Archbishop in South Africa Warns of Retaliatory Victimization amid Abuse of Migrants

The conference was aimed at addressing the global phenomenon of migration on the continent to contribute to better interventions by the Church and society.

In his keynote address, the former SACBC Liaison Bishop for Migrants and Refugees observed that skirmishes between migrants and locals happen intermittently at various places.  

The confrontations are unplanned, he said, and explained, “At times they happen on the back of a service delivery protest over the lack of clean water, electricity, housing, pit-toilets, schools, and so on. On such occasions, the anger and frustration of the local people at the government’s empty promises have tended to engulf migrants who live in the same neighborhood as the protestors.”

According to the South African Catholic Archbishop, if the confrontations go on unchecked, they are likely to lead to the hardening of attitudes between locals and migrants. 

“Migrants who are currently the victims will one day seek to retaliate. It is not as if they have taken out insurance for personal injury or for the loss of their belongings. Whatever they suffer or lose in the unplanned attacks is lost for good,” he said.

Because the confrontations are mostly mob attacks, very few people get arrested, if at all, the Local Ordinary of Johannesburg noted.

This way, the victims do not get to see justice being done, he said, and added, “They then carry on with their lives burdened with the memory that they have been unjustifiably attacked.”

Archbishop Tlhagale decried the mistreatment of migrants and refugees in South Africa, noting that the situation was hurting the good memories of Nelson Mandela, who the 75-year-old Catholic Church leader described as “an iconic symbol of peace”.

“When South Africans hurl insults and inflict violence on migrants, when they strip migrants of their belongings and set alight their businesses, they recklessly go against the solemn oath of Nelson Mandela, the revered father of post-apartheid South Africa,” Archbishop Tlhagale said.

He went on to recall that “Nelson Mandela made an oath that ‘never again shall a human being be oppressed by another human being’. This oath was proclaimed by Mandela on behalf of the New South African nation. He and many other leaders paid dearly. They sacrificed their lives so that South Africans might embrace freedom and walk tall among the nations.”

The Catholic Church leader who started his Episcopal Ministry in April 1999 as Archbishop of South Africa’s Bloemfontein Archdiocese added, “Mandela is an iconic symbol of peace. This symbol is inextricably associated with the nation of South Africa.”

According to the Local Ordinary of the Archdiocese of Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela was the incarnation of the hope that South Africans would triumph against all the odds. 

He said that inflicting pain on migrants and refugees is “a tragic betrayal” of the sacred oath that Nelson Mandela made on behalf of the people of South Africa. 

Nelson Mandela, the Catholic Archbishop recalled, bequeathed South Africans the values of human dignity, reconciliation, peace, freedom, and hospitality. 

“It is hardly 25 years since his death, yet South Africans already trample his legacy underfoot and make a spectacle of themselves. The on-looking nations are no longer impressed,” he said. 

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To Archbishop Tlhagale, the harsh treatment of migrants and refugees in South Africa could be an indication that the country has not healed from the past apartheid regime.

He warns that if the unwarranted violent attacks on migrants and refugees are not brought to a halt, South Africans run the risk of becoming like the oppressors of the apartheid era. 

“The apartheid system brutalized people. It stripped them of their dignity, humiliated them, and inculcated a sense of self-hate. Indigenous people were physically segregated and declared foreigners in their own country of birth. This treatment entrenched feelings of revengefulness and bitterness amongst the oppressed,” the former SACBC Liaison Bishop for Migrants and Refugees observed.

“Hardly 25 years have passed, and some of us South Africans do to our African fellow migrants what our former oppressors used to do to us. South Africans considered their former oppressors as monsters. Today we have become those very monsters,” Archbishop Tlhagale who has been at the helm of Johannesburg Archdiocese since his installation in June 2003 said.

He added, “In meting out violence against African migrants we show open hatred. Such hatred against others impairs the dignity of the other and unfortunately reveals the brokenness of the South Africans themselves. The shameless physical attacks on migrants and refugees on spurious allegations that they have robbed South Africans of their jobs are simply disgraceful.”

“A conclusion could be drawn that South Africans who indulge in xenophobia have simply not healed from the wounds of the apartheid era. They are still hurting and are now taking out their anger on their fellow Africans,” the Catholic Archbishop said. 

He went on to decry rampant looting of the belongings of the migrants, which he said is “unashamedly done by the youth while the adults stand by gloating.”

He warned that an absence of a consciousness of guilt, especially when mistreating migrants in South Africa, will continue to undermine the moral fabric of the South African society.

Archbishop Tlhagale underscored the need for “more prophetic voices” in the skirmishes between South African locals and migrants in the country, noting that the virtue of hospitality amongst South Africans is “at present a scarce resource”.

He appealed to the youths in the country, who he said have a history of championing justice, to stand up for migrants and refugees in South Africa.

“Young people have invariably been always in the forefront of the struggle for justice. The youth of 1976 hastened the advent of democracy in South Africa,” he said.

“The unplanned intermittent attacks on migrants and refugees are reprehensible acts of injustice. Such attacks are aimed at excluding and stigmatizing migrants,” Archbishop Tlhagale said, and posed, “Where then are the charismatic young people who would take the side of the oppressed migrants?”