The tension is almost tangible — in the taxi queue, the spaza line and the comments section. A South African trades a glare with a foreign national and beneath that look lies a question too heavy for words: Who belongs more? Who works harder? Who’s to blame for the country’s decay?

It’s an ugly, cyclical argument, but beneath the anger lurks something deeper: the ghost of coloniality that still haunts the post-apartheid dream.

“You come here, take our jobs, clog our hospitals, flood our schools and sell drugs to our children.”

Zimbabwe and the DRC endured their implosions decades ago, their citizens forced into exile by economic disaster.

It’s a familiar refrain — part fear, part frustration — echoing from taverns to township meetings. For many locals, it’s not just economics; it’s existential. They see a nation still staggering from apartheid’s deliberate disempowerment, still finding its footing in a system rigged to keep it crawling. And now, amid the struggle to rebuild, they feel displaced by those who arrive with little but grit and desperation.

“We fought for this land,” says the local voice. “We’re still healing, still trying to stand. And now you, who’ve already endured your collapse and awakening, come to call us lazy?”

Foreign nationals bristle. They see something different — a land of endless potential dulled by endless complaining.

“We see your shebeens buzzing on a Tuesday afternoon,” one says. “We see the celebration while the economy burns. You sleep on your inheritance and then blame us for waking up first.”

It’s a brutal truth from those forged in harder fires — Zimbabwe, the DRC, Somalia and Pakistan. They come from nations where the post-colonial collapse has already burned itself out, where survival no longer feels optional. They arrive here lean, alert and driven. For them, the South African dream isn’t a promise — it’s a business plan.

“We can’t afford laziness,” says another. “We left homes with no hope, so our hustle is survival. You call it stealing jobs; we call it staying alive.”

It’s not a fair fight — because history didn’t start the stopwatch at the same time.

Zimbabwe and the DRC endured their implosions decades ago, their citizens forced into exile by economic disaster. Pakistan and Bangladesh fought through poverty and overpopulation to carve out resilience through necessity.

Each has already passed through its “sleepy period” — that long, lethargic phase after colonial rule when nations stumble through blame, denial and dependence before rediscovering purpose.

SA, by contrast, may still be deep in its own slumber. The signs are there — political blame games, service delivery decay, a generation numbed by unemployment and cheap escape. It’s not laziness; it’s a paralysis born of betrayal.

So, who’s right? The South African protecting a birthright or the migrant fighting for a foothold? Who works harder — the man guarding his inheritance, or the one who never had one to begin with? Who drinks more — the one drowning in disillusionment or the one numbing exile?

Both, perhaps, are mirrors reflecting each other’s fear: fear of failure, fear of irrelevance and fear of being erased in a land that promised more.

The tragedy is that while locals and migrants clash in the marketplace, the real villain — the colonial hangover and its slow poison of inequality — goes unchallenged. Both are victims of a system that never taught them how to share the ruins or rebuild together.

Until that ghost is exorcised, the debate will rage on — in taxis, on corners, online…

• Mathabela is an Agile Coach and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt consultant. He writes in his personal capacity

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