter of time before things spiral out of control when protesters are recorded scaling, breaking into, and raiding buildings purportedly occupied by foreign drug dealers. With the flaring up of similar organisations, it’s hard to tell exactly who’s who and what else they might be getting up to when the cameras have been switched off.
And, if you thought that the raids were confined primarily to KwaZulu-Natal, with a smattering presence in parts of Gauteng and Eastern Cape, you’d better think again. At the time of writing on Saturday, 23 May, March and March were deep in Bellville, embarking on their maiden march in Cape Town. The eNCA cameras showed a credible turnout for the organisation’s leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, who, between references to foreign nationals, also spoke to those problems that have long marred these peripheral Western Cape communities such as no-go zones for police, drugs and so forth.
Earlier in the week, a group of protesters led by Nkosikhona ‘Phakel’umthakathi’ Ndabandaba and the profane Ngizwe Mchunu – a duo whose capability to mobilize amabutho (the Zulu traditional regiments) has gained them heroic status on the web – marched on the Somali Embassy in Pretoria. Noticeably unperturbed by the diplomats and police contingent before them, they reiterated the alarming ultimatum that all undocumented foreign nationals should leave by June 30.
‘Mr Ambassador,’ began Phakel’umthakathi, ‘all the Somalis that are not here legally, please deport them. Find them and deport them … Somalis must respect us … you don’t go out with an underage girl. Your Somali guys that are owning shops, they are sleeping with young girls.’ He also vowed that he would sooner die than to see the country being taken over by Somalis, who, he says are notorious for smuggling arms to hijack ships. In other videos, Phakel’umthakathi has also expressed that when push comes to shove, not even law enforcement will have enough muscle to contain their wrath.
On the political front there has been mixed messages. President Cyril Ramaphosa has come out to say: ‘While appreciating the hardship in some of our communities, we have strongly condemned those of our citizens who took the law into their own hands.’ On a SkyNews interview, EFF leader Julius Malema has called the anti-illegal foreigner mobs ‘charlatans,’ ‘extortionists,’ ‘disruptors,’ reducing their escapades to ‘clownish’ behaviour. On undocumented foreigners ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula has echoed his political principal’s sentiments; ‘the rule of law must dictate what must actually happen. People cannot take the law into their own hands and render us a banana republic. The state must intervene.’
Among the chattering class, some say that this is yet another scheme by monopoly capital to pit black Africans against one another. In this looming mayhem, others are predicting the birth of something akin to the Arab Spring where the people will rise up and bring about drastic and revolutionary change. To this layman, however, if not nipped in the bud, this could turn out way uglier than those who call for the expulsion of these foreign nationals even realise. There is simply too much money riding on the spaza industry alone to think that these operators will be driven out without so much as a fiery fightback. Estimates put this industry at around R190 billion, add to this the liquor trade and you’re talking serious gwaap. And with money comes a certain amount of power – power to influence, to arm oneself. Whether or not illegal foreigners will be given their marching orders come 30 June, it remains up in the air. What is, however, abundantly clear is that the streets in some areas will not be safe for anybody: legal, illegal, not even the citizen.
Featured image: Nkosiikhona ‘Phakel’umthakathi’ Ndabandaba addressing followers. Source: his Facebook account.