Africa's Fear of Itself: the ideology of Makwerekwere in South Africa

Abstract

Since the collapse of apartheid, the figure of Makwerekwere has been constructed and deployed in South Africa to render Africans from outside the borders orderable as the nation's bogeyman. Waves of violence against Makwerekwere have characterised South Africa since then, the largest of which broke out in May 2008 in the Johannesburg shantytown of Alexander. It quickly spread throughout the country. The militants were black citizens who exclusively targeted African foreign nationals, with some witnesses reporting grotesque scenes of sadistic behaviour. So far these violent spurts have been described as xenophobia, overlooking the history of colonial group relations in South Africa. From the perspective of this article, the history of colonial group relations cannot be overlooked, for the relations between citizens and non-citizens are extended shadows of this history. I argue that, rather than rushing to characterise these relations as xenophobia, we should factor in the history of colonial group relations and the extent to which the post-apartheid ideology of Makwerekwere and South Africa's ‘we-image’ vis-à-vis the rest of Africa may bear the imprints of this history.