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South Africa blacks bring shame to their country

EDITOR’S NOTE: African countries need to boycott the 2010 Soccer World Cup to be held in South Africa. Those idiot ingrates have already forgotten that without the support of Ethiopians and other Africans, they would still be slaves to the white apartheid regime.

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South Africans Take Out Rage on Immigrants

Barry Bearak and Celia Dugger, New York Times

Marauders strike as the powerless make scapegoats of the defenceless

The man certainly looked dead, lying motionless in the dust of the squatter camp.

His body seemed almost like a bottle that had been turned on its side, spilling blood. His pants were red with the moisture.

Nearby was evidence of what he had endured. A large rock had been used to gouge his torso. Embers remained from a fire that had been part of some torture. Pieces of a burnt jacket still clung to the victim’s left forearm.

Then, as people stepped closer, there was the faintest of breath pushing against his chest.

“This guy may be alive,” someone surmised.

As if to confirm this, the man moved the fingers of his right hand.

The jaded crowd neither rejoiced nor lamented. After all, the horrific attacks against immigrants around Johannesburg had already been going on for a week, and in their eyes the victim was just some Malawian or Zimbabwean, another casualty of the continuing purge.

This nation is undergoing a spasm of xenophobia, with poor South Africans taking out their rage on the poor foreigners living in their midst. At least 22 people had been killed by Monday in the unrelenting mayhem, police said.

But the death toll only hints at the consequences. Thousands of immigrants have been scattered from their tumbledown homes.

They crowd the police stations and community centres of Johannesburg, some with the few possessions they could carry before mobs ransacked their hovels, most with nothing but the clothes they wore as they escaped.

“They came at night, trying to kill us, with people pointing out, this one is a foreigner and this one is not,” said Charles Mannyike, 28, an immigrant from Mozambique. “It was a cruel and ugly hatred.”

Xenophobic violence, once an occasional malady around Johannesburg, has become a contagion, skipping from one area to another.

The city has no shortage of neighbourhoods where the poor cobble together shacks from corrugated metal and planks.

Since the end of apartheid a small percentage of the nation’s black population – the highly skilled and politically connected – has thrived. But the gap between the rich and poor has widened.

The official rate of unemployment is 23percent. Housing remains a deplorable problem.

“That’s fueling the rage at the bottom,” said Marius Root, a researcher at the South African Institute of Race Relations.

“There’s the perception that they’re not enjoying the fruits of liberation.”

Here at the Ramaphosa settlement on the East Rand, a squatters colony southeast of the city, six immigrants have been killed in the past two days – or perhaps seven if the man found in the dust on Monday does not survive.

“We want all these foreigners to go back to their own lands,” said Thapelo Mgoqi, who considers himself a leader in Ramaphosa.

“We waited for our government to do something about these people. But they did nothing and so now we are doing it ourselves, and we will not be stopped.”

A familiar litany of complaints against foreigners are passionately, if not always rationally, argued: They commit crimes. They undercut wages. They hold jobs that others deserve.

George Booysen said that as a born-again Christian he did not believe in killing. Still, something had to be done about these unwanted immigrants.

“They are bad people,” he said. “A South African might take your cellphone but he won’t kill you. A foreigner will take your phone and still kill you.”

Beyond that, he said, immigrants were too easy to exploit.

“White people hire the foreigners because they work hard and do it for less money,” Booysen said. “A South African demands his rights and will go on strike. Foreigners are afraid.”

South Africa has 48million people. It is hard to find a reliable estimate of the number of foreigners in the mix.

Most certainly, not all immigrants push ahead of South Africans economically. But Somalis and Ethiopians have proved successful shopkeepers in the townships.

Zimbabweans, who make up the country’s largest immigrant group, benefited from a strong educational system before their homeland plunged into collapse, sending an estimated three million across the border to seek refuge here.

Schoolteachers and other professionals – their salaries rendered worthless by Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation – come to work as housekeepers and menial labourers.

These days the nights and early mornings belong to Ramaphosa’s marauders. On Monday, soon after dawn, they were boldly celebrating their victories.

