Irene Grootboom died, homeless, forgotten, no C-class Mercedes in sight
Posted on August 11th, 2008 by Pierre De Vos

Irene Grootboom died last week, but we hardly noticed as we were all too busy obsessing about yet another court appearance of Mr. Jacob Zuma. She died homeless and penniless, not yet fifty years old, in the same week that robbers broke into the garage of ANC Youth League President Julius Malema’s upmarket home in Sandton and stole stuff from his C-Class Mercedes.

The ANC Youth League did not have time to issue a press statement about the death of Mrs. Grootboom. They were too upset about the break-in at the fancy house of Mr. Malema. Breaking into a C-Class Mercedes is apparently not a revolutionary act - especially if that C-class belongs to Comrade kortbroek Malema. Thus the Youth League did have time to pontificate on this break-in: who cares about a poor and destitute woman who made legal history if there is a revolution to be fought and a man of dubious ethical standards to be defended. The Youth League statement reads in part:

http://durbanaction.wordpress.com/

Durban Action Against Xenophobia
July 12, 2008
3am 12 July Message from Kathleen
Filed under: Updates — durbancrisis @ 8:42 am
Tags: Albert Park, displaced people, durban, eThekwini, kwazulu natal, refugees, violence, xenophobia

It’s 3am. I can’t sleep because of what we’ve seen and heard tonight.

This evening, we went to Albert Park to see what we could do. The refugees said that two women were injured. So we offered to take them to hospital. I’ll call these women Sophie and Marie (not their real names). Sophie’s two young sons came with her to our car. There was no room for them and the other refugees assured Sophie they would look after her sons until her return. Sophie was moaning and unable to walk. “Who did this?” I asked the boys in my rusty French? “The police”.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cdc/bythepeople/2008/06/post_12.php

From Gugulethu, South Africa

by Harry Boyte

Over the past several weeks, waves of violence have broken out across South Africa, directed at political refugees who have fled across the border from Zimbabwe and immigrants from other African countries. In the desperately poor squatters settlements of the Abahali movement, where many refugees have settled, leaders recognized signs of growing anti-immigrant sentiment months ago and moved rapidly to quell and prevent violence. “No human being is illegal,” read their statement. “Only actions can be illegal.” They determined that people already see squatters in negative terms – “even township people look down on us” – and that they could not afford to further damage their reputations through violence.

Black Looks

Xenophobia deflects government failures
on May 19, 2008
Category: Poverty, Social Movements, South Africa, Refugees, Africa

My friend Beauty at “Nigeria What’s New” posted on the violence against immigrants taking place in South Africa and wonders

why bloggers in the diaspora are not screaming about this horrible human rights issue since the story broke on May 1st.

Good point, Beauty after all if this was happening in Spain, France, Britain or any where else in Europe we would be screaming. In fact I was screaming the other day about asylum seekers in Britain. Talk to any African foreigners and they will tell you their own experience of xenophobia in South Africa. But these encounters are superficial and hide the truth. What is happening is far more complex than is being presented in the reports as violence and xenophobia. Nonetheless, these very disturbing videos here and here and here, fit well with the one posted from last week on Race Hate in Russia. More importantly the videos tell us how governments with the support of the media can and have used immigration as a way of deflecting people away from the real issues and their failure to meet the valid expectations of the people.

http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/?p=489

No compassion for people who do not drive a Porsche?

Posted on March 11th, 2008 by Pierre De Vos

One would think that it would have been hard for Judge President of the Cape, John Hlophe, to order the forced eviction of 20 000 poor, black people from the Joe Slovo informal settlement. After all, when he was in trouble for taking hundreds of thousands of Rand from the Oasis company and then lied about the reasons for these “out of pocket” expenses, he presented himself as a champion of transformation and a victim of racism.