Lesson no 1

 As I promised today I am starting with my "South African lessons" beginning with quite a serious topic.

 

 

Xenophobia

 

In the last months South Africa was making lots of headlines in the international press because of the increasing xenophobic violence against foreign nationals which already caused deaths and many more injured since the beginning of this year. Also in the previous years there have been xenophobic riots again and again that seem not to fit the picture of the united South African “rainbow nation”.

This year it all started in Soweto, Johannesburg’s most popular township very close to my place, when a Somali shop owner shot a 14-year-old boy trying to rob his shop. This incident caused a series of attacks and looting of Somali, Pakistani, Ethiopian and Bangladeshi owned shops all over Soweto. It was even reported that the police played an active role in the attacks and helped the attackers raiding the shops. 

In March the violence spread to Limpopo, a province in the north of Johannesburg, where many more shops were looted and their owners violently pushed out of their villages. When on the 21^st of March Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini publicly said that foreigner should go back to their home countries instead of enjoying the wealth that should have been for local people many foreign nationals became scared because of his big influence under the Zulus.

In April the attacks also spread to KwaZulu-Natal, the easternmost province, and caused the first couple of deaths when people were trapped in their burning shops. In the following days clashes between looters, foreigners and the police erupted, mostly around Durban. Some country’s authorities already started repatriating their nationals and four refugee camps have been set up but luckily it looks like the situation calmed down a little bit in the last few weeks.

Even though I was not far away from the riots in Soweto I luckily didn’t see anything myself. But many friends told me that they saw people chasing foreigners or people looting shops. Furthermore the consequences can’t be overlooked as many shops only consist of burned ruins and other owners don’t dare to open their shops anymore. Also when I came back from my last holidays in April I was first a little bit chocked. We hadn’t heard about any news during our trip and then on our last evening before returning to Johannesburg we got a warning message from our AFS coordinator saying that a train full with Zulus was on their way from Durban to Johannesburg to chase foreigners. Without knowing what had been going on in the last weeks we were quite concerned because we didn’t know if we as foreigners could also be concerned – especially because our coordinator was talking about possible evacuation plans if the situation should become too bad. But back in Joburg we didn’t get into any trouble because the violence never was against white foreigners.

Last week I also met a woman that was in a shop during a looting and her face was completely disfigured by burn injuries. She will be marked by that event for the rest of her life and I think that there is no chance for her to be ever again able to walk around without everyone looking at her severe burns. Now I just hope that the riots finally came to an end, that there will be no more innocent people that will have to suffer like that and all the shop owners won’t have to live in anxiety anymore!