Refugees must not hold the government to ransom!

During the oppressive stations of life, it was not uncommon to hear demeaning utterances about the nature of black people in general; utterances that suggested that black people are inherently brutal, criminal and represent the savagery that mankind never witnessed; that they are incapable of adopting a certain moral code or assimilating certain moral sentiments.

Recent events of xenophobic violence in our country appear to bear testimony to certain untruths ascribed to a race of black people by those with such demeaning and insulting views. Such acts of barbarism and savagery were an affront to the dignity and respect of the rest of us as a black race. Nothing can excuse the impropriety, barbarism and savagery of our fellow black South Africans, who are displaying disgusting and extremist hatred and intolerance of their fellow brothers and sisters from elsewhere in Africa, and the manner in which they have executed their discontent.

A history of black people in South Africa is deeply rooted in suffering, pain, assault of their dignity as humans, being stripped bare of their souls and of being refugees and outcasts in their own land. The torments we have suffered as black people in this country elicited unimaginable sympathy and compassion from other parts of Africa; who opened their homes to welcome the exiled and accepted them as part of their communities.

When civil strife becomes the order our present day across Africa, misplacing millions of women and children, maiming and killing innocent lives, we can without any uncertainty proclaim to have immediate experience of what these black men, women and children feel, and we can form an idea of the manner in which they are affected by the conditions in their countries. Without hesitation of mind, we have the ability to place ourselves in their situation; we can conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments and become in some measure the same person with them. We should have been the last of Africans to display such intense hatred and intolerance for one another.

There can be no justification for butchering innocent men, women and children. Even the greatest ruffians do have some measure of compassion in them; but these imbeciles seem devoid of such respectable virtues which are common among the rest of us. The great mob of mankind was disgusted by such vile and despicable vices and follies of the idiots that perpetrated such acts of criminality. Sadly, those burdened with the task to provide safety and security were unable to demonstrate their usefulness when the innocent victims of such thuggery desperately clamoured for help in Alexandra, Diepsloot, Tembisa, Primrose and other parts of the country where mobs of criminals had placed law abiding citizens under siege.

Following these acts of xenophobic violence, the government set up temporary camps for displaced foreigners, legal and illegal, in order that they can be protected from the blood hungry savages that were baying for their blood; and that shelter can be provided to protect women and children from the unforgiving winter weather. This was an occasional act of compassion displayed by the stoic government.

Like any Good Samaritan the government was setting itself up to be held at ransom by certain opportunists among those who were displaced. At the Glenanda camp, some foreigners formed a coalition of opportunistic asylum seekers and refugees, whose intentions were to be repatriated to either Europe or Canada; as if any of these countries will welcome them with open arms. South Africa is party to international conventions that provide safeguards to the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, and nothing in its conduct was calculated to breach these conventions.

The government, Home Affairs in particular, had over-extended its compassion to assist those with valid asylum seekers and refugee status and ensure that they are moved to another shelter instead of being deported together with other illegal immigrants. But our ungrateful guests had resorted to breaking municipal bylaws; squatting illegally on municipal land and refusing to be moved; and did I mention them exchanging unprintable expletives with officials in the process.

In spite of the good faith with which the government has acted in this instance, South Africa by reason of location is again being thrust into the spotlight of international media as perpetrating yet repetitive acts of savagery come to be perceived as the norm from the “Hopeless Continent”. We should not allow our government to be held to ransom by anyone; especially not by a group of brainless ruffians who are desperate to advance their own self-interests while subjecting their infants and toddlers to heartrending suffering.

As South Africans we have done what could have been expected of a hospitable host; and those among asylum seekers and refuges who possess no respect for the burden of the laws and requirements placed upon them by the government should pack their rags and find refuge in a country that will tolerate lawlessness and having unaccounted guests in their house. Whatever sympathy that remained among many of us for the plight of these asylum seekers and refugees, has been thoroughly exhausted by the unbecoming behaviour of the rebels from Glenanda!