Man, this is all too familiar. A wave of xenophobia is sweeping the poorer parts of South Africa, where unemployment tops 20%. Immigrants from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and more are being targeted, their shops and homes burned, and at least 7 have been killed. I remember when I was in Jo-burg the nasty comments that were made about people from Mozambique. It was reminiscent of the kinds of things an urban Californian would say about people from, say, West Virginia. Ignorant, mean comments. But I didn't know it was this bad.
It's morbidly funny to ready what the perpetrators are saying about their victims. Sounds exactly like every other xenophobe everywhere else in the world, be he a rich white Arizonan or a dirt poor South African. Crazy how we're all alike.
It's morbidly funny to ready what the perpetrators are saying about their victims. Sounds exactly like every other xenophobe everywhere else in the world, be he a rich white Arizonan or a dirt poor South African. Crazy how we're all alike.
"A familiar litany of complaints against foreigners are passionately,
if not always rationally, argued: They commit crimes. They undercut
wages. They hold jobs that others deserve.
George Booysen said
that as a born-again Christian he did not believe in killing. Still,
something had to be done about these unwanted immigrants.
They are bad people, he said: “A South African may take your cellphone, but he won’t kill you. A foreigner will take your phone and kill you.”"
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