Somalis say it is safer now in Somalia than in South Africa

10/23/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is maddening (as so many things are these days!)! Why does the American media rarely (here Bloomberg News does write about it) mention that the much ballyhooed RAINBOW NATION of South Africa is experiencing xenophobic violence and a murder rate six times higher than the US?

Somalis in recent violence in Pretoria.
Photo: Marc Morris/AP

I do know why, the Left is so invested in the idea of South Africa being run successfully by commie blacks (who would wipe out racism and ethnic nationalism) that it would never allow its media arm to tell the world what a bunch of ‘unwelcoming’ xenophobes they are! The Mandela mythology is so deep, the truth will rarely be told in the West.

And, of course they have to use the word xenophobe instead of racist because this is black on black violence.

Kind of interesting though that it is Somalis getting the brunt of the hatred there.

Here are some excerpts from a longish piece at Bloomberg News. (Emphasis mine)

Let me know if you see this article reprinted in say the Washington Post or New York Times!

Ali Omar Mohamed fled Somalia’s civil war two years ago to seek a better life in South Africa. Now after being robbed at gunpoint and seeing scores of his countrymen murdered in xenophobic violence, he’s ready to leave.

Mohammed, a 21-year-old shopkeeper, is part of a growing tide of immigrants who say they prefer returning to a war zone rather than face the hatred and jealousy they are subject to in South Africa where they’re called “the enemy.”

What a coincidence! Muslims have the money to own the convenience stores there too!

Over the past six months, disputes between Somali shopkeepers and South Africans have deteriorated into looting and burning sprees of dozens of stores in parts of Johannesburg and the coastal city of Port Elizabeth, according to police.

[….]

Somalis and Pakistanis, who’re able to tap their close-knit communities for capital to start businesses, dominate convenience stores known as spaza shops in townships and shantytowns on the outskirts of South Africa’s major cities.

Conspicuous by their distinctive languages and Muslim religion in a mainly Christian country, their business acumen has stoked jealousy among many citizens in South Africa, where one-in-four are unemployed. [Do I see a little Islamophobia creeping in?—ed]

“There are too many foreigners here, they undercut everyone. Every corner, there is a Somali shop,” Magdalene Thabana, 56, said as she sat on a red plastic stool selling bags of scones across the road from Mohamed’s store. “I don’t have enough money to start a shop.”

Murder rate six times higher than the US!

A wave of xenophobic violence led to about 60 deaths, including some Somalis, and as many as 50,000 people being forced to flee their homes and shops in 2008. Since then, Somalis have been the hardest hit by outbreaks of xenophobic violence, police spokeswoman Brigadier Marinda Mills said in a phone interview.

While South Africa’s murder rate has dropped by more than half to 31.1 per 100,000 people since 1995, it remains six times higher than that of the U.S. [And, I’m betting they don’t always do their killing with guns!—South Africa has strict gun control laws according to the Washington Post.—ed]

Guess it’s time to go home to Somalia!

In South Africa, the situation for Somalis is deteriorating.

“Somalis are subjected to a high rate of fatalities and loss of livelihoods,” Munyaneza said in an interview. “This is unprecedented. They’re being attacked with impunity. The Somalis are the ones who are the hardest hit amongst the foreigners.”

The US has resettled 716 refugees from South Africa in FY2013, and let me give you a hint—they are not the white South Africans!

As a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, “asylum seekers” should not be passing through South Africa as a conduit to America. Legitimate asylum seekers/refugees should be asking for asylum there.

We have written a lot about South Africa, click here, for our complete archive.

So much for “welcoming the stranger” in the socialist dream land of South Africa

09/20/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

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.

This Time magazine photo is from the 2008 riots. South African blacks’ anger was focused on “refugees” from other African nations.
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!

Minnesota Somalis protest Somali murder in South Africa

06/14/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The South African xenophobia has further upset American Somalis who are protesting in solidarity with their Somali kinfolk in S. Africa. First a protest in Columbus, Ohio and now one in Minneapolis.

They need to tell Obama to put pressure on the Socialist Rainbow Nation he admires so much when he visits later this month. The struggling new government of Somalia doesn’t have much power.

Imam Hassan Mohamud wants the new Somali government to do something.

From the Chronicle:

GIN) – Hundreds of Somali-Americans rallied in Minnesota this week to protest the murder of a Somali shop owner in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The Somali man was killed during a week of riots that targeted Somalis and other African foreigners.

[…..]

At the demonstration in St. Paul, Hali Mahmoud, the dead man’s sister, addressed a crowd of hundreds of Somali-Americans. Speaking amidst tears, she said her 27 year old brother had died a painful death.

