Category Archives: xenophobia
Understanding and Overcoming Xenophobia: A One Day Colloquium
UHURU PRESENTS:
UNDERSTANDING AND OVERCOMING XENOPHOBIA
A ONE DAY COLLOQUIUM
At the present moment, xenophobic practices in South Africa are taking a number of nefarious forms from the exclusion of foreign students and staff from universities through the denial of visas, to the systematic unleashing of mob and state violence against the weakest sections of our population. This violence in particular has gone so far as to invade the sanctuary of churches and has included the deployment of the military and not just the police against poor communities thus treating the latter as potential enemies. It has recently become clearer in fact that xenophobia is not a problem of poverty but primarily a problem of identity politics endemic to South Africa, a kind of politics which state institutions and their agents have been pursuing since the early 1990s. Most analyses reduce the question of xenophobia to one of criminality and poverty and deplore xenophobic practices without offering much in terms of ideas for a solution.
Daily Maverick: The Army vs. Thembelihle: Where the truth lies
http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-05-05-the-army-vs.-thembelihle-where-the-truth-lies
Richard Poplak
At around 3:30am last Wednesday, a young man named Sipho Dlamini was startled awake by insistent knocking. It was the sort of baton-on-zinc wake-up call that people have been experiencing in this country for generations. When he leapt out of bed and approached the source of the commotion, Dlamini couldn’t help but notice that his shack was surrounded by a phalanx of cops and soldiers. The law had shown up before dawn on this chilly morning, ostensibly to deal with the problem of xenophobic violence. But Dlamini wasn’t involved in xenophobic violence—in fact, he was involved in protecting foreign nationals from xenophobic violence—and he suspected that the men with guns might have arrived with something else in mind. When the first blows connected, he knew he was right.
“Ah, comrade, they were very rough,” Dlamini told me. Continue reading
The Times: More than 180 arrests in raid on Thembelihle informal settlement
Police‚ metro cops army and home affairs officials descended on the Thembelihle informal settlement near Lenasia on Thursday morning.
Police spokesperson Lieutenant Kay Makhubela‚ who said Thembelihle had been identified as a hotspot for violent crimes‚ told RDM News Wire that‚ at the time of publication‚ more than 180 people‚ including illegal immigrants‚ had been taken into custody.
“It’s more than that [180]‚ much more‚ and we expect to make many more arrests for various crimes during the course of the day‚” said Makhubela. “We will be here the whole day.”
A media briefing with arrest statistics is expected to held later on Thursday. Continue reading
UnFreedom Day 2015: 21 years of Exclusion and Repression
24 April 2015
Abahlali baseMjondolo press statement
UnFreedom Day 2015: 21 years of Exclusion and Repression
Once again ‘Freedom Day’ is here. Once again we will be told that we are free. Once again we will be lectured about our about freedom and told to accompany the politicians, businessmen and the rich to their stadiums.
21 years of shack life has not been easy for us. In 21 years of ANC rule lies and evictions have become the order of the day. The land has not been restored to the people. Our dignity has been vandalized. In 2005 we delcared our humanity. The response of the ANC has been lies, the denial of life saving basic services, arrest, assault, imprisonment, illegal evictions, torture, armed attacks by members of the ruling party, the destruction of our homes by members of the ruling party and assassination. The vandalization of our humanity has become even more extreme. We are not alone. We do not forget Marikana. We do not forget all the people murdered by the police on protests around the country. We do not forget all the harassment and violence against people born in other countries. Continue reading