Xenophobic attacks
Published On April 24, 2015 » 1751 Views» By Davies M.M Chanda » HOME SLIDE SHOW, SHOWCASE
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By Austin Kaluba –
FEAR of the unknown has always dogged humanity since people are mostly comfortable with the recognisable and suspicious of the unfamiliar.
Some early settlers and explorers who strayed in foreign lands during explorations were attacked, sometimes even eaten by indigenous tribes.
In other societies, strangers were sacrifised to the gods since they had defiled new terrains with their mere presence and thus angered the spirits.
The explorers themselves did not understand the societies they ‘discovered’ leading to mistrust with locals that sometimes flared into violent confrontation.
Many people from introverts to extroverts are likely to react in a similar way when they are in a presence of strangers. They will usually be apprehensive to uncustomary people.
It’s somehow natural among human beings to fear what you don’t know or to have curiosity of races and tribes you hardly understand.Discourse
However, to go to the extent of killing foreigners for the simple reason that you feel they are taking your jobs or encroaching on your community is unacceptable in this era and age.
Xenophobia, like tribalism and racism, feeds on stereotypes about the ‘other.’ Media reports and even anthropological books fuel these stereotypes which hibernate in our subconscious waiting for a small spark to come to the fore.
We live in a world defined by half-truths and lies about other people who are not us. In short we only chose to understand ourselves and refuse to appreciate those around us.
During the Ice Age, when an unfamiliar species first crawled out of its hidey-hole, there was only one rule: Eat it before it eats you.
That forced people to fear what they did not understand, because they didn’t know its intents.
Unfortunately, that is still in us, magnified to fearing what we see or hear. Take sharks, for example. Only two per cent of all deaths at sea are by sharks, yet people are still super-afraid of them because of what they see in movies and hear on news.
Media are making the human race more paranoid and xenophobic than they already are. Isn’t it the media reports of what one mighty Zulu King Goodluck Zwelithini said recently that is partially responsible for the new wave of xenophobic attacks in South Africa?
So the onus is on the South African government that needs to educate its people, including chiefs like Zwelithini, on accepting other people who are not nationals.
The authorities should also understand that the declaration of South Africa as a rainbow nation entails incorporating everybody, including foreigners into the New South Africa.
Turning a blind eye to the scourge in a country coming from the ashes of apartheid would be legitimising the old system that was hinged on separateness.
In short, the apartheid architects used colour as a basis for separateness while our own black brothers and sisters are using foreignness as ground for exclusion.
We should not allow this Hitlerite yardstick of aryanising only indigenous South Africans to people, the so-called rainbow nation.

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