Xenophobia

It happens the world over: xenophobia. We are all afraid of the unknown. We all fear what we do not understand. In a sense, xenophobia is perfectly logical, and perfectly understandable.

And yet...

While in London, I was amazed by the hate, not just antipathy, that many Britons felt for the African and Eastern European immigrants. Commonly expressed thoughts were that they stole jobs, were thieves and rapists, and were smelly and unhygienic.

Of course, there was some basis in fact for these thoughts. Many immigrants were so poor the only way they could afford to eat was if they stole something. Many of them were economic migrants, prepared to work for next to nothing, in appalling conditions, because it was more than they would be getting back home. So yes, they took jobs, but many Britons would rather be on the dole than work. Migrants don't have the option of going on the dole. Britons want to be famous and earn mega-bucks for doing nothing. Migrants don't have that option - they want to eat, and work, so they can support their families back home where unemployment is even worse than it is in the UK.

As an immigrant myself, I was also constantly amazed by the way that Britons could single out one culture from another in their xenophobia. I never heard similar sentiments expressed about Saffas, or Kiwis, or Auzzies, or Canadians. (And people say that South Africans are racist!)

Over the past few weeks, xenophobic attacks on Zimbabweans, Malawians, Zambians, Ugandans, Rwandans, Burundians, Mozambicans, and many other African illegal (and legal!) migrants who are living near Johannesburg on the East Rand, have been on the increase.

It blows me away that my fellow countrymen and women can with one breath decry the atrocities in Zimbabwe, and with the next perpetrate their own. It blows me away that people who should be experts at ubuntu can demonstrate anything but. It blows me away that a problem I considered to be purely a first-world problem exists on my own doorstep (as it were.... Jo'burg is a good 1400kms or 870 miles). It blows me away that in this rainbow nation of ours, where thousands have fought, shed blood and died for the right for us to treat each other with the respect due another human being, for the right to express our equality, my fellow countrymen and women would perpetrate such hate crimes.

Yet, I know that I am still one of the privileged in South Africa and that therefore I have very little understanding of what my fellow countrymen and women are going through. I have running water, TWO flush toilets, a brick house, a pool, a car and a job that pays me in a month what most of them earn in about half a year. I can afford private medical care and insurance, while they are not even able to afford to eat 3 meals a day. I can afford to clothe my child and send her to daycare where she is in a class of only 10, while their children have only the clothes on their back and are in daycare with a class of 50.

So I have to ask myself - if I were in their shoes, if Janel was starving and sick, what would I be prepared to do to attempt to safeguard a future for both of us? If I thought that my neighbour was the reason that we were starving, sick or unemployed, how far would I be prepared to go? Stealing? Lying? Fighting? Killing?

I'm not sure, but I can't pretend that I wouldn't do those things. The moment Janel was born and I held her in my arms I suddenly realised that not only was I capable of murder, but that if anyone threatened my child, I would do whatever was necessary to protect her, including murder if it came to that (although I pray I never, ever have to be in that place and make that decision). So I can understand how they might feel they've been pushed into a corner and this is the only way out.

And yet...

There are hundreds more in the same boat who have found a way to refrain from violence and hatred, who have found a way to live in (uneasy) peace with these migrants. These other people have found a way to control their own fears and to demonstrate concern for the migrants. Because I know, therefore, that it is possible to be in extreme poverty and still demonstrate Christ's love, I can only continue to condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms. Every single person is worthy of respect and dignity.

This photo story is narrated by a newspaper photographer of his trip to the East Rand recently. These images remind me of the struggle photos of the '80s. Please God let us not return to that dark time in this nation, not after everything You have done in and for us!