At the weekend, news broke that self-proclaimed prophet Shepherd Bushiri fled to Malawi. The man is out on bail after having spent some time in prison on charges of fraud and money laundering. He then went on to write a statement listing several demands that he wants the SA government to accede to before he would return to the country.
As expected, this enraged a lot of people, who correctly accuse him of undermining our country’s judicial system and democratic institutions. And it is correct to make this argument. But I am concerned that in our justified criticism of Bushiri, we run the dangerous risk of resorting to Afrophobic bigotry.
We can and we should take umbrage at the man's complete disregard for our judicial system. What we cannot and should not do is use him as a representative of all foreign nationals in our country, as though they are all persons of questionable morality. This is not a reflection of the situation.
There are far more foreign nationals in our country making an honest living than there are those engaged in criminality. Beyond the propaganda and sustained innuendo, there is no shred of evidence in our crime statistics and correctional services reports that foreign nationals are the lead facilitators of crime in this country. This narrative is built on hyperbole and subjective opinion that becomes elevated to scientific fact – without any regard for evidence.
We have managed, because we have committed so much to it and because it serves many political players, to cement as fact the false narrative that our problems in SA stem from foreign nationals.
We are confronted with a devastating crisis of unemployment and poverty – the result of an economy that is transforming at a glacial pace and a government with no political will to radically transform, or at the very least reform, the said economy. Black people have been hurled to the margins where we remain dispossessed and disenfranchised, and the economy remains segmented, racialised and gendered.
Rather than direct our attention to this systematic construct, we have been made to believe that foreign nationals who are largely concentrated in the informal market and whose jobs are mostly precarious, are the primary problem.
It benefits those commanding the heights of the economy to have us misdirect our anger. It also benefits political parties, including the ANC, who know that the "foreigners are the main problem" card achieves two outcomes: mobilising the disenfranchised against a perceived enemy and escaping responsibility for the failure to resolve persistent structural problems (which is seen even in the Bushiri case where the role of our own institutions, their spectacular failure which made allowance for his escape, is evident).
The point here is this: you can criticise Bushiri and still not be a xenophobic bigot. He does not represent the totality of foreign nationals in this country, most of whom are law-abiding men and women who want the same things we do: to live in harmony and to provide for their families. The pursuit of this is a fundamental right – perhaps the most noble of all.
LISTEN | Shepherd Bushiri and his wife Mary get bail of R200,000 each
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