Indian minority are easy targets

I HAVE for many years echoed a painful reminder that the minority Indian community in South Africa are like low-hanging fruit, often attacked at will.

In a rainbow nation we are ripe for the pickings. Two recent incidents just reinforced those thoughts with rockribbed certitude.

One was where a black child on Link Road, Shallcross, was knocked and sadly passed away.

An incident like this is a powder keg waiting to be fused from a restless community of shack-dwellers, who have been denied basic amenities as entrenched in our constitution.

Now they feel they are being robbed of life also.

The ineluctable pell-mell that followed is a constant reminder that behind the verbal placebos and plastic smiles, lies a deadly brew of racial hatred.

Prejudice finds fertile ground in every race. It recognises no borders. It permeates every society of earth, no matter how vociferously it was denounced as all seek their own dominion.

The relentless conquests of proselytizing invaders, and the perceptible erosion of societal peace and harmony will continue its ebb and flow.

With government’s revanchist policy of expropriating land without compensation on the cards, our hoi polloi have been gripped by a new feverish euphoria.

The second incident was reported in headlined “Our living hell”. It is the case of the Govender versus the Northcoates of Westville.

An Indian professional man chooses a leafy suburb for a new home but little did he realise that behind the treelined streets and white picket fences, live those who are still allegedly caught up in the time-warp of a lager mentality. Through all the ostracism, Indians have triumphed despite the odds.

We are a sui generis people and our unparalleled resilience and tenacity to better ourselves, from the darkest of situations, runs in our blood.

We have never embraced or advocated polarisation in any form or context.

Are our fellow men viewing the world through the lens of eternal loss and eager to pounce on any hint of proprietary? Does our commanding presence in all spheres make them feel threatened?

These man-created trinities of racial hatred waft around daily in our lives like a playful eddying wind and we, as Indians, never quite know which way they are blowing. KEVIN GOVENDER Queensburgh