Belfast’s very un-South-African xenophobia

Northern Ireland and South Africa are having simultaneous xenophobic outbreaks. They are surprisingly different.

When reports of anti-immigrant vigilantism started coming out of Belfast this week, it all seemed terribly familiar. Angry, mostly young people on the streets, creating barricades from handy materials that catch fire easily, fending off police cautious about escalating things.

This is a movie I have seen before, on township and city-centre streets in South Africa. And as much as every protest is different, there are only a handful of ways they can go. There is a pace and a trajectory that is broadly predictable.

Also, a history of violence is a history of violence, right? The modern history that defines Northern Ireland is close enough to South Africa’s that ANC leaders played some role in getting the Good Friday Agreement past periods of deadlock.

I’ve never set foot in Northern Ireland, but obviously I’d be able to read its socio-political winds.

Ah, the hubris of middle age.

There was a coincidence of timing; South African President Cyril Ramaphosa went on TV to dampen talk of xenophobic violence just days before the xenophobic fires started on Belfast’s streets. But that is approximately the entirety of what the xenophobia in South Africa and the UK has in common.