The current violence against foreigners in South Africa has been allowed to escalate over the past several months ever since stores owned by Somalis were burnt down around the country some months ago.
The authorities have mismanaged the refugee issue and Mbeki’s cowardly handling of the Zimbabwe crisis has just made things worse.
South African township dwellers feel that these so-called outsiders are receiving services and sometimes housing which they feel are due to them. This is because of the poor rate of service delivery by the various govt departments.
What is making matters worse is that the police are not helping the foreigners as they are seen to be reluctant to side against their own compatriots in this conflict.
The racism which has resulted is as bad as we saw during the apartheid regime’s days which is extremely sad. No-one ever thought that they’d see this in the “Rainbow Nation” again.
First world investors do not pay much attention to “low intensity crises” such as these in Africa as these crises do not place their investments at risk at this stage.
From a moral point of view, however, overseas investors should be disinvesting as a serious token of their condemnation of the way in which South Africans and the govt are behaving.
The 2010 “African” World Cup now seems like a charade. No self-respecting (non-South African) Africans will want to be associated with an event hosted by the country which has allowed their countrymen to be attacked and violated in this way.
