Barely two years after suspected xenophobic violence rocked the country ,and claimed the lives of over 60 people, vicious intolerance has reared its ugly head in some parts of South Africa.
The most notable incident that took place soon after the end of the 2010 Soccer World Cup was the violent attacks in the Johannesburg informal settlement of Kya Sand in July 2010. News24 reported on this incident in the article “Kya sands quiet overnight”, and noted that most of the 16 people attacked were foreigners.
These attacks have been widely condemned yet the police are hesitant to describe it as xenophobic. Bloomberg’s Franz Wild, in a July 21 2010 report, ” South Africa Sends Troops to Johannesburg Suburb After Foreigners Attacked”, quotes police spokesperson Govindsamy Mariemuthoo as saying, “We’re not saying it’s xenophobia, because South Africans were also victims there”.
Kya Sands Informal Settlement
Wild noted that in the days after the attacks, police reinforcements and the military were deployed to thwart a possible intensification of violence.
In a News24 article ,published on the July 212010, “Xenophobic attacks will go on- ACDP” the Gauteng leaderof the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) describes the violence in Kya Sands as xenophobic and released a statement critical of the response thus far.
Failure of the South African Government to Respond to Xenophobia
Part of the challenge in dealing with the issue is the fact that the leadership of the country refuses to acknowledge it. After the 2008 outbreak of violence the country’s leaders appeared not to want to describe it as xenophobia but, rather preferred to consider it as acts of opportunistic criminals.Fast-forward two years later; there are new faces in government but the political tune on is the same.
The South African Human Rights Committee (SAHRC) is reported to have accused government of being slow-moving in its handling of the issue. In a July 21st 2010 article published on the News24 website, “Govt slack in tackling xenophobia: SAHRC”,the chairperson of the SAHRC bemoaned governments lacklustre response to the recommendations contained in a xenophobia report by SAHRC.
Government Action on Xenophobia
It must be acknowledged that prior to the Kya Sands incident, the government began to put in place plans to deal with the possible re-emergence of xenophobia.
On June 3rd 2010, the Times Newspaper reported that the government planned to re-establish an inter-ministerial committee on xenophobia. In the article "Government to Deal with Xenophobia" ,the paper quoted the government’s spokesperson, Themba Maseko, as saying that “Following reports of possible attacks on foreign nationals after the World Cup, Cabinet decided to re-establish the inter-ministerial committee to focus and deal with incidents and threats of attacks on foreign nationals”.
What the Kya Sands incident has shown is that the government is not yet fully prepared to deal with the core of the issue because it considers criminality as the cause of the violence. But, the key to systematically tackling xenophobia in South Africa is to address the key drivers of the negative sentiment.
It may be argued that one of the key drivers of xenophobia across the country is underdevelopment. The Gauteng leader of the ACDP, in her statement appearing on News24, framed the issue succinctly by saying “Nevertheless, xenophobia will continue to resurface in our province unless and until government finds long-term solutions to this very serious problem which seems to be a result of some of the poor, the desperate and the unemployed taking matters of government into their own hands."
Odilile Ayodele - Odilile Ayodele is a self-starter, strategic thinker with a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from the University of the ...
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