Around the world, right-wing forces are scapegoating migrants for the devastation caused by capitalism and, in countries like South Africa, extreme corruption. 

Our movement has always put human dignity at the centre of our struggle. We began our struggle by demanding the recognition of our own humanity and dignity from the ANC and the state which were vandalising our humanity.

We do not only struggle for the recognition of our own humanity. Every human being, everywhere, must be counted as a human being. We are in solidarity with all oppressed people everywhere. We are in solidarity with the people of Palestine, Swaziland and the Congo. We are in solidarity with the young people facing the police on the streets of Nairobi, with people resisting ICE in the United States, and with everyone who resists the vandalisation of humanity.

In 2008, when the first wave of serious xenophobic violence began in South Africa, we held an urgent discussion and issued a strong and clear statement of our principles. We noted that we had been warning for years that the anger of the poor can go in many directions, and we affirmed the principle that a person is a person wherever they find themselves: Unyawo alunampumulo. We agreed that we would shelter and defend people under attack.

That statement can be read here: https://abahlali.org/node/3582/

We have held to these principles and have worked closely with migrant organisations, worked to support migrants to organise themselves, and welcomed everyone into our movement and into its leadership. Wherever we organise, we make it very clear that opposition to xenophobia is a fundamental principle of our movement.

In recent weeks, Operation Dudula — which has a long history of violent attacks on migrants — has been blockading the entrances to public hospitals and aggressively denying people they claim are not South African access to healthcare. This is an all-out and cowardly attack on vulnerable people. It is a deep shame on our country that there are groups openly and violently denying other human beings the right to access healthcare simply because they were born in another country.

Our public healthcare system is in crisis as a result of many years of austerity, which has seen budgets ruthlessly cut year after year; mismanagement by political appointees; and massive looting by politically connected operators, some of them operating as violent mafias.

Scapegoating migrants for this crisis, and aggressively denying them access to hospitals, is not just cowardly and cruel – it is also a form of public political miseducation that diverts attention away from the real causes of the crisis.

Today, Operation Dudula will march on the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI) and other organisations, accusing them of being ‘unpatriotic’ for including migrants in the legal support that they offer to all people in South Africa whose rights are under attack. 

SERI has represented a number of organisations, including our movement, in court action against Operation Dudula for assaulting, intimidating and generally harassing and abusing migrants. Details of the case against Operation Dudula can be found here: https://www.seri-sa.org/index.php/latest-news/1443-press-statement-the-high-court-to-hear-arguments-in-operation-dudula-matter-9-june-2025

If ‘patriotism’ is misunderstood as dehumanising and scapegoating some of us who live in this country we want nothing to do with it. However, the patriotism with its roots in the vision of a just society that was developed in the struggle against apartheid, the struggle in which the South African nation was built, is a patriotism that we can and do support. We love our country and we struggle with and for all oppressed people to build a better South Africa for all of us who live here.

When we heard that Operation Dudula was going to march on SERI and other organisations we discussed this at our General Assembly in Durban. Our members decided that we should meet with Operation Dudula. They decided that the meeting should begin by acknowledging that South Africans are and should be angry at massive unemployment and impoverishment, collapsing services and institutions and very high rates of violence. Our members thought that once we had agreed on this we should discuss the real reasons for the suffering of the people, and the need to affirm and defend the humanity of all people.

We contacted Operation Dudula to request a meeting but they refused to meet us, saying that we are also ‘unpatriotic’ and that we have taken them to court.

Our movement has a long history of support from SERI. They are genuine movement lawyers who have worked with respectful, principled and dedicated commitment year after year. Working in partnership with SERI we have won many victories for our members. Some of these victories have benefited poor people as a whole. SERI are our comrades, and we will stand with them, as we stand with all people and organisations under attack from Operation Dudula, or any other expression of fascist politics.

Today we will be on the streets, outside the SERI office, in solidarity with our comrades and in defence of our principles. Just as we cannot allow the vandalization of the humanity of others, we cannot allow our own humanity to be disgraced.

These are trying times in our country that require all of us to work together to build the unity of the oppressed and to build powerful movements for justice. We must direct our anger where it belongs – at the state, the government, the ANC and the capitalist system – and not at people who were born in other countries.

We must not allow right-wing forces to justify violence against the people in the name of the people. The political forces that try to divide the oppressed – to turn people against their neighbours – are always the enemies of the oppressed, and the struggle for justice. 

If Operation Dudula change their minds we remain willing to meet them in order to discuss the real causes and nature of the crisis that we all face and to unite the poor and the working class to build a peaceful and just society.

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