1. #1

    Xenophobic Anti-immigrant Protests in South Africa

    I thought this was very unusual and took me by surprise that native South Africans could take to this kind of xenophobia.

    PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA—Police fired stun grenades, rubber bullets and a water cannon Friday as the latest wave of anti-immigrant protests broke out in South Africa’s capital, while President Jacob Zuma condemned anti-foreigner violence and appealed for calm.

    A petition the protesters handed to the foreign ministry, seen by The Associated Press, suggested that the government teach foreigners to speak properly. “They are arrogant and they don’t know how to talk to people especially Nigerians,” the petition said.

    Resentment against foreigners has sometimes turned deadly in South Africa amid accusations that they take jobs from locals in a country where unemployment is above 25 per cent. Others are blamed for drug-dealing and other crimes. In 2015, anti-immigrant riots in and around the city of Durban killed at least six people. In 2008, similar violence killed about 60 people.

    Police on Friday tried to keep protesters apart from foreigners who gathered to express alarm about recent attacks. Police Commissioner Khomotso Phalane said 136 people had been arrested in the past 24 hours.

    The Nelson Mandela Foundation in a statement criticized authorities for “giving permission for a march of hatred.”

    South Africans should not blame all crime on non-South Africans, the statement from Zuma’s office said. It cited recent reports of violence in Pretoria and hate speech on social media.

    “Many citizens of other countries living in South Africa are law abiding and contribute to the economy of the country positively,” Zuma said. “It is wrong to brandish all nonnationals as drug dealers or human traffickers.”

    The periodic backlash against foreigners has hurt the tolerant image South Africa has tried to present to the world after the long struggle to stop the harsh discrimination of white minority rule, which ended in 1994.

    An Amnesty International statement blamed authorities’ “failure to address toxic populist rhetoric that blames and scapegoats refugees and migrants.”

    The president said South Africans are not xenophobic, and he called on everyone, citizens and non-citizens, to work together to combat the country’s high crime rate.

    Despite South Africa’s high unemployment, the country is one of Africa’s largest economies and remains a draw for people from far more impoverished nations across the continent. Businesses run by Somalis, Ethiopians and others are often targeted in anti-foreigner protests.

    Amid the anti-immigrant sentiment, government data show the number of foreign-born people in South Africa has declined. A report last year said the 1.6 million foreign born people was down from 2.2 million in 2011 — in a country of more than 55 million people.

    Zuma’s statement acknowledged complaints about companies that hire illegal immigrants and said the foreign affairs office “will be cracking down on all employers who continue with this practice, which is dangerous as it pits locals against nonnationals.”
    Source

    Do you think this is an isolated incident or was this catalyzed by worldwide political sentiment moving towards the right-wing and nationalism?

    Should SA turn inwards and "solve its problems first", in the rhetoric of Shinzo Abe in Japan?

    What can SA do to embrace foreigners and be multicultural while combating its economic problems?

  2. #2
    Deleted
    Well this is strange. Usually they blame white people, and white people blame black people. It's nice to see both groups can come together in the their hatred of something else.

  3. #3
    Oh yeah, seeing a few comments posted by South Africans on YouTube videos, they can be very anti-immigration, whether they're African immigrants or otherwise.

    Anti-Nigerian, Anti-Angolan, Anti-Syrian, Anti-Chinese sentiment.

  4. #4
    South Africans could probably write the book on xenophobia
    Quote Originally Posted by Shalcker View Post
    Posting here is primarily a way to strengthen your own viewpoint against common counter-arguments.

  5. #5
    Banned Video Games's Avatar
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    Everybody is xenophobic except the white, rich liberals who don't have to deal with it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Raybourne View Post
    What can SA do to embrace foreigners and be multicultural while combating its economic problems?
    Also nothing, because they don't have to if they don't want to.
    Last edited by Video Games; 2017-02-24 at 09:59 PM.

  6. #6
    No this isn't anything new. The media just mostly hides it because it doesn't fit their narrative.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by AeneasBK View Post
    South Africans could probably write the book on xenophobia
    Probably. I don't know how xenophobic they are, but my brother went to South Africa once and he said they're racist as fuck there. My bro (who is white) said he went into a store and the black guy who was running the place tried to shoo away the other black people in the store so that my brother, who gave absolutely no indication whatsoever that he wanted the employee to do this, wouldn't have to see too many black people or deal with them or whatever. To me that's a pretty clear indication of how incredibly racist they are over there.

  8. #8
    So SA folks don't want to deal with mass immigration when their unemployment is already 25 and that's xenophobia?

    lol

  9. #9
    They have other things to worry about like highest murder rates in the world, corruption, very low work rates, sucky education etc etc.

    They should fix their own problems first, unless you want to have another civil war like there already is in tons of places in africa as we speak.

  10. #10
    Its almost like making a scapegoat out of a minority population successfully deflects blame for the failures of government and the larger population.

    I wonder why noone's thought of this before.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Halicia View Post
    Its almost like making a scapegoat out of a minority population successfully deflects blame for the failures of government and the larger population.
    The black native South Africans make social "progress" before they was at the bottom of the social totem pole, now they can stomp on black foreigners and hence not on the bottom of the social totem pole.

  12. #12
    Deleted
    Immigration is a world wide problem. No point in sticking our heads in the sand, it simply is.
    It's also going to get a LOT worse this century.

  13. #13
    Ah Black Trump is at it again riling up his Zumites lol.

  14. #14
    People don't generally move to your country because they have wealth and want to bring it to your country, they come because they couldn't find work in their home country and want to match up with the wealthy people in YOUR country, at odds with the other working class people in your country that want to pair up with the wealthy ones.

    You notice theres not a lot of anti rich immigrant sentiment.

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