Do not forget that foreigners are also human

One of the most emotive videos doing the rounds on social media has Patriotic Alliance (PA) leader Gayton McKenzie at the South Africa-Zimbabwe border with his party supporters, turning back Zimbabweans trying to cross into South Africa after spending the festive season back at home.

An image of a young man lugging a bicycle across his shoulders as he crosses a shallow part of the Limpopo River back into Zimbabwe must represent some sort of triumph for McKenzie and his supporters.

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McKenzie takes it a step further in another video, where he interviews a farmer who explains how his community has banded together to dig a lengthy trench to stop cross-border criminals from driving stolen cars from South Africa into Zimbabwe.

There is nothing wrong with what the PA is doing. It is highlighting a problem that the government has shown very little willingness to deal with – South Africa’s porous borders.

McKenzie is right to say any person crossing the border could be a drug smuggler, a terrorist or a criminal, bringing bombs or dynamite that will further exacerbate this country’s crime problem.

But what does the prevention of 50 or 100 illegal border crossings solve in the larger scheme of things, when it is estimated that between one and three million Zimbabweans are already in South Africa?

McKenzie is a wise politician who knows the exercise is nothing but a soundbite that will feed into his constituency’s anti-foreigner sentiment – and, hopefully, get him some numbers at the polls.

The porous border issue is a political hot potato that works beautifully on visual social media platforms like TikTok and taps into South Africa’s forever ready xenophobic sentiment.

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He finishes each video clip by shouting “Abahambe”, which means let them go (back to their countries)”.

There’s nothing wrong with shouting that undocumented foreigners must go back to their countries and, perhaps, come back to enter the country legally if they qualify.

But anyone who recalls the revolting picture of the burning man in the 2008 xenophobic riots will know McKenzie and his ilk run the risk of feeding into that dastardly and deadly sentiment that dehumanises undocumented foreign nationals.

The gap that the government has created with its lack of political will to decisively deal with illegal immigration from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Somalia, among many others, will always allow opportunistic leaders to play in that murky field that the likes of Nhlanhla Mohlauli of Operation Dudula has always tapped into.

It is not a new or novel political act to blame a country’s dwindling economic fortunes on foreigners: Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin and Donald Trump rode to the highest office in their countries on anti-foreigner sentiment.

It might actually work to get McKenzie and his aptly named Patriotic Alliance some votes, But they know it’s a deadly game in a country with such a weak policing system.

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They are making foreign nationals fair game for all. Should South Africa just open its borders for all and sundry?

No. The country is under a huge economic burden to be inviting all its neighbours to come and have a bite at its social service pie.

But shouting “Abahambe” in a fluorescent work suit at the border is not the solution. McKenzie and his followers must win an election, get into parliament and change the laws to solve immigration problems in a humane and less xenophobic manner. Patriotism shouldn’t breed hatred for foreigners, it should fix the country without barbaric slogans.