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Rising vigilantism: ’SA reaping fruits of misrule’

Rising vigilantism: ’SA reaping fruits of misrule’

ONCE relegated to the margins of South African politics, anti-immigrant activism has gone mainstream. Several anti-immigrant groups including Operation Dudula, All Trucker Foundation and the South Africa First Party, have become reference points for national debate. Reflecting forms of radical protectionism, they channel the frustrations of South Africans with corruption, crime, and unemployment. The results are campaigns to ‘clean’ the country of immigrants, home invasions and widespread threats and violence. Authors LOREN B LANDAU, Co-Director of the Wits-Oxford Mobility Governance Lab, University of the Witwatersrand JEAN PIERRE MISAGO, Researcher, University of the Witwatersrand This is not a response to an…
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Anti-migrant vigilante group stokes tensions in SA

Anti-migrant vigilante group stokes tensions in SA

SHOPKEEPERS pulled down their metal shutters and foreign staff stayed out of sight as hundreds marched through a Johannesburg neighbourhood demanding that migrants leave and that their jobs go to South Africans. The march through dilapidated Hillbrow, where many African migrants live, was organised by Operation Dudula, a vigilante group whose activities have raised fears of renewed violence against foreigners, a recurring problem. Dudula means "push back" in Zulu. The group, based in the Soweto township just outside Johannesburg, blames high crime rates on undocumented migrants, who it also accuses of taking away jobs from South Africans and driving down…
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Operation Dudula pushes ahead with hateful politics

Operation Dudula pushes ahead with hateful politics

JAN BORNMAN ON the 45th anniversary of the June 16 uprising in Soweto, dozens of people armed with sjamboks and sticks met in Diepkloof, Soweto, under the banner of Operation Dudula. A poster about it had been circulating for weeks online, warning “We will be removing all illegal foreign nationals by force!!!” Similar posters doing the rounds contained even more inflammatory language and images.  Flyers had also been hand-delivered to migrant-owned shops in the weeks leading up to Youth Day, which commemorates those who died at the hands of the oppressive apartheid forces on 16 June 1976 while protesting against…
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