Evil doesn't wait for language: We must name xenophobia for what it is

Mail & Guardian

5 days ago

Xenophobia is fear and anger weaponised against the vulnerable – and it's deadly. File photo
A friend recently commented on a Facebook post I shared about the counter-protest we held against Operation Dudula on Thursday, 17 July 2025. She referred to something Thabo Mbeki once said to a group of African congregants: 'What is xenophobia in our African languages?'
Apparently, the room went quiet. She was suggesting that maybe, if we don't have a word for xenophobia in our languages, the concept itself is foreign — or maybe not real in the way it's being described.
She went on to say that people who do have the words — shaped by other histories — sometimes use those words not to understand others, but to control them or to feel morally superior. And that those who are being labelled often have every reason to reject the labels, because they weren't part of shaping the words in the first place.
She said if we really took the time to listen, we might discover that there's no hate at all — just frustration and disillusionment.
I've been thinking about that. And I want to respond not just in the comments but more publicly here.
The fact that a word doesn't exist in a language doesn't mean the thing it describes doesn't exist. Patriarchy, racism, apartheid — all of these systems existed long before we had names for them. Evil doesn't wait for language. It just acts.
And this argument — that something doesn't exist because there's no word for it — has been used before. Hendrik Verwoerd said apartheid wasn't oppression, it was just 'separate development'. They tried to rename injustice to make it sound benign. But we all know renaming it didn't make it any less violent. If anything, it made it harder to fight.
The same is true of xenophobia.
I've stood face-to-face with Operation Dudula in the streets — at Hilbrow Clinic, where people were being chased away from medical care simply because they were foreign nationals. I was there at Yeoville Market when they were protesting to get rid of long-time traders, and that market ended up burned down. I've stood toe-to-toe with them on many occasions.
And I've also sat down with their leaders. I've had proper sit-down meetings with them — some of them former branch leaders. I've spent hours listening to them. I've brought documented evidence to show that what they were saying wasn't true. I've tried to have real conversations. I've listened to stories from leaders in the Free State. I've listened. I've negotiated. I've tried to understand. But I've also heard the scapegoating. The blaming. I've seen the twisting of truth to justify violence.
And that's what we have to call it — violence.
I've also walked with the people who've suffered because of this movement. I've taken people to police stations to lay charges. I've sat with community members from across the country who've been threatened, beaten, chased and traumatised.
Let me tell you about Dido. He was a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. One day, he was chased down the street in Johannesburg with people shouting, 'foreigner!' A dog was set on him. It mauled him for four hours before someone finally intervened. He was taken to Baragwanath Hospital and lay in a coma for three months. After he was discharged, I took him into my home in Orange Grove to help him recover. Later, we arranged for him to move in with a fellow Congolese man who could support him more long-term. But during another wave of xenophobic attacks, Dido was chased again. The stress triggered a fragment from his original injury to dislodge. He suffered a stroke and died. I mourned him as a friend and a brother.
What do we call that, if not hatred?
Then there's my friend Nthombi. She was eight months pregnant, selling mielies on the pavement in Orange Grove. A leader from Operation Dudula from the Free State approached her, shouted at her, and violently overturned her mielie stand. I was there. I helped her pick up the pieces. Later, I sat down with that very man for three hours in a church-mediated conversation. I listened to him. And I didn't hear justice. I heard fear, I heard blame, and I heard an unwillingness to see her humanity.
And then there's Elvis Nyathi. He was a 43-year-old Zimbabwean man living in Diepsloot. During a door-to-door 'inspection' he couldn't produce an ID. He was dragged from his home, beaten, doused in petrol, and necklaced — burned alive. I stood with his mother while his body was loaded into the hearse. I held her. I said, 'I'm so sorry.' What words are enough to describe that kind of horror?
This isn't just frustration. This isn't just disillusionment. This is fear and anger weaponised against the vulnerable. It is xenophobia. And if we don't name it, we're complicit in it.
But there's something else I've seen — something that gives me hope.
At the counter-protest this past week against Operation Dudula, we weren't alone. Abahlali baseMjondolo came. Informal Traders Associations. The recyclers. The Inner City Federation. Civil society allies. It's no exaggeration to say that more than 90% of the people on our side of that protest were poor South Africans — people living in shacks, in inner-city slums, in difficult, often horrific, conditions. These were not the elite. These were the people Dudula claims to speak for.
And yet, these are the people who stood up and said: 'No. The problem isn't that we have foreign nationals living here. The problem is the unhealed legacy of apartheid. The problem is inequality. The problem is corruption, and neoliberalism, and capitalism. The problem is a government that has failed to deliver justice.'
These are people who know hardship. And they know that turning on their neighbours is not the answer.
These are the people who reflect the heart of Africa. Who embody ubuntu. They believe that South Africa — and Africa — belongs to all who live in it. They believe the Freedom Charter wasn't just words. That we must give it meaning. That we must fight for land, for justice, for economic transformation. That we must build real solidarity, not deepen division.
We also need to name something else. Operation Dudula isn't just some organic grassroots uprising. It is deeply influenced by the thinking and structure of colonialism.
It upholds borders that were drawn by colonial powers — borders that split families and communities and turned African neighbours into strangers.
It promotes a nationalism rooted not in Pan-African unity but in division and exclusion.
And if we're honest, the language and tactics being used carry disturbing echoes of fascism — of movements in history that mobilised poor people's pain to justify violence against scapegoated groups.
So no, we may not have always had the word 'xenophobia' in indigenous African languages. But we've known the pain and lived the trauma.
Let's not be distracted by whether we have the perfect word. Let's ask whether there is harm. And if there is, let's name it and deal with it.
Nigel Branken is a social worker, pastor and activist. He leads
, a civil society organisation committed to building solidarity with marginalised communities and confronting injustice. His work focuses on resisting xenophobia, defending human rights, and promoting systemic change. He has recently joined the South African Communist Party, aligning himself with its vision of justice, equality and collective liberation.