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Rainbow image belies hopes of immigrants
South Africa is witnessing anti-foreigner riots not seen since the days of apartheid.
- Gulf News
- Published: 00:15 May 21, 2008
The optimism has truly gone, the hope that seemed almost touchable when Nelson Mandela became president has evaporated like morning fog across the high veld.
South Africa is in the grip of anti-immigrant violence and the country is witnessing scenes not seen since the brutal days of apartheid. Violence and hatred on this scale is troubling wherever it occurs but it is doubly so being in South Africa, once a beacon of hope not just for the continent but for all nations.
Here, an oppressed people had allowed their political leaders to forgive apartheid's backers. Justice yes, revenge no. It was a morality tale for the world, but now the patience of the townships, especially near Johannesburg, has gone.
Township dwellers see large scale immigration while they have no jobs and are struggling with rising prices and though that does not in any way excuse the brutality, it does place it in some kind of context.
South Africans are now hostile to foreigners from the countries that had once given refuge to South Africans during the liberation struggle. These countries - Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi -were far from wealthy, yet they opened their borders to South Africans fighting apartheid.
It may be foreign workers who are being targeted, but there are lessons for South Africa's leaders. There is anger in the townships that the wealth enjoyed by a tiny minority has not trickled down, the housing programme has been slow and living standards for the majority have not improved.
The African National Congress is deeply split and while the party leader and presumably next president, Jacob Zuma, has articulated the concerns of many, he has not yet shown how he will improve living standards. The anger today is at the foreigners, the anger tomorrow may be directed closer to home.
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