Zim migrants report riddled with fallacies

Zim migrants report riddled with fallacies

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By Mlamuli Nkomo

THE South African government has been under tremendous pressure from civil society and political parties to come up with a comprehensive policy to deal with immigration triggered by the political and economical crisis in Zimbabwe.

There have been some calls for refugee camps to be set up and temporary resident’s permits to be issued.

The major stumbling block is lack of clarity on the exact numbers of Zimbabwe migrants and their motives for leaving their country.

It is against this backdrop that research on Zimbabwe migrants is always welcome. Yet a recent report by Professor Daniel Makina of the Mass Public Opinion Institute and the Zimbabwe Diaspora Civil Society Organisations is so shrouded with politics that it is of little value to policy makers and independent bodies seeking to make civil interventions.

Like many findings before it, the report fails to shed light into the number of migrants in this country. The Forced Migration Studies Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand recently published a report that the numbers of Zimbabweans entering this country has been exaggerated. It acknowledged that the numbers have increased but cautioned against any statistics.

The Zimbabwe government was the first to embrace the Wits study claiming that those who reported an exodus from Zimbabwe were motivated by an agenda for “regime change” in Harare.

Even in South Africa, the lack of reliable statistics has witnessed elements in the Democratic Alliance (DA) coming up with astronomical figures coupled with fears of being ‘swamped’ by a ‘human tsunami’ from Zimbabwe.

The high figures have been construed as a way of whipping public opinion against migrants and as political point-scoring against the ANC-led government.

The wisdom is if Zimbabwean immigration to South Africa cannot be measured, it therefore cannot be managed.

It is against this background that a study done by Zimbabweans on Zimbabwean migrants is expected to give some insight on how such a confusing situation could be managed.

Yet the report is not convincing as a piece of academic research, it reads more like a work of civil society advocacy document with a fusion of myths and half-truths.

The report makes a wild claim that 58% of respondents migrated to South Africa for political reasons. Political reasons may range from violation of one’s rights like denial of full participation in political activities to victimisation through refusal of access to food because of political affiliation. However, it is difficult to surmise what the researchers mean by political.

In a country where unemployment is over 80%, inflation over 6000% and the shops empty amid a shrinking democratic space, it does not take a migration scientist to deduce that people are bound to move for economic reasons more than political ones. This may sound unpalatable to political activists but for a researcher hoping to influence policy, for the benefit of a larger community, it becomes sacred to isolate issues and call a spade a spade, and not a big spoon.

Is it political in the sense that these migrants are escaping persecution and therefore needing political asylum in South Africa under United Nations and African Union Conventions? Fifty eight percent is way over the top unless the research was conducted among civil society and political activists.

In any study of migrants, even a mere finding of 5% being political exiles is enough to show that the sending country has gross human rights violations but coming up with figures like 58% leads one to question the intentions of the study.

According to the report, the movement of Zimbabweans into South Africa accelerated in 2000. It points out that this was the year of the farm invasions. The fallacy committed by the researcher is linking two unrelated events. That event B happened after event A does no mean that A caused B.

In the profile of the respondents, it is clear that none among them were farm workers or were farmers. Then how can a process that does not directly affect them be pointed to be a factor in their migration choices?

Some of the findings just do not tally; suggesting either a flawed methodology or a study on migrants not rooted in the social science disciplines that govern forced migration. The report lists the need to acquire refugee status as the top priority among respondents yet only 2% of them have visited the Department of Home Affairs which issues these documents.

Why would respondents flock to civil society organisations like Zimbabwe Political Victims Association (ZIPOVA), SAWIMA, and Zimbabwe Torture Victims Project for assistance when these organisations deal with advocacy and leave a government department tasked to cater for their need?

According to the report, it is these organisations that help Zimbabweans. How the researcher failed to encounter even one respondent who is a member of one of the hundreds of Zimbabwean burial societies mainly concentrated in Hillbrow stumps the mind. Unless of course this research was concentrating on certain
Zimbabweans.

The report is as narrow in its approach as it reduces migration to South Africa as a post 2000 phenomena. Zimbabweans have always been a part of South Africa. The Ndebele people migrated from the present day province of KwaZulu-Natal to Zimbabwe.

During the colonial period, many Zimbabweans have been crossing the border as migrant labourers in farms and mines. For communities in the Matabeleland regions of Plumtree and Tsholotsho, migration to Johannesburg is a rite of passage from boyhood to man hood. For some, Johannesburg is the first city for them live in not Harare or Bulawayo.

A serious problem arises when we become blinkered and limit Zimbabwe migration to South Africa only in terms of the nefarious Zanu PF regime. A study that masquerades as a profile of Zimbabweans migrants in South Africa and concentrates only on the political aspects of migration becomes a string of beads that though beautiful does not fit on the necks of both Zimbabwean and South African policy makers.

While politics in Zimbabwe is fashionable and Mugabe has become a favourable punching bag, it must be remembered that the researches, by their nature, are expected to break new ground and stimulate debate towards better policies. The pre-occupation with politics becomes sickening.

Mlamuli Nkomo is researching Forced Migration at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He can be contacted on mlamulin@yahoo.co.uk
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