Editor
Does anyone see the twisted irony in the fact that we have xenophobia in a country that is presumably “diverse”? The fact that South Africans are carrying out attacks that are so barbaric and violent on “foreigners” is unacceptable. We can’t silently condone it.
Is this how we behave as a part of humanity? As a part of humanity, we are supposed to respect and even love one another but instead, we have hatred and violence amongst our people. These acts of violence cannot be justified, as lives were lost and innocents were hurt. The safety of our people is being questioned constantly as our government itself, is found to be incapable of protecting us.
Who do we turn to in times like this, if our government fails to serve and protect us? I refuse to remain silent in fear. People who are a part of mankind, people whom I share a common religion with, people who had families to provide for and were killed, were the victims of such violent crimes. It is truly heart breaking.
I refuse to “sugar-coat” my speech towards those who are killing innocent people, for surely those who have injured and killed foreigners did not have empathy or even a sense of humanity when they were hurting those innocent people. They are a disgrace to our country and THEY are the ones who don’t deserve to be a part of our country, in my not-so-humble opinion. Not the foreigners.
South Africa promotes non-violence and peace. And to go against that is to lose the right to call yourself a South African. The activists and heroes of our past did not fight for our freedom with people from different races and religions, just to have you, the violent “South Africans” to carry out hate crimes against people from a different country.
As South Africans, it is our duty to uphold the wrongs that have been corrected by our heroic activists. It is our RIGHT to respect one another irrespective of our backgrounds. To carry out lynching and hate crimes is a HUGE disrespect to those who fought so bravely for our freedom.
We need to take Nelson Mandela’s wise words into consideration: “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background or his religion. People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
We can only hope that the people of our diverse and vast rainbow nation learn to love one another, rather than hate. We need to learn how to respect and express empathy towards our brothers and sisters in our nation. For surely, only then can we call ourselves South Africans.
Estcourt News Reader
