What’s the use of a parliamentary committee probing xenophobia? That’s likely to be the response of many South Africans to the Ad Hoc Joint Committee on Probing Violence Against Foreign Nationals, to give it its full title. After all, in the wake of 2008’s xenophobic violence, exactly such a committee was set up.

The 2008 Task Team of Members of Parliament Probing Violence and Attacks against Foreign Nationals produced a number of recommendations for government departments. From our current vantage point, some of them seem decidedly idealistic. Home affairs, for instance, should prioritise “issuing foreign nationals with correct documentation, maintain[ing] adequate records and root[ing] out corruption”.

Safety and security should focus on “crowd control” and “police response to violent situations”, the 2008 committee recommended. That was four years before Marikana.

It’s 2014, we’ve seen townships and hostels explode with violence earlier this year, and – lo and behold – another parliamentary committee gets established. It’s a relief that the committee’s title specifically names violence against “foreign nationals”, given the number of occasions on which top government officials have denied that anti-foreigner sentiment fuelled this year’s attacks.

It’s a 20-member multi-party committee, which brings together nine representatives from the National Council of Provinces and 11 MPs from the National Assembly. Initially required to report back to the National Assembly by 30 August, the committee has applied to extend the deadline for its final report to the end of September.

Committee chair Ruth Bhengu, from the ANC, has a co-chair in fellow ANC MP Tekoetsile Motlashuping, but it is very much Bhengu who runs the show.

“In my view, the violent attacks to foreign nationals are the symptom of a problem we have to identify,” Bhengu told the committee on Thursday. She suggested the committee might need to look outside South Africa for some answers on the number of migrants to South Africa. “What makes people leave their countries, particularly those that are illegal immigrants?”

Though the committee has yet to begin its formal investigations – indeed, Thursday saw it sit for only the third time – Bhengu already has her eyes fixed firmly on one particular problem that she feels may be fuelling resentment against foreigners. More than once, she mentioned the issue of foreigners owning RDP houses.

“What makes it possible for an immigrant to own a house that is supposed to be owned by a South African?” Bhengu asked.

Bhengu said too that initial reports pointed to employment sectors like agriculture and hospitality as fomenting tensions between locals and migrants. She said the perception is that farm work and hospitality jobs in particular are going to foreigners. As a result, the committee will be reaching out to industry associations and chambers of commerce in these areas.

The committee will begin on-the-ground consultation in KwaZulu-Natal and from there proceed to Gauteng and the Western Cape, meeting with migrant organisations and other bodies. The DA’s Toby Chance suggested that the national federation of spaza and tuckshop owners should also be targeted, given that the ownership of these shops appears to have been a tension point.

The most contentious intervention of the day, however, came from ANC MP Zephroma Dlamini-Dubazana. “I may be out of order,” she began tentatively – and then suggested that it was “critical” that the committee visit King Goodwill Zwelithini.

It was the Zulu king who caused a furore after telling a Pongola crowd in March, “Immigrants must take their bags and go where they’ve come from” (video and direct translation here. Zwelithini later claimed he was misinterpreted and refused to apologise for the remarks.

To be clear, Dlamini-Dubazana was not suggesting that the committee visit the King to make him account for his statements. In fact, she was suggesting that the committee visits the royal to hear from him what he had “observed” which had prompted his remarks. Nonetheless, there was an almost tangible tensing of atmosphere when Dlamini-Dubazana made her suggestion to the committee.

Such a move would be a “bit difficult”, began ANC MP Leonard Ramatlakane in response, suggesting that perhaps the committee could instead talk to “whoever [Zwelithini] designates” instead.

“I would rather not go that route [of calling on the King],” agreed the ANC’s Loyiso Mpumlwana, due to the “sensitivity of the matter”. He proposed that perhaps the committee could instead meet with chiefs, as wielding a form of traditional authority “directly connected with the people”.

The IFP’s Alfred Mncwango said he wasn’t sure it would be “advisable” to meet with Zwelithini – because it “would give credence” to the idea that the King actually said the things he is accused of saying. The committee “wouldn’t get a warm welcome”, he feared.

The closest anyone came to endorsing the idea of calling on Zwelithini was when the DA’s Sej Motau suggested, weakly, that perhaps the King would be cross if he wasn’t consulted by the committee.

Committee chair Bhengu sternly told him off.

“There is no one who is saying that the information around what is alleged to have been said by the King is not important,” she said. “But there is a caution that is being made in understanding of the African culture.”

Can you imagine a parliamentary committee in the UK summoning Queen Elizabeth II to appear before it? Bhengu asked incredulously. (Her heir, Prince Charles, has in fact faced parliamentary scrutiny over his habit of lobbying government ministers.)

Bhengu urged the committee to demonstrate “political maturity” and not allow the media to set the agenda. “It is only the media which is talking about the King,” Bhengu said.

There you have it. The parliamentary committee set up to probe xenophobic violence will talk to all sorts of people – from farmers to spaza shop owners to migrants – but not to the man some hold responsible for having sparked the violence. Then again, apparently it’s only the media that sees a connection there. DM

Photo: Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini arrives for the inauguration of South African President Thabo Mbeki, April 27, 2004. (Reuters)

Read more:

• Parliament to investigate xenophobia (again), on News24