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It’s been a terrifying few weeks in South Africa. A campaign against African immigrants has gathered steam, resulting in the deaths of at least four people and the mass fleeing of thousands of others. I spoke to Fezokuhle Mthonti, a cultural historian and writer based in Johannesburg, about what’s driving the campaign, and how it threatens to tear apart the very fabric of South Africa.

“Abahambe!”, translating to “They must go!”, is the campaign and protest movement’s battle cry. Mobs and protesters have so terrified African migrants in South Africa that thousands are sleeping on pavements in fear of being attacked in their homes, and hoping for repatriation to their home countries. Malawian, Ghanaian, Nigerian and Zimbabwean governments are among those that have so far arranged for tens of thousands to return. It’s a distressing state of affairs for a country that many African migrants saw as a place of hope and opportunity.

Mass xenophobic violence has occurred in South Africa in the past. Riots date back as far as 2008, with a total of 703 people killed in xenophobic incidents since the end of apartheid. But this particular iteration of xenophobic violence, academic Fezokuhle Mthonti tells me, “is not something that we’ve seen in the post-apartheid dispensation so far.” This time, it is well funded, and legitimised by South African mainstream media coverage. It’s even received acknowledgment and engagement from the government, with president Cyril Ramaphosa meeting and shaking hands with two leaders of the xenophobic protests last week (while encouraging demonstrators to act peacefully). “This is a new moment,” Mthonti says.

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A fragile national identity

Black South Africans still have an incredibly tenuous hold on their sense of place, Mthonti tells me. They became citizens in 1994, but since then, she says, that citizenship has always felt precarious. For poor, rural South Africans in particular, the promises of a transformed post-apartheid life have not necessarily come to fruition. Mthonti says: “When there’s a particular global economic crisis – we see this across the world – there’s a turn to fascism, to conservative values, to scapegoating politics.” This turn becomes even sharper in the context of South Africa’s history, its resultant fragile national identity, and its contemporary political failures.

Mthonti also sees the campaign as part of a wider victimisation of the poor working classes in a country that has abandoned them. The state has abdicated the role of providing economic security and services, instead leaving communities to fend for themselves. Both South Africans and migrants, she tells me, are “the same folks who are trying to eke out an existence together” in the face of state abandonment. “It is why [this] xenophobia is more troubling,” she says. “The violence is more intimate. These are people who are next door to one another, who are suddenly turning on each other, because now there are these conversations about ‘us v them’.”

The sad irony, Mthonti points out, is that South Africa was built on the labour of those “taken from their homelands and thrown into capitalist enterprise” such as mining. The Sandton area in north Johannesburg is the wealthiest square mile in Africa. “The reason we have Joburg is because of indentured labour,” Mthonti says. Slavery, abduction, and crucially, migration, are a part of its history. “This is the story of Cape Town, of Durban.”

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Apartheid’s legacy continues?

South Africa is only a recently post-colonial society. “We are deeply marred by three systems of violence,” Mthonti tells me. “Not every country can say they have had apartheid, colonialism and slavery. Inherently, that violence meets itself in different ways. The anti-Black racism that South Africans have had to deal with is quite profound.” South Africa would not end apartheid until 1994, decades after most colonised African nations achieved independence. Mthonti says: “In the 1960s, [when] African countries were cohering around post-coloniality, racial self-esteem was developing. South Africans were left out of that.”

What does it mean for a country to go through so much devastation? “South Africa is a profoundly new nation that still needs to resolve a lot of these issues,” she tells me. Historical amnesia is part of the problem. “[Post-apartheid], there was an attempt to fit into the neoliberal order as if nothing had happened, as if we were a country with a new slate, not realising the real tribal ethnic chauvinisms that had come before.” Now, that tribalism has reared its head in a different form. “What we are seeing is the same logic that was used to divide South Africans being repackaged around xenophobia.” She gives the example of the Tsonga people, an ethnic minority population that has been in South Africa for centuries, but is experiencing backlash and violence “because they are not considered to be legitimately part of the South African project.” Mthonti says, without ambiguity: “This is a function of apartheid.”

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South Africa ≠ Africa?

Despite these complex, specific histories and traumas, Mthonti sees this moment as part of a global trend of anti-migrant sentiment perpetuated by leaders such as Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump, and Narendra Modi.

I ask Mthonti if a sort of uprooting has taken place, with some Black South Africans seeing themselves as distinct from other Africans due to their country’s relative affluence. South Africa remains the continent’s richest nation. It has the highest concentration of dollar millionaires, and the Black middle class has expanded significantly in recent decades, with the numbers of middle- and high-income earners quadrupling since 2012. How much of a distance has this put between Black South Africans and other Africans?

“Oh my gosh, a profound distance,” Mthonti tells me. But the growing affluence of Black people since apartheid is only a small part of the story. Despite South Africa’s wealth, Mthonti says, “GDP [growth rate] is just over 1%, and that devastation is real. People are living materially insecure lives. There’s a huge chasm between the South Africa people imagine and the one people are experiencing.”

I can tell that Mthonti is hugely concerned and unsettled by what is afoot. But she’s also insistent on the causes: a combination of global political currents, and South Africa’s own unique vulnerabilities. This isn’t is an inherent reactionary politics on the part of poor people competing over resources.

Mthonti challenges what seems to me like a familiar and universal framing of anti-migrant politics across the world: that a flammable and suggestible working class is to blame. Rather, she says that we should point the finger at state failure and political scapegoating. “I want to stress that poor people are not inherently xenophobic. Poverty doesn’t equate to bigotry. More South Africans are open to pan-African unity than are not.”

Tap in

How do you make sense of the xenophobic movement in South Africa? Share your thoughts by replying to this, or emailing us at thelongwave@theguardian.com and we may include your response in our next issue.

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Cartoon | Sarah Akinterinwa

Diaspora discusses

Last week, after joyful scenes from Fête de la Musique, we explored how Paris became a nexus for Black culture. Here’s what readers thought:

After travelling across the Black diaspora, I have never witnessed a community as diverse and tight-knit as in Paris. Here, Black youth are the first generation of a truly integrated African and Caribbean community. The public school system brings young people together across backgrounds from an early age which contributed to the construction of an Afro-French culture, distinct from heritage-specific identities. In spite of this, Black students are still disproportionately pushed into limiting vocational tracks. This is why artistic third spaces and events such as Fête de la Musique became so important. Many people excluded from institutional spaces turn to these to express themselves.

Paloma Dubois, Founder of Le Paris Noir festival, based in Paris, France, and New Haven, Connecticut, US

“As a Black Senegalese woman born and raised in the Parisian suburbs, I’ve always been struck by the paradox between Paris as a vibrant nexus for Black culture and a visibility that can feel like a neoliberal trap. There is so much influence from the Black diaspora, yet I can’t help feeling bitter about the treatment of Black people by the very institutions that want to celebrate “Black culture” today. Black culture is extracted, consumed, enjoyed, and celebrated. All while police violence, the targeting of Black immigrants, and everyday political decisions show that the material conditions of so many Black people continue to worsen. ”

Aminata Konate, based in Paris, France

People often describe Paris through its museums, monuments or fashion houses, but I think its real cultural heartbeat lies elsewhere. As a Black creator, what excites me most is seeing an ecosystem emerge, with institutions like MansA giving visibility to Afro-diasporic culture, initiatives such as Union de la Jeunesse Internationale creating spaces for connection, and festivals like Yardland bringing together music, fashion, food and community. They allow Black creatives to meet, collaborate and tell our own stories. To me, that’s what makes Paris so unique today.

Geoffrey Kaudjh, based in Paris, France