Stop this onslaught against our cousins
IAM CONSUMED with anger and revulsion after reading a hate-filled letter from Dr S Hajee who admitted during the course of his correspondence that he was motivated by xenophobic tendencies due to his medical experiences with drug abuse (“Foreigners must not abuse our hospitality”, The Star Letters, May 8).
He even seemed to be advocating xenophobic violence.
“We are a violent and sick nation as it is, and if you push your luck too far, there comes a breaking point, and the demons are unleashed.”
It is hard to believe that such hardcore prejudice and gross generalisations emanate from a medical practitioner. My humble, largely uneducated domestic helper has far more respect for other nationalities than he does. This is a classic example that education does not guarantee common sense.
Dr Hajee’s letter contains the usual sweeteners heard in such bigoted commentary – “I hasten to add that not all foreigners are equally blameworthy” – but the general tone of the epistle is laced with disgusting afrophobia and generalisations which imply that most (black) immigrants are illegal and are drug-dealing criminals or building hijackers.
How do we educate people like Dr Hajee that it is wrong to taint all African immigrants and that the facts definitely do not corroborate that venomous viewpoint?
In fact, only a small percentage of foreigners are incarcerated in our bulging prisons, and they are mainly populated by local South African-born perpetrators, many of whom have committed horrendous crimes. We have experienced this type of discrimination for decades where scapegoats have had to be found by communities for all of society’s ills. Many years ago when hordes of desperate rural South Africans were pouring into the cities in the hope of a better life, they were similarly blamed for perpetrating most of the crime, lowering the tone of the neighbourhood and angrily told to go back to where they came from.
Sadly Dr Hajee’s unfortunate attitude seems to be repli- cated by our government, despite their protestations of condemning xenophobia.
Instead of confronting the real scourge which is xenophobic violence, they seem to be unleashing the army and police in a targeted vendetta against foreigners.
The Rev Paul Verryn put it succinctly, saying that we have collapsed to a very serious place of darkness when armed police and soldiers defile the sanctity of a church at 3am, confiscate the inhabitants’ meagre possessions and place terrified women and tiny infants in police custody.
It is reminiscent of the security force raids on St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town during the apartheid police’s brutal rampages, and is a scenario we thought would never be repeated in our post-1994 democracy. If the government and the many xenophobic big- ots don’t desist from this onslaught against our African cousins, then maybe we should think of changing the first line of our beloved national anthem, which is of course Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika, meaning God bless Africa.
Obviously when Enoch Sontonga composed that wonderful hymn way back in 1897, black South Africans regarded themselves as living in a proud member state of Africa, albeit temporarily estranged due to the colonial settlers.
In the midst of all the xenophobic hate that constricts our country, thank goodness there is a bright ray of hope.
Human rights champions such as Lawyers for Human Rights and the Right2Know group who have termed the targeting of foreigners by police and the army as “a state coordinated xenophobia” are exposing the many human rights abuses, and are taking the fight against afrophobic prejudice to the courts.
I also firmly believe that the hatemongers are in the minority and ultimately the South African ship will sail on calmer, prejudice-free waters if all good people speak out in unison.
We all desire that the police agencies will belatedly do their job properly and rid our country of crime and grime, but that means targeting all criminals, whether they are South African-born or the foreign variety. Justice should not discriminate.
And when we see shocking television visuals of raids on wretched indigents living in city buildings, we wonder what the municipal social services departments have been doing over the years to permit those cesspits that are breeding grounds for crime and disease.
Why have the metro police not enforced the by-laws for so long? Why is Minister Lindiwe Sisulu only now talking of eradicating the awful apartheid single-sex hostels 21years after democracy dawned?
The abject hopelessness in those warrens of despair is palpable and they are also the perfect breeding grounds for rampant criminality.
Education does not guarantee common sense
Hillbrow, Joburg