Making sense of South Africa attacks

16 June 2008

In recent weeks, the media has reported a spate of attacks on foreigners and migrant workers in South Africa. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced as a result of the worst bloodshed seen since the end of apartheid. In the communique below, Rev Sipho Sokhela, South Africa YMCA's National General Secretary tries to make sense of the recent attacks, outlining the implications for South African society, and the response of the YMCA.

Making sense of xenophobic attacks - where do we stand?

The recent xenophobic violence that has gripped South Africa is one of the worst international embarrassments our nation has had to confront since the dawn of our democracy in 1994. For a long time, our country has enjoyed recognition and admiration for leading in Africa, for democratic developments and the establishment of a culture of human rights in our society. We now face the disgrace of high intolerance of fellow African citizens, which is expressed in gross violence.

The question people around the world and in our own country are asking is what caused these horrific and atrocious killings of Africans by other Africans? As part of being honest and truly analytical about the situation, national office staff have participated in a number of meetings and dialogue with human rights and ecumenical organisations. These include an emergency meeting with youth organisations, convened by the Youth Commission, and a meeting of national church leaders in the South African Council of Churches (SACC). Some of the local associations such as Durban, KwaMashu, Student Y and Cape Town YMCAs have participated in similar regional and local meetings.

There are many South Africans of goodwill who are horrified by the attacks by isolated groups and individuals. If those of us who are not part of the problem do not stand up against it, we will be no better than the perpetrators themselves.

I feel compelled to write this communiqué in an attempt to honestly view the situation as well as propose the South Africa YMCA’s response, at a time when all key organisations are attempting to respond.

Who is our neighbour?

Firstly, I would like to remind us that our Christian calling as well as our organisitional mission and values clearly inform what our frame of mind and our attitude should be towards this situation. The biblical question of “who is our neighbour?” triggers an urgent unequivocal response. Our values and mission at national and continental levels also dictate a clear agenda for us. The South Africa YMCA has built on the values that are inspired by the ideals of ubuntu: because of other fellow human beings - with whom we share God’s image - we are. We are neighbours to all fellow citizens in this global village in which we have been placed by God. At a more crucial level, we are family with African brothers and sisters, because we are inspired by the ideals of the African Renaissance, which calls on us to build together towards a common vision and future for the continent. Again, one of the highest values that reign is that of Umuntu umuntu ngabantu - a human being is because the other human being is.

The South Africa YMCA has fully subscribed and committed to the new vision of the Africa Alliance of YMCAs, whose fundamental base is the ideal of this African Renaissance. We, therefore, have an obligation to act on our core biblical principles and our Christian values. We must intervene to protect our brothers and sisters and the families who have been affected by these attacks. Equally, we need to rebuke and reject the existing attitudes that flame violence. We need to take an active, if not leading, role in inculcating in our communities an alternate worldview to the one that brews xenophobic attitudes amongst our fellow South African men and women.

It is our duty as a South African community-based organisation to have an analytical and informed response to this critical and urgent issue in our society.

As we try to make sense of these violent acts, as well as consider our practical response as the South Africa YMCA movement, I humbly submit the following:

• In humility, we apologise to our YMCA sister movements and partners all over the world, particularly our fellow African YMCA colleagues, as well as all those from other parts of Africa, for the senseless killings that seem to display unwillingness and non-acceptance of our sisters and brothers from our neighbouring countries. We will celebrate our Freedom Day next year with our heads bowed, as our actions as a nation have contradicted that which we celebrated.

Our brothers and sisters… makwere kwere

As South Africans, what we have seen in the past weeks should not come as a surprise to us. While many immigrants have lived in our country for some time, there have been worrying xenophobic signs. This is what most of us want to deny. During my recent involvement in a series of meetings and consultations, I have listened to excuses made: that the killings cannot be xenophobic as we have been living with foreigners for a very long time, and relationships have been intact. While it is true that we have been living with ‘foreigners’ for a long time, our mindset has been evidenced by the language that a number of us South Africans use when referring to our brothers and sisters from African countries. We call them makwere kwere. The literal translation is ‘strange noises’ – we find their language a strange noise to our ears, they make noise and thus their opinions have no value, the name sets them apart from us and degrades them. The use of makwere kwere can be likened to the word kaffir that still haunts us by its connotations of people being less than human.

