One may have thought that things couldn't get worse for ordinary Zimbabweans, but now they have. On Sunday night anti-immigrant violence broke out in Alexandra Township, Johannesburg, before spreading to Diepsloot as well. Although others have been affected Zimbabweans seem to be the primary targets. As the author Rian Malan observes: "Mugabe is blikseming their families back home, and mobs are trying to murder them here in Joburg."

To their credit the ANC, SACP, COSATU, and the South African government have not sought to profit from xenophobic sentiment. And, all have condemned the violence. This does not mean, however, that these organisations are not responsible (to varying degrees) for what we are witnessing.

There is a political ethic which, as Max Weber put it, is concerned only with ensuring that "the flame of pure intentions is not quelched: for example, the flame protesting against the injustice of the social order." But, as Weber also noted, politicians are responsible for the bad consequences of their actions even if (in their own minds) they were motivated only by good intentions.

The ANC and SACP decided in 2000 that Zanu-PF should be kept in power, regardless of what the electorate of Zimbabwe might think. They also thought that it would be a good thing if the commercial farming class in Zimbabwe were dispossessed of their land. In an article published in mid-2000 the SACP's Blade Nzimande wrote that, "The land question must not be allowed to disappear. Mugabe must stick to his statement that it was not an election gimmick. Land redistribution must be implemented immediately in an orderly and legal manner."

The consequence of that policy of "land redistribution" has been the halving of the size of the Zimbabwean economy, the collapse of the export sector, hyper-inflation, and an exodus of people out of that country. The economist, John Robertson, recently commented: "Those 4,500 farms were Zimbabwe's biggest industry. They accounted for 17% of GDP in their own right but more than 50% when you take into account the other industries they were supporting. They employed large numbers of people, they accounted for half the export earnings. The farmers were also the biggest users of other industries such as insurance and engineering."

The massive influx of Zimbabweans into South Africa - fleeing economic meltdown and political repression - was, in turn, met with complacency by the government. In answer to a question in parliament in May last year President Thabo Mbeki stated that "as to this ...influx of illegal people [from Zimbabwe], I personally think it's something that we have to live with. ... You can't put a Great Wall of China between South Africa and Zimbabwe to stop people walking across."

As of today, the South African government has yet to condemn the Zanu-PF regime for the violence it is currently perpetrating against the MDC supporting people of Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans in South Africa are, meanwhile, stuck between a rock and a hard place. They face an increasingly hostile local population. But returning home is not an option because the Mugabe regime remains in power - due to the unceasing efforts of our democratically elected government to keep it there.

Semper nihilum novus ex-Africa
Anti-immigrant violence is nothing new in the new South Africa. Somali shopkeepers have been subjected to similar violence in the Western and Eastern Cape. In late March two Zimbabweans were killed in Atteridgeville, Pretoria, when they were burnt alive after a mob put fire to their shacks. Cabinet has described the most recent attacks as "a dangerous tendency that is foreign to South African history and consciousness." While such xenophobia is undoubtedly dangerous, it is not unconnected to the African nationalism espoused by our ruling party. The ideology of the liberation movement - and the programme of ‘transformation' - is centred upon on the notion that any outstanding attainment of a minority was extracted rather than earned. The Africanist element of our state sponsored bourgeoisie has, in turn, pushed for all institutions to be racially ‘transformed'. Now, the link between this programme and lower-level xenophobia against immigrant black Africans was delineated by Frantz Fanon - the Martinique revolutionary and intellectual - in The Wretched of the Earth (1961).

Fanon noted how the "native bourgeoisie which comes to power" in post-colonial Africa "uses its class aggressiveness to corner the positions formerly kept for foreigners. On the morrow of independence, in fact, it violently attacks colonial personalities: barristers, traders, landed proprietors, doctors and higher civil servants. It will fight to the bitter end against these people ‘who insult our dignity as a nation.' It waves aloft the notion of the nationalisation and Africanisation of the ruling classes. The fact is that such action will become more and more tinged by racism, until the bourgeoisie bluntly puts the problem to the government by saying ‘We must have these posts'. They will not stop their snarling until they have taken over every one."

This conveys a particular message, and sets an example to, those lower down the class hierarchy. Except here, the competitor's in the economic realm are not Europeans (or white Africans) but black immigrants. Fanon continues:

"The working class of the towns, the masses of unemployed, the small artisans and craftsmen for their part line up behind this nationalist attitude; but in all justice let it be said, they only follow in the steps of the bourgeoisie. If the national bourgeoisie goes into competition with the Europeans, the artisans and craftsman start a fight against non-national Africans."

Here too nationalism moves on towards chauvinism and "finally to racism." It is the petty traders, from elsewhere, who usually become the "object of hostile manifestations." Black immigrants are "called on to leave; their shops are burned, their street stalls are wrecked." As Fanon points out, the national bourgeoisie and the masses are pressing essentially the same demands:

"Since the sole motto of the bourgeoisie is ‘replace the foreigner', and because it hastens in every walk of life to secure justice for itself and to take over the posts that the foreigner has vacated, the ‘small people' of the nation - taxi-drivers, cake-sellers and shoe blacks - will be equally quick to quick to insist that [immigrants] go home to their own country."