An unwelcome welcome
Reports of guests in our country being attacked, often lethally, by South Africans should be a cause for serious alarm. It is not acceptable that the state should find itself in near-silence on the issue, or being so under-resourced as to fail in ensuring that justice be done.
Xenophobia – the hatred of foreigners – is a social disease as intolerable as racism, sexism or homophobia. It is a repugnant bigotry wherever it takes hold; more so in South Africa.
As South Africans we endeavour to root out social sins of blind prejudice. Our Constitution is designed to defeat bigotry of every kind. Xenophobic attitudes run counter to its spirit.
Moreover, many of those who now lead South Africa once were themselves foreigners in foreign countries. Today, South African airports are being named after men who in strange lands found welcome as refugees from apartheid, often to their host country’s detriment (just ask Botswana about the costs of sheltering anti-apartheid activists within is borders).
The peace and democracy South Africans enjoy today is partially a product of the hospitality other African countries extended to those who fought against apartheid. How churlish of South Africans not to return such hospitality to our desperate brothers and sisters from other parts of Africa.
Of course, not all foreigners who have come to South Africa are desperate and needy. Some are here specifically for criminal enterprise. However, these constitute a fraction of the migrants who come here because of political or ethnic strife, or extreme hunger in their country.
The sincere exiles try to make their living honestly. It is a scandalous indictment on South Africa that so many of them are being assaulted and even murdered for simply trying to stay alive.
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