Stores belonging to immigrants had already been looted, but there were still fires to set and walls to break down. There was dancing and singing.

Then the police arrived, quick to fire rubber bullets. Rocks were tossed by the mob in counterattack, but in order to triumph they really only had to be patient. The police didn’t stay long. They can’t keep up with the widespread frenzy.

Those left behind by the nation’s post-apartheid economy commonly blame those left even further behind, the powerless making scapegoats of the defenceless.

Many South Africans consider themselves at a disadvantage with their own nation’s employers.

“If you have a surname like mine, you can’t get a job,” said Samantha du Plessis, 23, a coloured woman. “I’ve been looking for a job for four years. All the employers want to hire foreigners.”

So there is a nationalistic sense of jubilation in the neighbourhoods where the immigrants have been dislodged.

“The Maputos, we don’t want them around anymore and we’ll never have to worry about them again,” said Benjamin Matlala, 27, using a common term for people from Mozambique.

Matlala, who is unemployed, lives in Primrose, now emptied of its foreigners. The sections they lived in are being dismantled.

First the belongings of the fleeing immigrants – their mattresses, blankets, clothes and cooking utensils – were looted.

On Monday the dwellings themselves were torn apart by dozens of eager men. It wasn’t difficult. Walls of thin metal were knocked over with a few hammer blows.

Wooden posts were easily pulled from the ground. Picture frames were tossed into a heap of rubbish.

Matlala had managed to get a shopping cart, which he filled with scrap metal. Each load, he said, would fetch R40 in trade.

He was hoping for three loads, more money than he had made in a long time.

16 thoughts on “South Africa blacks bring shame to their country

  1. I think we shouldn’t have knee jerk reaction to such complicated problem, we should look deeply into the situation before blaming the people in lowest stratum of South African society. The economy of South Africa is still dominated by Europeans whose interests don’t really match with native South Africans who have been dispossesed, lacked education and means to support themselves. The ANC came to power empty handed and is not in a position to reform the economy because if they do they will be portrayed as pariah like Mugabe when he decided to empower native Africans. We should also remember that South Africa has a larger number of Europeans who are capable of destroying its economy if they sense their interests are about to be weakened by the economic policies of the ANC.

    This is what happens when you try to appease your former masters from the get go. The ANC chose this path and they will have to address it sooner or later, I am not even sure the ANC now has that leverage anymore, there are enough South Africans with modern day slave mentality who are prefered by the Europeans who can challenge the ANC and turn South Africa into another puppet regime like most African countries. Paranoia leads to narrow mindedness and that is exactly the poor South Africans are doing to other immigrants now. When you are in despair you find a weaker scapegoat and blame them for your economic problems. We Africans should be smarter than that or just learn a lesson from South Africans that when you fight for freedom you don’t compromise your principles for the sake of temorary peace or to receive a Nobel Prize. Look at the Palestinians and South Africans, their leaders were the toast of their former colonizer, showered with honorary degrees, invited as key note speakers in foreign lands and receipients of Nobel prize but their people are still in peril. Africans should remember they are fighting for their people not for recognition by their former masters and true enemies. The African intelligentsia are too busy looking for recognition from the wrong people and forgetting about the very people they claim to fight for, the result is long term despair and no appreciable benefit to their people.

  2. This is the exact “beating of the bush fearful of the donkey”. First, all South Africans must not forget that they owe so much to other Africans who helped them to thump apartheid. Second, they must realize that by killing “foreigners” they are justifying apartheid. If South Africans kill others merely because they are “foreigners”, what is the rationale that South Africans stood for when the apartheid leaders killed South African juts because they are “black”? It is a pity that South Africans hit the lowest string in morale standard and the highest in cruelty when it comes to reacting to their economic hardship. Where could they get the barbarity to stone someone to death? Someone who is no different than themselves (a man is a man) except that he come from a country next door? Do they believe South Africans living in Britain (in large numbers) and other countries should be stoned to death every time there is economic downturn in those countries? What a shame!!!!!

