00:00Leave when you can. That's the message from Nigeria to its citizens who reside in South Africa.
00:06Xenophobic violence has recently surged and the UNHCR says at least 62 foreign nationals have been killed between January and
00:14May.
00:14After you marched and say you don't want Zimbabweans, you don't want Nigerians, you don't want Canadians, you close shops,
00:23you march.
00:24Why are you not coming back to tell us the following day that after that march we expelled ten Zimbabweans
00:33and out of those ten Zimbabweans were able to give ten South Africans jobs?
00:39There's no such a report.
00:41Welcome to the flip side.
00:43The numbers say it all. South Africa's unemployment rate remains stubbornly high.
00:48In fact, a 2020 Afrobarometer survey found nearly half of South Africans don't want foreigners to work in the country,
00:56blaming them for taking jobs.
00:58If you can look at the capitalist system that we currently live in, where employers feel that they want to
01:04milk everything for themselves.
01:06Foreigners are making that situation worse because when South Africans are demanding the minimum wage, they come and offer themselves
01:12at a very cheap price.
01:14So we are trying to remove these foreign nationals from these normal jobs that are supposed to be taken by
01:22South Africans.
01:22And we replace them with local people because that's what we believe in.
01:27So does kicking out the foreigners solve South Africa's job crisis?
01:31Migration has become the visible explanation for invisible problems.
01:35When we have a country with 42 percent, 40 percent of unemployed people, that is a structural issue.
01:41You know, governance failure. So these are not being fixed.
01:45But migrants, by contrast, are visible and immediate.
01:48So then they become the explanation for an easier plot of people to be blamed.
01:54And that pent up frustration explodes into violence.
01:58The past isn't far behind.
02:00In 2008, 2015 and 2019, waves of xenophobic attacks killed dozens and forced thousands to flee, straining regional ties.
02:08South Africa has seen it's the fact that a lot of migration into the country has caused a lot of
02:16tension with the locals,
02:19with the indigence of South Africa against, I would say, particularly Africans themselves, African immigrants.
02:27South Africa has not recognized, I believe, enough the contribution of West Africans, especially Nigeria, in a struggle.
02:37Inasmuch as violence is not a solution to any problem, some observers point out that not all foreigners seem to
02:44be targeted.
02:44I saw a video whereby black immigrants were being attacked, beaten up, and a couple of Asians just walked by.
02:54They were not targeted.
02:56And as they say, numbers don't lie.
02:58So we have over 15 million who are unemployed, but we have these 2 million migrants, or 3 or 4,
03:04even if you want to take the number high and say we have 4 or 5 million.
03:07You cannot use that to explain why 15 million are unemployed.
03:12So why is South Africa, one of Africa's economic giants, struggling to create jobs for its people?
03:18The economy has struggled to generate inclusive growth. So large populations are outside formal employment.
03:28The apartheid regime left power, but there was no reparation. We still have large portions of land in the hands
03:36of the white people.
03:37And when you own land, you own food, you own, you know, you own the chain of survival. Governance and
03:42institutional failure.
03:44Nothing will happen until institutions are strengthened to do what they need to do.
03:48What must South Africa do to fix such a broken system?
03:52We have to start strengthening labour migration governance, invest in local economic systems, because that's where a majority of South
04:00Africans are sitting.
04:02And finally, I would say, restore state presence. The state must be felt by all people, because everyone within the
04:12state has to be felt that they're being protected.
04:15South Africans have their own, they feel that the government has abandoned them, and so they're taking matters in their
04:21own hands.
04:21Turning on migrants might offer a quick scapegoat, but it won't solve South Africa's economic crisis.
04:27Until the real challenges of inequality, governance and an inclusive economy are addressed, unemployment will remain stubbornly high and tensions
04:36will keep resurfacing.
04:38And that's the flip side.
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