SACC President, Prof Tinyiko Maluleke, recently said that what we call people cannot be underestimated in terms of impact, as the first step towards destroying people next to us is reducing them to a lower level than ourselves. We give them names that make them less significant in our eyes and minds, which lead us to the next step of hurting, and even killing them. Such is the root of genocide, xenophobia and many ideologies beyond forms of segregation, including apartheid. South Africans are xenophobic within their families, and in how they perceive Africans from neighbouring countries. For a long time, we thought this xenophobic attitude would lie low. It has been growing. The recent attitude of police towards foreigners when they stormed into the Johannesburg Central Methodist Church is a prime example. Whilst the claimed intention was that of minimising illegal immigrants, the way they treated immigrants displayed a different story. Their actions were reported as disrespectful, dehumanising and vicious and sent a message to South Africans, who themselves have a dubious attitude to immigrants, that it was time to act differently towards immigrants. We shouldn’t have been surprised then when members of South African communities started behaving in a similar manner a few days later.

We, therefore, need to help our communities to confront their attitudes, and expose the contradictions that exist in our families, our churches, our schools and all sectors of our communities.

South Africans still have to deal with a history of isolation from the rest of Africa. One of the objectives of apartheid was to ensure that South Africans did not connect with the rest of Africa, for many reasons. Even after 1994, South Africans still live with this legacy in their minds. They hardly see and refer to themselves as being part of Africa. More than 70% of South Africans have never been out of the country, even to our neighbouring countries. This attitude is one of the key contributors of South Africans seeing other Africans as not being part of them. We need to be finding ways now as the South Africa YMCA, through our local associations, to conscientise our beneficiaries, starting with our members, to understand that Africa is where we are and where we belong.

Patience of the poor stretched to the limit

Having looked at the recent violence as part of our xenophobic problems, the questions that have not been fully answered are: what triggered the recent violent actions, and why now? The answers are critical for us as a South African community-based organisation attempting to work with the poor and those in the margins of our society. It is my opinion, and that of many others, that the recent violence is one of the many faces of the frustrations of the poor and marginalised in our society. Our government has not fulfilled its promises to the poor to provide jobs, free education for all, and to eliminate poverty.

As the wealthy become wealthier, the poor are becoming poorer and desperate as they continue to be further thrust out of the economic centre. The patience of the poor has been stretched to the limit, particularly with the current global economic crisis that has been pushing up prices of oil and thus every commodity, including food. This becomes worse news for the poor. Moreover, they have no analysis of what is happening. The frustration is going to continue, and there is no doubt that more manifestations of these frustrations, beyond xenophobic attacks, are still to be experienced. It is common that when people are frustrated those close to them become the first target and a scapegoat for their problems. Hence the recent target has been those been those closest to the poorer South Africans, with the result that “foreigners from our neighbouring countries” are now seen as “strangers, even aliens in our land”. One of the expressed reasons for the attacks has been that South Africans believe that immigrants are taking away their job opportunities. The food prices are not going to stop increasing in the near future, and so the poor are going to suffer even more. The questions we need to ask are who is going to be the next scapegoat and who will be the victims of the worst frustration still to come? We need to ask ourselves how the South African YMCA is positioning itself to be part of the solution towards poverty. How do we help the poor express their frustrations in an audible yet non-violent and non-destructive way?

The SA YMCA response

I submit to our movement that as we respond to our current crisis, we consider the following:

1. We need to strongly condemn and fight any forms of xenophobia in our society, our YMCAs, and within the youth sector. Even when the issue is no longer flavour of the month, we need to stay vigilant in this message. The South Africa YMCA has a great opportunity as part of the Africa Alliance of YMCAs, to expose, inform and integrate our communities into the African continent.

2. How do we contribute to this crisis, through our existing initiatives in education, by conscientising our communities, particularly the youth, who are our target group? How do we communicate the understanding that our African brothers and sisters, who are from outside South Africa, are not strangers or aliens in our midst, but are our fellow Africans and are equally the image of God? Bangabantu njengathi! Umuntu ungumuntu, ngabantu (They are human like us - you are because I am). We need to earnestly seek ways to genuinely reach and influence our youth with values that will change their attitudes and worldview.

3. We have an obligation to be part of the solutions of addressing the problems faced by the poor in this country. Unless we address the issues of poverty and the increasing marginalisation of more people from mainstream and economic benefit, our communities are going to increasingly face the wrath and frustrations of the poor.

4. As part of our immediate intervention and conscientising, we need to mobilise provision of humanitarian and emergency assistance to all those who have suffered as victims. Where necessary, we need to make use of our resources and facilities to intervene. We can also collaborate with South Africa Council of Churches’ structures and churches who have chosen to be centres of hope in this time and provide assistance where needed.

In this, I believe, we will be faithful to move forward in being true ambassadors of uMzansi that we created in 1994, not that which it is now degenerating to be. I call on our movement to respond to this crisis and to engage with each other as we grapple with how we now contribute to ensuring that our dreams of the African Renaissance are realised.

Yours in His service,

Rev Sipho Sokhela
National General Secretary, South Africa YMCA