Shame on South Africa

by Editor · May 14, 2008

Shame on South Africa. Shame on a country in which mobs are attacking, robbing, driving out and even murdering those who sought a refuge from suffering in a society where a majority of people profess to have faith in God.

In Matthew 25:31-46 we hear Jesus� warning: those who do not welcome the stranger face �eternal punishment�. Our Lord leaves us in no doubt that xenophobia�the hatred of foreigners�is a grave sin. Christians who join the mobs in attacking foreigners, or even tolerate such violations, are grievously offending against God.

For that reason, Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg reacted to the spate of attacks in Alexandra and elsewhere in the most forceful terms: �I forbid any Catholic in this archdiocese from assisting these unruly people or approving of their behaviour. I call on the Catholics and people of good will in Alexandra to be the first to come to the aid of their neighbours who have been so ill treated.� He warned that �everyone who takes a step in a march in a township to protest [against] �foreigners� is taking a step closer to hell.�

Xenophobia is as intolerable�to Church and society� as racism, sexism or homophobia. It is a repugnant bigotry wherever it takes hold; more so in South Africa which still suffers from a bitter legacy of prejudice, inequality and hatred.

It is distressing that South Africans are not only failing to defeat but are perpetuating the sins of blind prejudice, in violation of God�s will and the Constitution alike.

Archbishop Tlhagale attributes the attacks on foreigners to �a new apartheid mentality [which] is killing our country and our dignity�. On whom will the mobs turn when all the foreigners have been driven out?

What an awful hypocrisy is being committed in this country which is led by many who once themselves were strangers in a strange land, including Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki. Many of those who helped liberate South Africa from apartheid found hospitality in African countries (some of which suffered cross-border raids by apartheid forces as a consequence).

Many of the foreigners who are so mistreated throughout South Africa (the phenomenon is by no means exclusive to Johannesburg) have escaped conditions every bit as hellish as any which South Africans may have experienced. They did not come to South Africa �to take our jobs�; they came to South Africa to stay alive.

What an indictment on our country that there are people who managed to flee the hell of Somalia, only to find persecution, even violent death, in what they had hoped would be a place of refuge. We must be ashamed.

All South Africans ought to join the archbishop when he asks of the victims of xenophobic violence �to forgive us for our sins�.