SA has no place for xenophobia

Across the globe, the core of personal differentiation is growing broader, bringing with it intolerance and the growing threat of the increased reliance on taking up arms as the easiest answer.

This manifests in the religious differences which led to the horrors of genocide in Bosnia where thousands perished and disappeared into unmarked graves where, decades later, bodies are still unidentified.

Intolerance to this pervasive is difficult to fathom, yet must be held as the catalyst driving suicide street bombings, some of the broader perversities of Boko Haram and the flash floods of war which have erupted between established governments and the radicals of the Islamic State.

If there has been one salient fact which emerged over the past 10 days, it is that South Africa is far from immune as the rising levels of xenophobia have indicated.

This tribal phenomenon relies on mob violence as its driving wedge, employing the weapons of fear – arson and gunfire – to generally target outnumbered foreigners and generate an orgy of looting.

As South Africans we must all surely condemn the uprise – not the first we must add – of xenophobic violence against those who are demonstrably different.