South African vigilante group Operation Dudula has become notorious for raiding businesses belonging to foreign nationals and forcing shops to close. BBC Africa Eye has gained rare access to members of the country’s most-prominent anti-migrant street movement.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Operation Dudula was set-up in Soweto two years ago, the first group to formalise what had been sporadic waves of xenophobia-fuelled vigilante attacks in South Africa that date back to shortly after white-minority rule ended in 1994.
According to a 2022 report by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), an independent research organisation based in the capital, Pretoria, there are about 3.95 million migrants in South Africa, making up 6.5% of the population, a figure in line with international norms.
Operation Dudula has ambitions to fill that vacuum and has now transformed itself from a local anti-migrant group into a national political party, stating its aims to contest next year’s general election.
Zandile Dabula, who was voted in as president of Operation Dudula in June 2023, is calm, charismatic and emphatic about the group’s message: “foreigners” are the root cause of South Africa’s economic hardship.
A Nigerian market trader, who was the target of a raid by Operation Dudula members in Johannesburg earlier in the year, tells the BBC that the two women who tasered him and destroyed his clothes by throwing them in the gutter did not stop to ask questions.
Mr Lenkosi, also from Soweto and out of work, takes part in raids on migrant homes and workplaces, people who are suspected of anything from drug dealing to remaining in the country past their visa date.
The original article contains 1,583 words, the summary contains 228 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
It seems people everywhere have a strong tendency to deal with hardship by blaming some more or less arbitrary group and attacking them. It’s fuelling the rightward political lurch all around the world.
What kind of violence would you expect to happen on the left? Or are all negative actions come from the right for you?
How many societies are stringing up the owners of corporations and distributing their wealth? None, so left wing violence can’t be all that common. How many societies are mistreating immigrants, destroying social safety nets, and trying to overturn democratic elections in favor of authoritarians? Plenty, so you know the right wing is alive and well.
Lots.
