Post-apartheid South Africa has witnessed a number of xenophobia related incidents directed mainly against African immigrants. There have been as many attempts at explaining the underlying cause of these incidents. These explanations have ranged from those who seek to dispute that this violence is xenophobic to those who seek to explain it in terms of the complexities of migration and discrimination attached to it. An undertheorized aspect of xenophobia is how it represents Africa’s failure to integrate economically, culturally, socially, politically as a unitary block with a shared identity, history and common future. Whatever the reasons for that failure, they must be understood to be a betrayal of African goals of political unity, material prosperity, and social stability. One way of overcoming this failure is to take seriously the founding principles of newly independent African leaders who sought to chart ways of finding a route to continental unity and co-operation. South Africa, beset with its own internal problems does, however, present itself as a viable alternative to the permanent state of failure of most sub-Saharan African countries. Young and old people who dare and wish to escape the trap of their countries see South Africa as a lifetime opportunity that will provide refuge to their troubled lives. South Africa has become a microcosm of the tensions caused by Africa’s failed politics, economics, and social cohesion. Understanding xenophobia in South Africa requires going beyond the attitudes and behaviour of poor, frustrated, and disempowered South Africans who lash out at similarly disempowered fellow Africans.