In late January 2020, a South African police officer was shot in Diepsloot, a densely populated township in the north of Johannesburg. Fifty-four-year-old detective Oupa Matjie was tracking down suspects in a case when he was killed by what media reported as an “undocumented immigrant.” Some residents of the squatter community then took to the streets, barricading roads with rocks and burnt tires, describing the week’s tragedy as a “wake-up call to fight crime,” and that foreigners “behave or leave the country.”

Diepsloot, which means “deep ditch” in Afrikaans, mirrors the social and political dynamics of the country as a whole. Although it borders the wealthy suburbs of Dainfern and Steyn City outside Johannesburg, Diepsloot is excluded from its neighbors’ prosperity. Since its advent, it’s been widely regarded as a melting pot of people with different ethnolinguistic backgrounds and nationalities. But over the past ten years, immigrants have been increasingly blamed for crime and social disorder, becoming the targets of violence.

The events last month provided the South African government the opportunity to defend immigrant rights and denounce xenophobia. Instead, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi was quick to dismiss what little kernel of regard for the plight of immigrants is left in our popular consciousness, glibly stating that “we must be very careful to label people xenophobic when they have got concerns.”