SPAZA SHOPS
E C A E P R O F A A PLE BIA EXIST SIDE BY SIDE? NOPHO E X D N A U T N U B U N A C HOW
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paza shops run by foreigners are being targeted again, and the government is so concerned about this development that President Jacob Zuma has assigned three ministers to attend to xenophobic attacks in KwaZulu-Natal.
including foreign nationals as well if they attack citizens,” he said. He said the government would help refugees and asylum seekers in terms of international law and the country’s Constitution.
The attacks, which started in Isipingo on March 25, spread to other areas around Durban, including Chatsworth and Umlazi. Ethiopian Tescma Marcus (22) died after suffering third degree burns when his spaza shop in Umlazi township outside Durban was set alight. He had been in South Africa for only four months.
More police officers have since been sent to the area.
“We urge citizens to allow government to attend to these and other immigration challenges and to not take the law into their own hands,” he said. He called on South Africans to remember that not all foreign nationals were in the country illegally, and that many contributed to the economy. “We reiterate that there can be no justification for attacking foreign nationals. Those who are in the country illegally should be reported to the police and they will be returned to their countries of origin in a lawful manner,” Zuma said. “Citizens should also provide information to the police if they know of foreign nationals who are engaged in criminal activities. They should not be attacked. We wish to emphasise that police will also take action against all people who engage in violence, 26
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Unfortunately, violence is not restricted to the so-called xenophobic hotspots, where localised competition for political and economic power is a trigger for violence. It is not unique to Diepsloot or Sebokeng. The vast majority of South Africans may not be driving out Somalis from their neighbourhoods, but xenophobic attitudes are more pervasive than many are ready to admit. According to the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in SA, attacks on foreigners have continued, with national statistics showing that, in 2011, one person a week, on average, was killed, while 100 were seriously injured and over 1,000 were displaced.
His brother Alex, 24, was also burnt when a mob locked them inside the container in which they had set up their shop and torched it.
Zuma said all spheres of government had been directed to enforce laws and by-laws to curb illegal trading and stop the spread of unlicensed shops.
foreigners”, combining the Greek xenos (foreign) with phobos (fear). In South Africa, we’ve come to understand it as the often violent dislike of foreigners, the “makwerekwere”.
Xenophobia is something that affects all of us. The human misery it causes knows no bounds. In January, about 1 000 foreign-owned shops were damaged and looted during a spate of attacks on foreign traders in Soweto and Kagiso. These attacks are pushing South African onto the international news agenda for all the wrong reasons. Six people, including one-month-old baby Ngqobile Majozi, and Siphiwe Mahori, 14, died during the week- long violence. Police have confirmed that more than 200 people were arrested, 80 are now out on bail, nine were released on warning because they are minors and the rest remain in custody until their next court appearance. But shockingly, several of the key instigators, some of those seen driving from shop to shop with tools used to break in were still walking the streets. Most dictionaries agree on a definition of “xenophobia” as a “hatred or fear of
Foreigners were particularly targeted during service delivery protests. Scalabrini Centre outreach manager Sergio Carciotto said that about 200 foreigners had been killed in South Africa last year through common crime and xenophobic violence. In the first edition of New South African Review, Loren Landau, Tara Polzer and Aurelia Wa Kabwe-Segatti quote research by the Forced Migration Studies Programme in areas where group-based violence against foreigners has taken place: “First, there is a lack of trusted and effective conflict resolution mechanisms within these locations. “Second, there is a culture of impunity that makes people who attack foreign nationals feel that there will be no negative consequences for them. “Finally, there is a political vacuum or competition for community leadership so that unofficial, illegitimate and often violent forms of leadership emerge. Such leaders then mobilise residents of the area against foreign nationals in order to strengthen their own power base.”
