We all must pay the price of mindless political denialism

Denialsm is a terrible thing. Not only is it fundamentally dishonest, it obviates the need to find solutions to pressing problems and crises.

Thus, during the presidency of Thabo Mbeki, the link between HIV and Aids was called into question and, as a result, critical and sensible interventions were not timeously taken. Many lives were lost before the government was forced to do the right thing.

Equally, for most of last year, the power emergency was merely, in the official parlance, a ''challenge''. It only graduated into a crisis at the eleventh hour when President Jacob Zuma told his deputy to oversee Eskom.

Official denialism was back in evidence yesterday, when Gauteng's MEC for community safety, Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, insisted that the wholesale violence and looting being perpetrated by Soweto residents against foreign shopkeepers was not xenophobia.

"We want to clarify ... to the province and the country that these are not xenophobic attacks but criminal attacks,'' she said.

Funny that. Scores of shops belonging to foreigners - mainly Somalis and Pakistanis, but also other Africans, including Malawians, were targeted - but by all accounts not a single establishment owned by a South African.

Journalists covering the mayhem overheard the looters - men, women and children - screaming abusive epithets at their victims; there was talk of driving "the dogs'' out.

Some of the victims told of being branded makwerekwere (a derogatory term for foreigners) as they packed their belongings to leave Soweto, probably forever.

The Collins English dictionary defines xenophobia as "hatred or fear of foreigners or strangers, or of their politics or culture''.

It is possible that thugs, even business rivals who can't compete with foreign shopkeepers, are fuelling this outpouring of hate.

If so, their efforts have fallen on fertile ground in some poorer communities.

The tragedy unfolding in Soweto shames us all and betrays the legacy of Nelson Mandela. Have we forgotten the terrible events of 2008?