    It is one thing to be outraged by the economic hardship they face in their country. It is another to go on a killing spree in response. South Africans have better chance, as compared to other African nations, to change their government and local administrators through elections if they are dissatisfied with their economy. They can press their government, which people in majority of other African nations cannot do, to bring economic progress and better living conditions. Stoning “foreigners” to death and declaring “victory” because of economic hardship is outrageous, repugnant, barbaric, and inhuman. I felt disheartened by how they feel proud by killing immigrants just because, I quote, “they work hard and whites prefer to hire them to hiring us (South Africans).” Blaming immigrants because they work hard? Blaming the whites for hiring hard working people instead of South Africans because, I quote, “(South Africans) demand our rights and go on strike”? Amazing! Sure, South Africans (I am not blaming all of them. Surely, there are enough good South Africans) are demonstrating their abilities by killing “hard working” immigrants! I was totally amazed by those South Africans who claim that “immigrants are bad people. A South African takes your cell phone but he won’t kill you. A foreigner will take your phone and still kill you.” So, who is killing who? Who is robbing who? Who is looting the properties of whom? That, South Africans must answer!!! They must start thinking and stop killing!!!

  3. SOUTH AFRICAN BLACKS bring shame to their countries.
    i do not agree with the titel you gave to this text.since south africans do not consider themselvesas a black africans,they consider themselves as a Pant-Us.
    it is hard to beleive this country had bread a hero like STEVE Biko and killed lucky dubbie.

  4. do you know black south africans are still not allowed to enter cities in their country.
    they are not man enough to fight that or even dance against that like the do in aparteid era,but they are strong like a Lion when they are going to kill poor defence less refgues.

  5. It isn’t realy about what the foreigners did to Zania(SA) or not,it’s all about the effort them locals put in to have a bette educational system and not’ lots more Sangomas talking Bullox , a peacefull nation and not’ booz driven drug fueled,intoxicated; hillariously ludacris structure..and so forth. what does it all mount to= 0
    SA would have been the greatest economic downfall on the planet had it not been for the’ Querequer’s( stupid local slang for foreigners) who thought them black south africans behaving like a little boy with a brand new bycicle(post appartheid SA) to be matured enough not to crash it all @ once. not that they succeded considring the amaizingly stupid , nothing but racism filled tiny brains.

    i mean 1995 was a wistle blower for any one who wanted to work hard and succed in the rich nation- for both locals ‘which were in total advantage of their home land and all the foreigners that came after wards with no knowledge of the place what so ever.
    well did them local people give them thier best hospitality treat them like a refugee who suffered days and even months of extremely harsh conditions to escape political economic or what ever crisis they were running out of? hope the answer is a given! So now that the once foreigners made SA their home ,pured their sweat till the very last drop and succeded against all Odds, these people try and blame all their mess on the out siders!
    well what is south africa and south african?
    the one and only measure if any, would be to first of all
    STRIP THEM OF THE WORD ” AFRICA” for they have nothing
    african about them.

  6. SHAME ON YOU SOUTH AFRICANS!HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR US,YOU WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN FREE FROM APARTHAID.HOW CAN YOU FORGET IN SUCH A SHORT TIME?KILLING YOUR AFRICAN BROTHERS?
    SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

  7. A Fool is a Fool wheather s/he goes to school!!…what a shame to the RSA black people who witness a recent liberty from white supermacy…& turn around and attack their own fellow african brothers.

  8. Without the support other Africans provided to the the A.N.C and other anti apartheid organizations, these retards would still be kissing the white man’s ass. They are ungrateful bastards displaying monkey behavior. This is very shameful for South Africa. Africans should definitely boycott
    the World Cup. Instead of fighting the people in power that they scapegoat their fellow poor black brothers and sisters. What a disgrace.

  9. The black south-africans and the Woyane gangs are same because both of them are same mentality,The Tigrian gangs are killing those who supported at the days they were weak and defeceless,look what they r doing in Somalia.Also the black south-africans r killing and looting their african brothers who supported time at the time of their struggle .Shame for both The Woyane gangs and the black south-africans.

