Dubbed the “Rainbow Nation” by the world’s communist and socialist dreamers, South Africa is anything but a mecca for all people.
They call it “xenophobia” here instead of “racism” because the crimes being perpetrated on Somalis (and vice versa) are black on black crime.
Photo: Themba Hadebe / AP
Oh, the irony!
From the Global Post:
More than 150 Somali-owned shops have been looted in four days of xenophobic violence in South Africa’s coastal city of Port Elizabeth, police said Wednesday.
“Since Sunday when all the trouble started, 150 shops have been looted and it is spreading to other townships. The situation is still tense,” police spokeswoman colonel Sibongile Soci told AFP.
At least 70 suspects have been arrested in connection with the pillaging and will appear in court this week, she said.
The ransacking of the small shops that sell mainly groceries and popularly know as spazas, was sparked by the killing of a 19-year-old South African boy by a Somali shop owner on Sunday.
It occurred in New Brighton township following an argument over cellphone airtime.
Since then, attacks on the shops spiralled and spread to other townships as locals claim they were avenging the killing.
Amid widespread poverty and unemployment, frustration in South Africa’s run-down neighbourhoods often boils over into anti-immigrant violence. [Remember there was a time when South Africa was the jewel of the continent—ed]
An explosion of deadly attacks in 2008 killed more than 60 people and displaced thousands into refugee-style camps.
The African Centre for Migration and Society, a think tank, says 140 foreigners were killed and 250 seriously injured in the country last year.
[…..]
A Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University social commentator Theodore Petrus said South Africans needed to correct the misconception that foreigners are here to take their jobs and women.
We have written a lot about the “xenophobia” crisis plaguing this increasingly impoverished country. See ‘Rainbow Nation’ here.
Editor’s note: For regular readers, we have posted stories from India, Israel and Australia [update: Sweden] in recent days about migrants and the impact they are having as they arrive illegally in modern capitalist countries looking for asylum, the warning signs should be very clear for America. At some point in time, we will be facing the same problems on a national scale—violence, riots, and political upheaval. We need to get our borders sealed now!