Why we should be ashamed

By brett Submitted on 20 May, 2008 - 08:52

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Yesterday I woke up, went outside to pick up my newspaper, and was confronted by a picture of a man burning to death, set alight by a mob who laughed as the flames engulfed him.

We have been seeing images like this for days now, as South Africans in several poor residential areas, as well as the Johannesburg city centre, have been attacking foreigners. Other South Africans, myself included, have reacted in horror. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is the latest prominent figure to express shame and outrage, begging people to stop.

One thing that particularly worried me was a quote by a Congolese man, who warned that the conflict in his country started on similar lines. First it was attacks against 'foreigners', and then the conflict widened, as different ethnic and other groups within the country started to fight one another. Today there are inklings this may already be happening -- a Johannesburg man is quoted in the Cape Times, saying they will attack 'Shangaans', if they don't return home. So it's not so much that people are foreigners, but that they are different, not from 'here'.

In the Western Cape, where I live, there are already tensions in poor communities between people who were born in the province, and in Cape Town, and recent migrants from places such as the Eastern Cape -- not to mention those from other countries. So where will it end?

All over the place, in comments on the radio, in letters to newspapers, and on Facebook, people are saying they're ashamed to be South African right now.

Indeed, it is worrying, disturbing, horrific and shameful. Such reactions are appropriate and indeed encouraging. But while we react in these ways, we must be prepared to be honest with ourselves and to reflect.

We must be prepared to admit that xenophobia and resentment of foreigners is not too far removed from our own thoughts. When house prices started to go through the roof a few years back, those of us in the middle class did quite a bit of muttering against the Brits and Germans and other foreigners who we believed were snapping up prime property with their pounds and Euros, and making it unaffordable for the rest of us. To the extent that Parliament began talking about laws to limit foreign ownership of property. It is lucky for us that we can resort to such 'civilised' measures to express our xenophobia.

We must also be clear about what we should be ashamed about. We should be ashamed that our fellow South Africans are acting in this manner. But we should also feel deeply ashamed that our fellow South Africans feel so desperate and brutalised that they are lashing out at the most convenient target they can find.

Because this outburst is not really about foreigners. It is about the fact that the promises and expectations of democracy have been shattered. It is about the fact that local and provincial and national government have miserably failed to do their jobs. It is about the fact that while our economy has grown, and many of us have managed to advance and grow more prosperous, millions of South Africans have been left behind, unemployed and desperate.

We are seeing the anger of people left without treatment as a health minister talks of garlic and potatoes. We are seeing the frustration of people who have spent hours and days and months queuing in vain for ID documents. We are seeing the fury of people who are left to the mercy of criminals while a police chief parties with mafia bosses. We are seeing the resentment of people with nothing, tired of watching conspicuously consuming the benefits of economic growth.

That this is taken out against foreigners has to do with the historically high levels of xenophobia already existing in South Africa, stemming partly from our history of isolation and sense of 'exceptionalism'.

What makes people set a fellow human being alight, and then laugh? Perhaps they are laughing as the myth of the new South Africa, the glorious rainbow nation, goes up in flames.