Us versus them

Submitted by David Drew

The xenophobic racism spreading like a disease across South Africa may have myriad causes, but at its core, the ugly truth is that it exposes a predisposition to bigotry that we all potentially share. It is the same “button” that has been pushed by despots, dictators, religious leaders, politicians and criminals to incite some of the worst examples of “civilised” behaviour in history.

Although one can argue at length about the causes, if we want to stop this before it is recorded in history along side apartheid, Rwanda, Kenya, Serbia and the Holocaust, the response from our leadership needs to be swift and simple.

Many theories explaining the rise of xenophobia are being discussed in newspapers and on talk shows. Most blame lack of service delivery and poverty; others suggest it has to do with fraudulent housing allocation, uncontrolled immigration, criminal elements, the rampant capitalist tendencies of immigrants (stealing jobs and opening shops), “stealing our women with their money” and, my personal favourite, the mysterious “third force”.

While there may well be more than one explanation for the various incidents, I believe they have one thing in common: they build on the human tendency to separate people into two distinct groups — them and us. Perhaps, like most wild animals, this is something that was built into our brains to protect us from danger and is therefore latent in all of us. The way we choose to react to this, however, separates us from the animals. The reason we have to strive against this simplistic view of the world is that history teaches us that the first casualties are compassion, reason and logic.

As on George Orwell’s famous farm where the complex rules devised to help the animals distinguish good from bad were replaced with the simplistic “four legs good, two legs bad”, it would appear that in our townships the mantra is now “local good, foreign bad”. And let’s be clear, this is not about “illegal immigrants”, it’s just about “immigrants”. Just like separating Hutus from Tutsis, Jews from Germans or black from white, the methods used are crude and cruel.

This week I heard reports of an elderly man being evicted from his house after being identified as Zimbabwean. According to the report, he had been a resident of South Africa (legally or illegally) for more than 40 years. His children and grandchildren were born in South Africa. In fact, as someone pointed out, his residence in South Africa pre-dated the existence of Zimbabwe.

With the possible exception of the few remaining Khoisan people in South Africa, all our citizens are in whole or in part immigrants. Whether we or our forefathers got here by plane, ship, horseback or by foot, we are all the product of one immigration or another.

This is but one example of the perversion that mindlessness creates. All over South Africa, those of pan-African heritage look around nervously, wondering whether their wives, husbands or children will be singled out as foreign or amakwerekwere on a taxi, at work or at school.

Yes, illegal immigration is clearly a problem and the Zimbabwean crisis may have been the spark that set fire to Alexandra, but the rapid (rabid?) spread of violence across South Africa demonstrates that some of our communities are just waiting for an excuse to mete out their sense of justice on a perceived enemy.

I have no doubt that, as history shows, it typically takes a few ring leaders with particularly strong views to build on this latent sense of them and us among the general population. Branding foreigners as criminals, dirty, rich and, most of all, “illegitimate”, rather than “illegal”, is uncannily similar to the language the Nazis used to justify persecution of the Jews. Remember that the Nazis used the depression and general poverty to their advantage by (among other things) painting the Jews as having got rich at the expense of ordinary Germans. It is the same language used by the apartheid government to convince whites of the existence of the “swart gevaar“.

The solution, therefore, like on Orwell’s farm, is to use language and rules that the animals understand. There is no place for ambiguity and quiet diplomacy. In situations like this, any action or lack of action, communication or lack of communication, that lends credibility to the actions of the mob only encourages the spread of this virus of hate. Leaders in South Africa need to speak out against the violence in the strongest terms possible. They need to draw the parallels between what is happening now and the atrocities of the past. They need to compare this to Rwanda, to Nazi Germany, to Serbia and, most importantly, to the worst that the apartheid government had to offer.

We cannot for a moment suggest that xenophobic violence is a lesser crime to ethnic cleansing or racism. Neither can we suggest that it is justifiable under the circumstances. We have politicians using phrases such as “don’t take the law into your own hands”. This is not about the law; this is about hate. This is about racism and bigotry, and our leaders need to make this message clear. Ordinary people need to look at themselves and ask whether they want to be seen in the same light as those who take part in “ethnic cleansing”.

The warning from history is clear: the world of public opinion is very slow to forgive the perpetrators of such despicable acts. Both the nations and their people can long be stereotyped by the actions of a few who sought to benefit themselves at the expense of them.

Born and bred in Durban and the child of second-generation British immigrants, David Drew is currently a resident of Johannesburg. He longs for honest, intelligent discussion about just about anything, and a government that can realise the potential of this wonderful country