The Shifting Problem and Changing Narratives

The Western Cape Premier's Office report on Masiphumelele depicts the problem posed by foreign retailers in the township in 2006 in clear and simple terms. It asserts that ‘the undercutting of prices on goods by Somali-owned businesses’ and the ‘further arrival of Somali-owned businesses in an existing compact trading space’ caused heightened anger among South African retailers in the area. In other words, the problem was a matter of price and numbers. This dilemma was mirrored in Gugulethu in 2009. When South African retailers in the township sent out more threatening letters to their foreign counterparts in June that year, their grievances were more or less the same: Somali prices were too low and their shops too many.In the view as expressed frequently by South African retailers, state officials and members of civil society, the charging of low prices by foreign retailers was an ‘unfair practice’ as opposed to a competitive boon. Foreign traders’ bargain offerings posed an economic threat to South African shopkeepers, who were not able to keep up with the competition, which was not fair. But over the years complaints expanded and became more elaborate. These adaptations and evolutions in argument were in part fed by the realisation that South African law encouraged rather than prohibited businesses charging lower prices than their competitors. Furthermore, the country's laws did not regulate or limit the number of shops that foreigners could open in townships. Because of these things there was no clear legal remedy to compensate for the alleged unfairness. It soon became apparent that, in the words of the former minister of trade and industry Rob Davies, the government could only deal with foreign shops ‘in terms of whether or not people are involved in illegal activity or not … We can't deal with it because people are from a particular nationality.’ New mischiefs therefore needed to be found and identified.New reasons for antagonisms towards foreign traders emerged. In May 2011, five years after the eruption of violence in Masiphumelele, an organisation called the Greater Gauteng Business Forum delivered letters to foreign spaza traders in nine areas in Gauteng ordering them to close shop. The letters received by astounded shopkeepers differed in a significant way from those delivered in various parts of Cape Town.