Xenophobia in South Africa
Jonathan Kasongo
May 2, 2017 Jonathan Kasongo
May 2, 2017
Xenophobia In South Africa
INTRODUCTION
Immigrants from other African countries are killed after entering South Africa and living among locals. Foreigners live peacefully in suburban areas while those living in [townships] slums are under attack. Does poverty and unemployment trigger this hatred for foreigners? I will be assessing the problems and conundrums that follow Xenophobia. “Reducing poverty is seen as the world 's greatest challenge and in South Africa it is counted as one of the country’s triple threats, the other two being unemployment and inequality.” Says Greg Nicolson, a publisher for the Daily Maverick covering poverty in South Africa.”
BODY 1 – Conflict and law enforcement
The ongoing conflict in this topic is more of an effect than a cause. Foreigners are brutally assaulted and even murdered by locals. Locals say foreigners commit crime as an excuse for being Xenophobic violence. Locals also say that foreigners are “stealing their jobs and aid”. Free houses are given to the poor people of South Africa but are also given to foreigners. Violent attacks include the burning of these free houses when they are owned by foreigners. “The Kwerekwere are stealing our jobs” said one local when discussing his hatred for foreigners. There are a few requirements that must be meet to stop these violent out breaks. One of which is enforcement. Enforcing the law in poverty stricken
Consequently, an individual who just wanted a sense of belonging became a target for the INS and LAPD. When deeply examining the life of a poor El Salvadorian immigrant struggling for survival, it should be expected that they would be more inclined to stealing food because they have no other choice. Nevertheless, the United States government, law enforcement, and criminal justice system has a bad habit of harshly punishing the person who committed the crime, without implementing the proper procedures to prevent the crime from happening in the first
Authorities will target these communities even though this is not where the crime is happening. Lastly, many people are labeled ‘felons’ for life, even
From 1948-1994, apartheid raged across South Africa. The people of South Africa were split into four different social groups based on race. The top of the social hierarchy at the time were the white South Africans. They held control from the government and kept the other groups in a constant state of oppression. These other groups included Indian people, “colored” people, and black people.
Many people, before reading this article, might not have been aware of the rapid increase of incarceration rates and the overcrowding issue. This appeals to the reader’s sense of logic by stating that the vast majority of them are nonviolent because it shows them that that is where the overcrowding issue resides. This gets the readers thinking that alternative ways of dealing with nonviolent offenders might be necessary to solving the issue in the criminal justice system. Zuckerman makes the reader understand that reforming the prison system is a reasonable solution to the many problems generated by non-violent offenders being imprisoned. Not only does the author make the reader aware of the issue, but he provides a logical solution for it.
Within that statistic, most of the imprisoned are non-violent offenders. The problem starts with Arizona’s mandatory imprisonment laws. Research highlights that, “under Arizona's mandatory sentencing system, non-violent offenders make up the majority of state prisoners” (Greene). However, the mandatory sentencing does not just affect Arizona’s population. All across America, mandatory sentencing laws are forcing people to be put into prisons without a second thought.
Since the drug economy is prevalent in these communities, it makes sense for these individuals to turn to them.
The final issue to address on the topic of mass incarceration of minorities is the policy change that is needed to fix the issues. First, localized policing has been a solution called for since the Black Panther Party in the 1970s. Having better control of communities could help prevent police shootings and backlash like seen in the riots in Ferguson, MO.
However, there is only so much the government can provide because of this some people resort to robbery and selling drugs to get by. In Bell Hooks’ article, “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor,” describes why poor people resort to crime when she states, “Willing to commit all manner of dehumanizing and brutal acts in the name of material gain, the poor are portrayed as seeing themselves as always and only worthless. Worth is gained only by means of material success” (Hooks 485). Resorting to these types of crime can be very dangerous because they could accidentally step into their rival gang territory and potentially be killed, which will lead to more cycles of revenge and hatred. This was also simply said by Andre in Freedom Writers, “My brother taught me what the life is for a young black man.
The association of poverty with Africa goes together like apple pie and America. From the advertisements of malnourished, African children to our education, or rather lack of education, about African countries in the American school system, the concept of Africa as an impoverished continent has been engrained into our minds. This rhetoric of Africa has lasted over decades, with a substantial amount of aid being given to African countries to rectify this problem. And yet, sixteen of the world’s poorest countries were identified as being in sub-Saharan Africa as of 2013. This insinuates that foreign countries and organizations that provide aid, need to reevaluate why aid isn’t making a bigger impact at fixing the problem.
Which begs the question in society today who is uninvited in South Africa?
District 9 shows racism and the violence humans have to those who are difference and even one of their own ( Wikus). The aliens are attacked and also attack one another and display an animalistic savagery.
However in South Africa the xenophobic attacks upon one another are similar to that in District 9, to the extent where Zimbabweans and Nigerians are called “aliens”, despite being human.
Today in America we have a crime problem that has been around for generations. Governments in each states spends an enormous amount of money for prisons, police salaries, courthouse and etc. just to try to keep up with the growing amount of law offenders that we have today. Whether we, the citizens like it or not we are exposed with violent behavior from the movies we watch to the music we listen to. Watching the evening news and the top headline news is about the “Orlando Shooting” suspect kills 49 (CNN.com) you are already exposed to violence.
The survey states that four out of every ten South Africans believe that apartheid was not wrong in its oppressive actions, as well as one third of white South Africans believing that poverty in South Africa in the present day is not a result of apartheid (Wadvalla, 2013). Seeing that this data was gathered twenty years apart the first democratic election in South Africa,
Introduction
Apartheid was an official barrier which separated the different races in South Africa, namely the black South Africans and the white Afrikaans South Africans. Although Apartheid ended 20 years ago when Nelson Mandela was elected president, Apartheid still plays a large role in South African History. Apartheid began long before it was officially named Apartheid in 1948 by the leading political party, National Party. The separation between the black and white people of South Africa began around the time Jan Van Riebeek arrived in the Cape in 1652. Since then the segregation escalated due to events which caused hatred between the two races.
The author takes the topic of Xenophobia to be a human condition that arises out of a lack of proper meaning interaction among people. For example in Oxford University people from other African countries, except South Africa were referred as to Mukwerekwere or Likwerekwere, Afrikans etc. To show that even people from other places were experiencing Xenophobia Refentse mother, while at Tiragalong, she believed that all Johannesburg women are evil and men destroyers even before she meet Lerato Refentse’s girlfriend (Mpe, 2001:29-63), which is leading to the element of fiction known as Dystopia were a person dislike a certain place because she/he imagined it as a bad place (Abrams and Harpham (2012:416-417). Xenophobia also falls under the biggest issue that the world especially South Africa suffers from, immigrants are facing discrimination and violence in the world, though much of that risk stopped from the institutionalised racism of the time due to apartheid. These immigrant were also accused of causing high crime rate in
