A hate free future

The Dispatch Editorial: Repeated warnings about the possible recurrence of attacks on foreigners in South African townships are cause for great concern.

In the last few days South Africans have been warned repeatedly that the current wave of service-delivery protests have the potential to develop into fresh xenophobic attacks.

First to issue a warning was South African Human Rights Commissioner Lawrence Mushwana. Last week Mushwana shocked the country when he declared that they expected incidents of xenophobia to worsen in the run-up to next year’s local government elections. “Obviously when you approach elections there is a lot of jockeying for position,” he said.

Just prior to his warning officials from the HRC’s Cape Town offices alerted police to pamphlets circulating in the Samora Machel informal settlement, in which foreigners were told to get out by Monday.

Then at the weekend the ANC in Gauteng also issued a warning about a possible recurrence of violent xenophobic attacks in the build-up to the next year’s elections.

The government is yet to respond to these warnings, which is disconcerting, especially when you consider that questions are still being asked about the early warning systems that were supposed to have been put in place after the round of xenophobic attacks in 2008. More than 60 people were killed in those attacks.

The HRC is not sure whether the government has drawn up integrated plans to prevent similar attacks in the future. And while an early warning system has been established by the police, it is still at a developmental stage and largely consists of a desk in the office of the national commissioner.

Such a situation is unacceptable. South Africa cannot afford, again, to be caught unprepared, particularly not when violence has the potential to spread with great speed across the country, as we know from painful experience.

But the responsibility should not be left to government alone. It will take a united effort to claim back our neighbourhoods from unruly elements.

Therefore these warnings should be viewed as a call to action not only by government, but by civil society, political organisations, faith-based organisations and businesses. Strategies must be developed and plans set in place to prevent the kind of heinous bloodletting that devastated our land.