20/06/2026
Xenophobia was one of the topics explored with my students when I was lecturing in Public Health about a decade ago.
We debated together. Challenged one another's assumptions. Students wrestled with difficult questions. They identified fear, frustration, deprivation, loss, feeling unheard, and they recognised the role of politics and the human consequences of prejudice and violence. These discussions were personal for those who had experienced xenophobia themselves, while others arrived with very different perspectives.
We spoke about how health is not just physical. How communities affect health. How fear spreads. How trauma and violence damage communities. How prejudice is a public health issue.
Apartheid in South Africa enforced separation into groups, with a man-made system of hierarchy and unequal access to resources. We still live with the resulting inequality, trauma, spatial segregation, material deprivation, and perceptions of unfairness.
None of this diminishes the very real frustrations many experience around issues like unemployment, crime, and service delivery. These should be heard and addressed. But directing them towards groups of people eventually harms everyone.
In health, imbalance usually develops from multiple converging conditions rather than a single cause. Lasting healing requires treating what is visible while also understanding the conditions that allowed it to emerge.
This way of thinking is useful when reflecting on xenophobia. To understand why it emerges, especially in a country as diverse as ours, we could ask what conditions allow division, fear, and violence to emerge. To understand, not to justify.
But those conditions alone do not inevitably lead to xenophobia. So what transforms them into xenophobia?
If division persists despite the harm it causes, there’s another question to ask. Who benefits from that division? Who gains power? It’s unlikely to be those living with its consequences.
No society becomes healthier by dehumanising others.
How do we cultivate the conditions in which dignity, justice, trust, and shared humanity can flourish, in which xenophobia would struggle to take root?
