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Paper short abstract:

Over the past ten years, South Africa has experienced periodic episodes of internal turmoil as xenophobic attacks on black foreigners from other African countries led to deaths, beatings and loss of property. Leadership is important in explaining the drivers and responses to xenophobic attacks.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past ten years South Africa has experienced periodic episodes of internal turmoil as xenophobic attacks on black foreigners from other African countries led to deaths, beatings and loss of property. Whilst there are many explanations for this phenomenon, it is important to highlight the role of leadership in explaining the drivers and responses to xenophobic attacks. The paper traces how leadership within a South African context mediates questions around race, poverty, citizenship, gender and belonging in a late Apartheid context. Landau, Ramjathan-Keogh and Singh (2005) highlight that foreigners in South Africa are victims of discrimination at the hands of government officials, the police, banks, private companies and private organizations contracted to manage their detention and deportation. Politicians are also allegedly using foreigners as a scapegoat for lack of service delivery. Xenophobia is thus more or less institutionalised within South African social structures. Neocosmos (2008: 2006) argues that xenophobia has to be understood as a political ideology which has emerged in a context gripped by the politics of fear after apartheid. These politics has three major components namely 'a state discourse of xenophobia, a discourse of South African exceptionalism and a conception of citizenship founded exclusively on indigeneity' (Neocosmos 2008: 587). State discourse of xenophobia is based on how various arms of government from politicians, police, detention camps and even army all emphasize the message of invasion by illegal immigrants since the 1990s.