Tide of xenophobia threatens to swamp our human decency

South Africa's season of hate is becoming as predictable as the coming of autumn. A new tide of xenophobia now rises in Pretoria after earlier violence in Rosettenville, in Johannesburg's southern suburbs.

These are developments to be viewed with concern, for we know well how it ends - with looting, murder and renewed shame for a nation which once naively thought it stood for so much more.

The xenophobia in Pretoria is not ripening by chance. It comes, coincidentally, with the emergence of the South Africa First party and a planned march in the capital by "Concerned Residents of Mamelodi".

But there is a larger context.

In the US, President Donald Trump's anti-immigration policies have brought bigotry into the mainstream.

In France, François Fillon, a hard-right candidate, is an election frontrunner armed with policies to turn immigrants away at the borders. In going head-to-head with Marine le Pen, leader of the far-right Front National party, it's boiling down to a race about who can best deal with the foreigners.

Britain's Brexit from Europe was laced with xenophobia, too, and Austria recently escaped by a whisker electing its first far-right president since World War 2.

Meanwhile, back at home our president berates "white monopoly capital" and the new DA mayor of Johannesburg labels foreigners "criminals", as the language of suspicion and accusation gathers pace.

So can we be surprised at the emergence of an entity like South Africa First and its echo of Trump's populist sloganeering?

In the coming days our values will be tested again.

Do we really stand for a country which "belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity"?

Sadly, our recent track record does not inspire hope.