/ 23 April 2015

Letters to the editor: April 24 to 29 2015

Cold comfort: The Red Cross is providing blankets and food to about 600 displaced Africans seeking refuge in a camp in Johannesburg's Primrose suburb.
Cold comfort: The Red Cross is providing blankets and food to about 600 displaced Africans seeking refuge in a camp in Johannesburg's Primrose suburb.

We are the problem

The KwaZulu-Natal people who are claiming that our African brothers and sisters are bringing corruption into this country and that qualifies them for beating and killing – even getting chased out of the country – are ignorant. Why do they not beat and chase away Jacob Zuma, Goodwill Zwelithini and the other corrupt people in that province?

They believe that foreigners are taking their jobs and stealing their income (Our hate grows: Shame on us all). If you never had the job, how can that be?

To those who argue that foreigners are killing our children for witchcraft, perhaps you should start looking in your own family – I am sure you will find that there are witches who have destroyed innocent lives.

The ANC government instructed the police to kill miners in Marikana when they protested for a decent income. The miners hurt no one, only the pockets of the ANC tycoons. But there is no one to open fire (even with rubber bullets) on those who are killing and injuring foreigners.

Those who are paid to combat violence must be instructed to do so by all means necessary to preserve human lives and the sustainability of the country. – Lulamile Moolman, pan-African activist

• Those who maintain a beautiful external façade to conceal an inner rot worry when the rot comes into view. It’s not that they worry about the existence of the rot, but that it has been seen.

Our chosen crab-wise type of development is finally catching up with us in a harrowing way. The hard socioeconomic conditions for the many are hardening people, making beasts of them. As society cruelly deprives them, it depraves them as well. This is what has happened to the bloodthirsty, marauding ‘xenophobic’ mobs.

Regular raids on the shops of foreigners are the equivalent of shopping to acquire basic necessities and other goodies. It’s very scary, but it’s happening. There’s no ‘xenophobic’ hatred. The real reason is that the victims have the desired goods and are easy targets. And, besides, this naked robbery is now able to masquerade as something else.

It’s economic and political. We treat offenders with kid gloves because we carry the guilt of culpability for what they have become and do.

Let’s not dilly-dally but send an unambiguous message to the world, because this violence can undo South Africa’s image. So, two things: one, transform the country decisively; two, declare a state of emergency so the army can send an emphatic message to the perpetrators. Any half measures will be costly in terms of international relations, trade, tourism, foreign investment, sporting relations, status and our image in Africa. – Masitha Hoeane

• It is ironic that widespread coverage is being given to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s condemnation of the current xenophobic attacks on Zimbabweans. He has no moral right to speak on xenophobia. His persecution of the white community since 1980 has been xenophobic, hitting a crescendo point when he launched violence against white farmers. This violence is on-going today, incited by Mugabe – even at his birthday bash in February.

What is most sickening is that last week he was hailed by South Africans for openly hating whites. He got a standing ovation at Nelson Mandela’s funeral yet Madiba would have included him in his definition of a terrorist (“a person or group of persons, or a state, which uses violence or the threat of violence against innocent individuals in order to accomplish its ends”, as he put it after the Moscow hostage crisis). At the time, I thought it an insult to Madiba that Mugabe was allowed to attend the funeral, but he really must have rolled in his coffin when South Africans gave this tyrant such a tremendous welcome.

Are South Africans so ignorant that they are unaware that the reason that there are three to four million Zimbabweans in South Africa is a direct result of Mugabe’s tyranny? He is a terrorist and his party, Zanu-PF, is a terrorist organisation. And he is fêted by the South African government and cheered by the South African people.

Are South Africans aware that, in Zimbabwe, opposition supporters wear party regalia at risk of losing their lives? Even going to an opposition meeting is a risk most people are not willing to take, let alone voting for anyone besides “the party”. Any South African government policy on xenophobia must take this into consideration. Repatriating three or four million Zimbabweans is not an option as long as there is tyranny next door. – Alan McCormick, Nyanga, Zimbabwe

• The angry music is playing in South Africa right now, as it has played so many times before. Terry Pratchett speaks of the angry music: it plays before some innocent woman gets hanged for witchcraft, before the petrol is poured over a man whose only difference from his attackers is the country of his birth.

The angry music starts with the tightening of the strings of uncertainty that run through us all. Then the cold hand of fear plays the first note and, if the mood is just right, if the listeners are just desperate enough, the feet get tapping and everyone is in danger. Only we can make the angry music stop.

The crazies who preach hate for everyone who looks, speaks or thinks differently to them thrive on the angry music, on “othering”, on making us fear our fellow humans.

This country is like a child who had an abusive past. At the moment, it is acting like the man who stands over his broken and bloody family, saying that he was beaten as a child so now he can beat his children.

We cannot accept the status quo. We need to demand change. We must say: “We are not puppets. We will not dance to the angry music.” – Ester Spiller