No surprise that worries are mounting about the violence being spread by black South Africans against foreigners that is threatening the carefully-cultivated lovey-dovey multicultural mecca image of the Rainbow Nation!
Where is the worldwide media? Can you imagine if this photo above showed white South Africans stealing Somali stuff?
While the great educated minds struggle to figure out what to call the phenomenon, could we maybe just label it what it likely is—a natural desire to live with one’s own tribe—tribalism!
From World Bulletin:
The recent looting of shops owned by African and Asian immigrants poses an ideological threat to the party that has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid, a prominent scholar has suggested.
“The violence is an effort by individuals, or a group, to achieve economic advancement, political power or recognition, or a sense of social or criminal justice,” Prof. Loren Landau, director of the African Center for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, told The Anadolu Agency.
Over the past few weeks, more than 1,000 shops owned by immigrants from Somalia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere have been looted in townships around Johannesburg.
Officials have shied away from labeling the violence “xenophobia” per se, suggesting that the incidents were mere petty crime.
[….]
But Landau, a prominent migration expert, fears more is at stake.
“Accepting that the poor black population is angry, differentiated, discriminatory and organized represents a visible threat to the African National Congress (ANC) and its political project,” he said. [Discriminatory!!!—ed]
“Rather than a unified and inclusive citizenry that continues to struggle against the legacy of white oppression, we see a black population that is willing to turn on foreigners and other South African ‘outsiders’ in ways that reject the party’s political legitimacy and promises,” Landau asserted.
The ANC, which defines itself as social democratic party, has ruled South Africa since the end of the apartheid era and the establishment of multi-racial democracy in 1994.
The party says it seeks to address socio-economic differences resulting from apartheid-era policies and empower citizens socially, economically and politically.
[….]
There has been much debate since the 2008 attacks about the specific targets of the violence and whether xenophobia could adequately explain the phenomenon.
The most visible targets have been foreigners from other African countries.
But Landau says that similar violence has also been meted out against South Africans who happened to be from the wrong place, village or group.
Who are the 514 “refugees” the US has taken from South Africa in the first four months of this fiscal year? South Africa is considered a stable country, so who the heck are these “refugees.” Somalis?
See our South Africa archive for more about the troubles in South Africa after apartheid.
