Xenophobia: Danger brewing for 2016 elections

On the morning of Sunday February 1, the ANC Youth League Ward 57 had a meeting with foreign shop owners around the area of Regents Park.

The meeting was held at the tennis court offices with people from Somalia, Pakistan and Bangladesh in attendance. The reason for this meeting was triggered by the recent violent activities that took place in Soweto, where residents were looting foreign owned spaza shops.

The one-hour-long meeting was very robust. Conflict resolution tactics and strategies were put to the test, and tempers were aroused, emotions were high. Several times we had to call for calm and make sure that the atmosphere was relaxed and safe for free discussion. And also in doing that one had to balance views to ensure that the discussion did not sway in one direction.

As I was breaking the ice for an open discussion I was also thinking of the question that might come from the people in attendance. What could be the real root cause of the violence? I thought that the question could be responded to in many ways and reasoning maybe one would say it is political, economic or social factors in our country.

Will we say this is happening because of xenophobia, do we hate other nationalities that much that we can’t co-habit with them, or could it be the difficulties of the economy that our economy is unable to produce opportunities or even to address the sad reality of high unemployment rate in our country, or that are we so poor socially that we can’t integrate other nations into our country?

In an effort to try and think what could be the root cause of the violence, I was reminded of the year 2008, when similar acts of violence against foreigners were witnessed and it was correctly termed xenophobic attacks.

I am committed to learn and understand what could be the root cause of this, as this could be narrowed down to tribalism and ethnicity battles within our own country. As a Motswana from Northwest in a small township called Itsoseng, born to a Motswana father and a Xhosa mother, could it mean I don’t belong according to the narrowly rooted tribalism?

If you appreciate travelling and you’re very observant you will hear other people in other parts of the country saying “ngwana wa mobu”, others saying “nto yakuthi” and all that seeking to isolate those who were not born in the same province as they were.

In the year of the Freedom Charter, maybe it is important to remind ourselves that “South Africa belongs to all those who live in it and work it”.

We will obviously need to break it down and dissect it so that there is a clear understanding and what ought to be the responsibility of each one of us in this democratic society.

The team that met decided to continue to have discussions and educational programmes on how the community and the owners could work together in taking the economy of this country to greater heights. We are hoping for positive spin-offs from this engagement.

Mzamo Govan Matshogo, ANCYL Secretary Ward 57