Where is your CVC code?
On April 23, thousands of South Africans marched in solidarity with foreign nationals and in opposition to recent attacks against immigrants.
With at least eight people being killed and thousands of others being displaced over the last few weeks, around 30,000 people marched through Johannesburg in order to assure immigrants that they are welcome in South Africa. Organized by a coalition of different groups along with the help of civil authorities, the People’s March Against Xenophobia, with a procession about three miles long, began in Pieter Roos Park in Hillbrow, a neighborhood known for its Nigerian immigrant population. The march passed through Johannesburg’s “Little Ethiopia” neighborhood on the east side of the city center and finally ended in Mary Fitzgerald Square in the neighborhood of Newtown. A silent vigil was also held in the southern coastal city of Port Elizabeth.
“We wanted to show Africa and to show South Africa that we reject xenophobia, that we disassociate ourselves from violence against foreign people and that we stand for social justice and all people’s dignity,” Mark Heywood, the executive director of Section 27, an NGO, told Al Jazeera.
“I think we’ve seen a beautiful demonstration through some of the poorest parts of Johannesburg, where many migrant people live,” he added, “and I’ve seen on the faces of migrant people, both on the march, and on the sides of the street, some reassurance that South Africa is not something that is going to murder them and hurt them.”
The premier of South Africa’s Gauteng Province, David Makhura, who led the march along with other members of the provincial legislature, told the crowds in Johannesburg that “we will defeat xenophobia like we defeated apartheid.”
For the third time in the seven years, South Africa has experienced an epidemic of xenophobic violence aimed at Malawian, Somali, Ethiopian, Zimbabwean, Nigerian, Mozambican, and Asian immigrants. The violence began in Durban, a coastal city in eastern South Africa, on March 30 and soon spread to Johannesburg.
Remarks made by Goodwill Zwelithini, king of the Zulus, on March 20 have been blamed as the catalyst for this most recent outbreak of anti-immigrant violence. Zwelithini, the traditional leader of South Africa’s largest ethnic group, is reported to have compared foreigners to “head lice” and blamed them for taking jobs from South Africans.
“We must remove ticks and place them outside in the sun,” Zwelithini said. “We ask foreign nationals to pack their belongings and be sent back.”
Not long after those remarks, immigrant-owned shops were burned and looted and at least eight people have been killed, including Mozambican immigrant Emmanuel Sithole whose horrific stabbing was captured in photographs that went viral online.
Zwelithini has since insisted that he was taken out of context and that he doesn’t support violence.
In response to the violence, South Africa deployed the army to areas around Johannesburg and the KwaZulu-Natal province on April 21. President Jacob Zuma has stated that he would be facing this problem head-on but has yet to give much detail about how he will go about doing that.
“South Africans are not xenophobic,” he said to Al Jazeera. “If we don’t deal with the underlying issues, it will come back.”
The last epidemic of xenophobic attacks occurred in 2008 with a series of riots resulting in 62 people being killed and thousands displaced.
Official statistics list the unemployment rate at about 25 percent and list immigrants as making up about four percent of the population. Despite these facts, the fight against xenophobia in South Africa remains a long, hard struggle according to organizers.
“[T]oday was just a show of solidarity,” Heywood said. “The hard work has to be done tomorrow, and the day after, and the months after to make sure that this never happens again.”
I pray that the ignorance that led to killing of ‘foreigners’ in South Africa will not affect ‘foreigners’ in the UK too. I have called on politicians severally, asking them to make racism and xenophobia a campaign manifesto agenda. They have instead fuelled the embers of racism through their selective attitude. By isolating and addressing some form of discrimination while ignoring others. They are sending a message to an increasingly frustrated indigenous population that those aspects of racism which the politicians care about such as anti semitism are to be respected; while aspects that deal with blacks are a free for all. They have legislated the eastern European community into mainstream society and they have protected the Jews with their actions, God bless them. On the other hand young black men are still leading the unemployment indexes in spite of the education and indigenous status they have managed to assume over the years. Men from eastern Europe have out staged black men in all professional endeavours inspire of the language barrier they face. One can only conclude that the language barrier they face is not as thick as the skin barrier we blacks face in the UK. The recent half hearted attempts by xenophobia.org
to enlighten the populace with stickers in public places can be seen as such. This is due to the selective approach it has taken in terms of the models used in the stickers. I never saw one with the picture of a black dreaded bearded rasterferian or a frustrated black man living on the edge of society. They only chose some black women and lighter black or eastern men and women. Also , when a campaign for a topic as serious as xenophobia starts in the quiet corridors of desolate rural train stations, one can be sure, that is where they intend to end the debate; in the outskirts of society outside the mainstream agenda setting media. I must commend the two front line British political parties and their heads for an excellent show of their ability to ignore the elephant in the room; which is the division of large sways of this island into ethnic ghettos. We all can see the British colonial empire resurrect it’s self on parts of this great island. The divisions in terms of residential areas based on ethnic identity is a recipe for violence. This mini nation states springing up in the inner city areas will soon develop into real states with all its attendant complications. They might soon own their own defence ministries and with the rate of small arms proliferation, it will be small fish for them to acquire enough arms to gain the attention of Whites in White hall. They might even start asking for political independence from their ‘colonial master’, even here at home in our Great England, hence the empire is now at home.
Thank you
Tunde Popoola
26/4/15