Oceans Not Oil Stands Against Xenophobia

The Oceans Not Oil coalition condemns the recent surge of xenophobic violence, intimidation and unlawful treatment directed at migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa.

The recent attacks, intimidation and scapegoating directed at people who have come to this country seeking safety, dignity and the means to survive are an assault not only on those targeted, but on the constitutional values and liberation history that many South Africans hold dear. There can be no justification for vigilante violence, collective punishment, arbitrary exclusion, or the denial of the rights and humanity of those who are most vulnerable.

When the apartheid state sought to crush the struggle for freedom, it was our neighbours across the continent who opened their borders, homes, schools and communities to South Africans in exile. Countries such as Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe provided refuge, solidarity and support. Many of our liberation leaders, activists, artists and ordinary citizens survived because African nations recognised their shared humanity and refused to turn them away. The persecution of migrants and refugees dishonours the pan-African solidarity that made our liberation possible.

The anger and frustration generated by the systemic injustice of unemployment, poverty, inequality and failing public services must not be redirected towards those with the least power, who bear no responsibility for creating these crises. Xenophobia obscures the real causes of hardship and distracts from the urgent work of building a just and caring society. At its heart, xenophobia is a rejection of ubuntu—the recognition that our humanity is bound up in one another, that none of us can flourish at the expense of another’s dignity and safety.

As an coalition working at the intersection of environmental justice and human rights, Oceans Not Oil also recognises that the world is entering an era in which forced migration will become an increasingly defining reality. Climate change, biodiversity collapse and ecological degradation are already displacing millions of people through droughts, floods, crop failures, sea-level rise and extreme weather events. Those least responsible for the climate crisis are often those most exposed to its consequences. 

The response to human mobility in a warming world cannot be fear, militarisation and exclusion. It must be solidarity, preparedness and justice. A deep just transition demands more than a shift away from fossil fuels: it requires transforming the economic and political systems that produce both ecological destruction and social exclusion. It calls us to build societies rooted in care, equality and shared prosperity, where communities are not set against one another in competition for survival, and where the rights and dignity of all people are protected.

We demand that government uphold both domestic and international legal obligations towards refugees and asylum seekers. We call on the state to protect all who live within our borders, to uphold the rule of law, and to hold accountable those who incite or perpetrate violence. We must also confront the extractive economic systems that deepen inequality, fuel climate breakdown and force people from their homes in the first place.

We join the call for all South Africans to reject the politics of division and the dangerous fiction that some lives are more deserving of safety and dignity than others. Guided by the principles of ubuntu and the vision of a deep just transition, we affirm that human dignity is not negotiable. Injustice against one is a threat to us all.