Interviewed in the Sunday Independent (Johannesburg) of 25 May 2008 about the recent attacks on foreign nationals, an unknown ‘student’ who had participated in the attacks on African immigrants is

While some may wish to argue that we are somehow ‘all Africans together’, the political facts on the ground are that South Africa, like any other sovereign national state, has the right to decide which foreign citizens should or should not be admitted at its borders, and under what conditions. The South African government also has the right to pick and choose among applicants for entry or residence on the basis of its own interests, priorities and policies. All countries do this, and some observers, like migration expert Dr Wilmot James, say that South Africa has a responsibility to control its borders as an obligation to the Constitution and the rule of law. Certainly South Africa is not required to accept any number of people either from Africa or anywhere else simply because they are destitute or see better opportunities for themselves here than elsewhere.

An exception to this would be genuine refugees fleeing the immediate threat of violence or imprisonment at home, but the South African government has not shown much enthusiasm for differentiating between economic and political refugees, or for granting legal residence to either category of ‘forced migrant’. This confusion has had additional ill effects due to government denials that there are any crises in other African countries or that there is a real category of ‘genuine’ African political refugees.

The government of South Africa shows little enthusiasm in practice for investing in the effective physical monitoring and control of its land borders. What the student said in the Sunday Independent is, by most reports, close to the mark: South African identity is for sale.