From music stars boycotting performing in South Africa to businesses which have their origins in the country being snubbed by customers based in African countries, the impact of xenophobic attacks in South Africa has meant that the country could be isolating itself from the rest of the continent. Last week Zambia’s national soccer team cancelled a friendly match against South Africa citing security concerns because of the anti-immigrant violent attacks the country is recently experiencing. The South African multinational mobile telecommunications company MTN closed down its Nigerian offices and business outlets last week as it had become the target of protesters in Nigeria. These are handful examples of the kind of impact the xenophobic attacks have had for South Africa, not forgetting that countries such as Rwanda and Malawi, amongst others, pulled out of attending last week’s World Economic Forum.
To assist us on this we are joined by:
• Steven Gordon, Senior Research Specialist in the Democracy, Governance and Service Delivery (DGSD) Programme in the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)
• Unathi Sonwabile Nenama, Tourism analyst
• Dr Jimam Lar from the Department of History and International Studies, University of Jos, Jos-Nigeria.
