Malian music legend Salif Keïta has withdrawn from his scheduled appearance at South Africa’s Mangaung African Cultural Festival (Macufe), citing reports of xenophobic violence and growing hostility towards African migrants.
Keïta’s decision comes at a sensitive moment in South Africa’s migration debate, following a series of demonstrations calling for stronger enforcement of immigration laws and action against undocumented foreign nationals. His withdrawal has placed renewed attention on the complex intersection of migration, unemployment, public services, crime, national identity and South Africa’s longstanding political and cultural relationships with the rest of the continent.
In announcing his decision, Keïta said he could not ignore reports of violence against African migrants. He presented the decision as a moral response rather than a rejection of South Africa or its people, making clear that his concern was with violence and hostility rather than South Africans collectively.
The distinction is important. South Africa’s migration debate cannot be reduced to a simple confrontation between South Africans and foreigners. The country has legitimate concerns surrounding irregular migration, border management and the enforcement of immigration legislation, while migrants from across Africa have also become vulnerable to intimidation, displacement and violence. Both realities can exist simultaneously.
The protests held in June demonstrated the scale of the tensions. The March and March movement and allied organisations organised nationwide demonstrations on 30 June, demanding stronger action against undocumented migrants. Organisers have maintained that their campaign is directed at undocumented immigration rather than nationality and have called for stronger border enforcement and more effective implementation of immigration laws.
However, some demonstrations were accompanied by incidents of intimidation, looting and violence. Foreign nationals in several areas reportedly remained indoors or sought ways to leave areas where protests were taking place, reflecting the heightened sense of insecurity surrounding the mobilisation.
Research by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project found that nearly 100 demonstrations against undocumented immigration took place on 30 June, with at least 150 such demonstrations recorded during June. The scale of mobilisation represented a significant increase compared with the preceding year.
The consequences have extended beyond the demonstrations themselves. Reports indicate that more than 160,000 people have left South Africa since late May through repatriation programmes organised by several African governments. That figure should not, however, be interpreted as meaning that all those who departed were victims of xenophobic attacks. Movement across borders can be driven by several factors, including insecurity, economic pressures, personal circumstances and concerns about potential unrest.
For migrants who have lived in South Africa for years or even decades, however, the distinction between formal immigration policy and the atmosphere created by public mobilisation can be difficult to experience in purely legal terms. A trader, construction worker, domestic worker, student or small-business owner who becomes fearful of being targeted because of nationality may experience the consequences regardless of whether they possess valid documentation.
The issue also reflects broader structural pressures within South Africa. High unemployment, persistent inequality, limited economic opportunities and pressure on public services have contributed to frustration over migration. These pressures are real and require credible policy responses. Yet attributing complex socioeconomic problems principally to migrants risks obscuring the wider institutional and economic factors shaping employment, housing, public safety and access to services.
The organisers of the anti-immigration campaign have rejected accusations that their movement is inherently xenophobic. March and March has maintained that its focus is undocumented immigration and the enforcement of South African law. The movement has also announced plans for another national mobilisation on 30 September.
That planned mobilisation means Keïta’s withdrawal is unlikely to remain solely an entertainment story. It has become another expression of a much wider debate over how South Africa understands its relationship with the rest of Africa.
South Africa’s position in African political and economic life makes this particularly consequential. The country is deeply connected to neighbouring states through trade, investment, family networks, labour migration and regional institutions. Millions of personal and commercial relationships cross the borders separating South Africa from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Eswatini, Malawi, Zambia and other African countries.
Those relationships also complicate the language of “foreigners” and “locals”. Southern Africa’s contemporary borders were largely shaped by colonial and post-colonial political processes rather than the movement patterns of communities that existed before modern states. People have long crossed the region in search of work, education, family connections and commercial opportunities.
At the same time, modern states have the legitimate responsibility to regulate entry, residence and employment within their territories. The central challenge is therefore not whether South Africa should have immigration controls, but how those controls are implemented and whether questions of documentation and public policy can be separated from collective suspicion or hostility towards people because of their nationality.
For Macufe, Keïta’s withdrawal carries an additional irony. The festival has been positioned as a platform for African culture, heritage and social cohesion. Free State authorities have expressed disappointment over his decision and maintained that the festival is intended to celebrate African unity.
The controversy is particularly resonant given Keïta’s longstanding relationship with South Africa. In 1988, he performed at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in London, an event that became an important cultural expression of international opposition to apartheid. His relationship with South Africa therefore predates the country’s democratic transition and is rooted in a broader African political and cultural history.
Keïta’s withdrawal should not be interpreted as a judgement on South Africans as a people. Equally, concerns about xenophobia should not be used to dismiss legitimate public debates about undocumented migration, border management or the capacity of the state to provide services.
Instead, the episode illustrates how migration has become a continental question rather than simply a South African domestic issue. The people at the centre of the debate are Africans moving within Africa, often responding to economic inequalities, employment shortages, insecurity and differences in economic opportunity.
Keïta’s decision consequently places a cultural question alongside a political one: whether African solidarity can withstand the pressures created by economic insecurity and contested national identities.
For South Africa and its neighbours, the answer will depend less on political slogans than on the ability of governments to enforce immigration laws fairly, protect residents from violence, address the socioeconomic conditions driving migration and maintain cooperation across borders.
Keïta may have stepped away from the South African stage, but the debate his decision has exposed is unlikely to disappear with the cancellation of one performance. It is ultimately a debate about what African solidarity means when economic hardship, migration and national sovereignty come into tension — and whether those questions can be confronted without turning fellow Africans into convenient symbols of problems that are considerably more complex.