The recent outbreak of “hate crime” brought back memories of May 2008 when an explosion of xenophobia or racism against foreign nationals left 62 dead and several hundred injured. It also caused the voluntary deportation of immigrants to their home countries and the destruction of immigrant-owned property.

Analysts link the anti-foreigner anger to high unemployment, a shortage of good jobs, housing and other basic necessities. But thinking this is “poor-on-poor” violence is not sustained by facts, argued David Cote of South Africa’s Lawyers for Human Rights. [Well then what is it Mr. Cote??? These “human rights” types can’t bring themselves to say that blacks could possibly harbor xenophobic tendencies toward other blacks something everyone knows is reserved only to whites. —-ed]

There is a deep mistrust of law enforcement to protect local resident and solve crimes,” wrote Khadija Patel in the Daily Maverick newspaper of South Africa.

“Citizens have little faith in formal institutions and are resorting to violence,” said the director of the Cape Town office for the Institute for Security Studies. “It is very possible that some of the victims may well be innocent.”

Corruption and bad management on the part of the ruling government in S.A.!

“Corruption, bad management and an unclear policy has taken its toll… Daily reports of police officers tearing up refugee papers on the street and making cash demands from shop owners during searches of their businesses lend to the perception that there is no protection for foreigners against violence and persecution.

On Friday in Cape Town, a march of about 200 people was held to protest attacks on foreigners.

Meanwhile, in Minnesota, more than 250 leaders, community leaders and Muslim religious representatives assembled at the State Capitol to remember Abdi Nasir Mahmoud and condemn his murder and the murders of other Somalis in South Africa. Hassan Mohamud, imam of Da’wah Islamic Center in St. Paul pleaded with the Somali government to secure safety and justice for the Somalis abroad.

Forget the new Somali government, just tell Obama to work his magic on the African National Congress—the black ruling party of S.A.!

Photo: The photo of the Imam is from this 2008 story about violence in Minneapolis and the murder of Somali youths by other Somalis.

South Africa: Somali refugees protest xenophobia in Cape Town

06/08/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update June 21st: South Africa no longer the number one most desired country for asylum seekers, gee, I wonder why! Here.

Update June 14th: Some humor about the Obama trip here at my other blog. Minnesota Somalis protest in solidarity with brothers in S.A. here.

Update June 13th: Obama family trip to South Africa later this month to cost US taxpayers $60-$100 million! (here). There is more! No safari! Sniper team nixed (snipers for wild animals that might eat the Obamas), here.

Update June 11th: South African Muslim lawyers want Obama arrested when he gets to the country later this month, here at Creeping Sharia.

Update! See this interesting turn of events as American Somalis protest in solidarity, here.

Barack and Michelle are planning a little trip to South Africa later this month. Do the Somali protestors know that?

We had learned previously that Barack had been inspired during his college years by the anti-apartheid movement of Nelson Mandela (his first political cause!) and I expect they are going to South Africa once again (or at least Michelle is going a second time, remember the expensive 2011 trip!) to extoll the virtues of the socialist Rainbow Nation.

You can bet the African National Congress is going to hide their refugee problems when the Obama’s arrive.

Somalis protest xenophobia (they call it xenophobia because everyone involved is the same race, this is black on black violence).

From the BBC:

Members of the Somali community in South Africa have marched to parliament in Cape Town to protest against recent attacks on foreigners.

Three Somalis have been killed this month and the Somali government has requested the South African authorities to do more to protect their nationals. [We learned yesterday that tens of thousands of Somalis are going home to Somalia—ed]

About 200 people took part in the protest, holding a banner reading: “Everyone is a foreigner somewhere.”

Correspondents say xenophobic attacks have increased recently.

Some of the protesters accused the authorities of not doing enough to prevent attack on foreigners, especially Somalis, or prosecute those responsible.

Two Somali brothers were allegedly hacked to death with an axe in the northern Limpopo province on Thursday night.

Last week, Abdi Nasr Mahmoud was stoned to death in Port Elizabeth.

Mohamed Aden Osman told the BBC that criminals saw Somalis as “soft targets”.

Someone should tell Barack and Michelle that Mandela’s Rainbow Nation is a myth.

From an earlier BBC story:

….some believe the African National Congress (ANC) government has become distracted by other things.

In May 2008 international newspapers carried the horrific image of Ernesto Nhamuave – a Mozambican man who was “necklaced” – torched by a marauding mob – simply for being a foreigner.

The 35-year-old father of three later died of his injuries.

It resembled the appalling violence during the struggle against white minority rule.

During last year’s xenophobic violence the clashes were between black Africans: locals and those considered outsiders.

New readers: You can learn more about the Rainbow Nation mythology and South Africa’s treatment of refugees in our archives, here. There is growing pressure on western countries to begin resettling South Africa’s refugee over flow.