Xenophobia: It’s real

by Sarah-Leah Pimentel · March 2, 2015

Last month we watched as foreigners again became targets of violence. For a week the media focused on horrific scenes showing South Africans looting shops owned by immigrants.

Icon of the Flight into Egypt by South African iconographer Br Richard Maidwell CSsR.

The police were unable to keep the violence from spreading but the authorities once again shut the door on a very real problem, saying this was just �criminal activity� and not a consequence of xenophobic sentiment.

A week later, the media moved on to other stories. We, too, forget and move on to other concerns such as the ongoing load shedding and what we�re giving up for Lent.

But for people who come here from other parts of the continent to escape genocide, war, starvation, poverty, economic exclusion or to find educational opportunities for their children, xenophobia is real.

Let�s stop for a minute and really listen to their stories. Some of them have been victims of unspeakable horrors. They come here looking for a new start and their vulnerability makes them victims over and over again.

In an eNCA report, a Somali woman asked: �Where must I go?� She explained how she and her husband had run away from the terror group Al-Shabaab back home, but in the few years they�ve been in South Africa, they�ve been robbed, attacked or experienced some or other form of harassment 26 times.

I had a Kenyan friend who moved to Europe and said that she has finally stopped feeling afraid of walking on the street, and she no longer received taunting comments that she was a kwerekwere, a derogatory term used to refer to foreigners.

For the decade she lived in South Africa, she studied and used her skills to assist small South African spaza shop owners to access technology that enables them to have goods delivered to their rural shops without having to spend a fortune in taxi money to buy their supplies in town.

She came from somewhere else and wanted to be a part of South African society and contributed to it in a far more meaningful way than I perhaps do. But she finally left because Home Affairs made it impossibly difficult to remain here legally.

Xenophobia is real. It sometimes captures the attention of the media, but research shows that since the large-scale xenophobic attacks in 2008, violence against our other African brothers and sisters has remained an undercurrent of many South African communities, particularly in large townships that are already riddled with other poverty-related problems.

Xenophobia is real and we need to acknowledge the different forms it takes in our society. We need to speak about it and understand its causes.

I�ve heard South Africans say that foreigners take our jobs or that the number of immigrants has increased crime in South Africa. While these statements may contain fragments of truth, they are not the whole truth. Are foreigners prepared to work for less? Yes�but they need to be to survive in a foreign and hostile environment and chase after opportunities that will allow them to start a new life. This sometimes makes them the victims of exploitation or participants in criminal activity.

In the face of the government�s refusal to speak about xenophobia, what can we do about it? As Christians, how can we fail to respond to the needs of refugees when we think that Jesus spent the first part of his life on earth as a refugee in Egypt with Mary and Joseph?

Let us contemplate the icon, depicting the Holy Family�s Flight into Egypt, that illustrates this text, written by Br Richard Maidwell, a Redemptorist brother based at Holy Redeemer in Bergvliet, Cape Town.

Br Richard reflects on the icon, saying that the Holy Family had to leave behind their home and �travel to a strange country, a different culture and way of life. Suddenly they become a minority with all the loneliness and prejudice that comes with being a foreign people in a strange land�. He adds that �people have always been fleeing for their lives and unfortunately will continue to do so�.

We might not be able to put an end to the political and economic contexts that create the refugee problem, but we can respond in compassion and Christ-like love to the refugees in our midst.

How about offering them mustard seeds of hope by welcoming the stranger in our community, really listening to individual stories of real people, helping migrants become meaningful members of the community, encouraging other members of our communities and churches to overcome their mistrust and misperceptions about immigrants.

Or how about supporting or volunteering at established refugee centres around the country. Some of these are Catholic-based. The Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) operates in Gauteng and Limpopo, working to restore the human dignity of refugees who regularly find themselves vulnerable and at the mercy of unscrupulous employers.

Mercy House is a home for young refugees in Johannesburg that creates a home-like environment and works with local and international partners to help provide education to these youngsters, so that despite the tragic circumstances of their early lives, they can have a future and contribute meaningfully to society.

The Scalabrini Centre in Cape Town offers development and welfare programmes to the migrant and local communities, and works with government departments and communities to advocate on behalf of refugees and protect their rights, assisting their integration into communities and responding to xenophobic violence.

When we are able to see the face of Christ in every refugee we encounter, we become able to look beyond the poverty, the despair and the choices that those who had to flee their homes have to make. In our compassion and love, we hear the words of Christ in the Gospel: �Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me� (Mt 25:40).

See a video by Br Richard Maidwell on icon-writing at www.scross.co.za/2015/02/spirituality-of-icons/