  10. South Africans are free because of the struggle of all of their african brothers. nelson Mandella got his fist passport from Ethiopia. AND leaders like Oliver Tambo had been leading the struggle from other african countries.

    Now all those forgotten they are coming after those who are suffering ……SHAME ON YOU BLACK SOUTH AFRICANS !!!!!!!!!!

  11. it is the same song everywhere.when the economic gets sour here,everybody blame latinos ,not the poltician.but you dont go out and kill ppl in broad light.here there are laws atleast.south africa gots its freedom two or three decades ago .there are not enough civil institution .they blame the weak.if the poltician blames the few whites ,the IMF OR WORLD BANK will punish south africa . these poor south africans have no idea who run the show.few individual still control the economy.the poltician does not dare say any aganist these individual. i dont think these poor ppl have no clue who were in side during their suffering.the world economy is led by few individual. IMF,WORLD BANK run by few rich countries.they reward whoever they like.they dont follow any rule.;look at ethiopia ,ethiopia is the most corrupt and undemocratic in the country in the world.but she gets loan from IMF.NOT because they run sound ecomomy .but they fight their dirty war.

  12. The world fought for the freedom of the South African blacks. The world harbored them and fed them in millions, particularly countries like Zimbabwe. The world thought, more than even other Africans, the South Africans know being refugee and displaced, being beaten and mistreated … since they endured same under Aparthied regimes. We CANNOT be more wrong.

    Now the same Aparthied ruled and abused people are biting the hands that fed them and sheltered them. Some of the blacks in South Africa are becoming shame to the whole black race, not only shame to South Africa. They are becoming shame to humanity.They have become some cruel and barbaric beasts that have no humanity in them.

  13. Thanks to many of you who posted balanced and correct
    analytical comments.

    The struggle for liberty and freedom for which the enslaved indegenious south Africans and even a few liberal whites were fighting and dying for a long time did not achieve its goal regardless of the superficial political independence and transfer of power from the minority apartheid alien masters to the excluded blacks.

    The majority of those blacks who were actively fighting and dying for their liberty and independence for bring the dreams to reality are still in ghetto type impoverished areas with out jobs, standard homes, sufficient medical cares, sufficient education and an all round basic good life and living.

    For them the minority white apartheid exploiters have been partially replaced by black minority “apartheid bosses” working in cooperation with the same old white minority apartheid lords still ruling the country from behind the scene. Hmm…! Dream shattering?

    Add to this, the current Zimbabwe conflict in which the opposition won election and the ruling party being led by Mogabe forcefully and violently robbed the people’s vot and its mandate. Mugabe was a hero turned in to a self centered dictator bent on taking hostage his own people and keep them impoverished and displaced as long as he is alive instead of implementing controlled change.

    Remember also the fact that Tabo Mbeki, the current ANC leader sided with the ruling Mugabe, while his competitor and presidential aspirant Jacob Zuma supported and sympathized with Zimbabwe’s opposion whose leaders and grass roots supporters have been violently prosecuted by Mugabe and forced in to exile in South Africa.

    This means that Leader Tabo Mbeki would love to chase away Zibabwe oppositions from South Africa while presedential Jacb Zuma would like to protect them in South Africa itself.

    This further means that these refugees are in a way partly just a simple scape goat and game tokens who happen to be so unfortunate as to find themselves between the the big boys waring factions for power struggle.

    “It is always the green grasses that suffers most when two elephants fight.” states the good old saying.

    As some of you have astuitely stated, there may not have been anything of ANC or black majority rule in Apartheid SOUTH Africa if it were not for the whole hearted, allround support of the African countries, especially most of the so called frontline states surounding and sharing boundary with that country.

    But of course when outrage breaks out and long suppressed feelings of injustice and sufferings bursts out there may not be any rational demarcation of conflict and violence boundary but rages like wild fire some times consuming anything that moves.

    That is also why the violense in South Africa kept expanding to various refugees, other immigrants and even to the various ethnic and regional communities of the country itself. The next target in the spiraling violence would have been the government itself and the ex-apartheid bosses controling the national wealth at the expenses of these rioting wretched poor people.

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