XENOPHOBIC SOUTH AFRICA....
Did you see that xenophobic violence in South Africa, which has caused 24 deaths and forced 13,000 people to flee their homes, has spread from Johannesburg to the volatile Zulu heartland, prompting President Thabo Mbeki to deploy the army on the streets for the first time since the end of apartheid.
Asylum seekers have been burned to death by raging mobs and I suggest that were this happening in any other continent than Africa the liberal media would be ablaze with outrage at such naked intolerance. But this is is South Africa - the rainbow nation and so a different standard. It strikes me that at the end of the rainbow there is a pot of seething hatred but we daren't mention it since that might mean criticising the ANC, and we all know that might mean an indirect criticism of Saint Nelson - the man who has had nothing to say on this vicious xenophobia that now disfigures his nation - again.
David Vance
8 Comments
View Printer Friendly Version
Reader Comments (8)
A lot of the immigrants and refugees are from Zimbabwe. Mbeki is paying the price for his loyalty to his old comrade Mugabe. If he had not supported that blood-soaked regime opver the past ten years the refugee crisis in South Africa would have been avoided.
Saint Nelson - the man who has had nothing to say on this vicious xenophobia that now disfigures his nation - again.
Not strictly true David. I had no trouble finding these articles online.
Taken from CNN
"Also Monday, the Nelson Mandela Foundation issued a statement condemning the "senseless violence.""
Taken from iol.co.za
"Meanwhile, the Nelson Mandela Foundation said it was appalled at the violence directed at foreign nationals.
"We join the rest of South Africa in deploring this violence. Whatever the underlying causes they have to be addressed, but this senseless violence is not a solution," said Achmat Dangor, foundation chief executive officer.
Its sister organisation the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund would continue assessing the needs of children living amid the conflict and provide assistance, the foundation said.
It repeated comments made by former president Nelson Mandela who last week urged people not to "descend into destructive divisiveness no matter what the considerations are"."
Next time anyone here is having a xenophobic moment, do pause and consider where it can lead to.
The fact is that South Africa is the Yugoslavia of southern Africa. There are at least four separate nations within its boundaries and they're going to split apart sometime.The sooner the Afrikaners leave the carcass of Transvaal etc. and form their Kaaps Republiek with their coloured brethren, the better for everybody.
Allan,
I agree with you about SA being "balkanized". It's just one more region of the world where different peoples must learn to coexist.
I'd dearly love to see the American model being adopted more widely, i.e. the melting pot, which seems to have worked very well for just about everybody in the USA, be they white, yellow, brown and black.
Dawkins, people are people and they generally prefer their own kind which is the basis of nation-forming. The blacks of South Africa have their own national grouplets of language and culture as do the Afrikaners and coloureds.
Your last paragraph is a kind of - "if only people would just get along". Too much like frozen adolescence for me but if it makes you feel good, then fine. I know here you're coming from, but it's not realistic and I'm quite happy preferring my own people and preserving my culture rather than losing it all in some 'melting pot'.
Allan,
There ya go, but I doubt if our resident Yank Mahons would agree with you about the "melting pot."
Did you know he's one-third, Irish, one-third Cherokee, and one-third copper kettle?
I meant to write "one-third Irish" :0)