I watch what’s happening in Alexandra township with deep shame and embarrassment for being a South African. Sadly I first saw these kinds of xenophobic attacks when I was still in Port Elizabeth in early 2004, and knew it’s just a matter of time before other townships explode in similar fashion since the Eastern Cape township seem to spawn everything that’ll happen on South African townships. Now that it has happened in Alex I cannot say I’m surprised but wish my fellow South Africans had proved my forebodings wrong.
It is no excuse, even insensitive, to say that when people are under a tight belt they’ll look for the closest convenient means to vent their anger on. We’ve been, as black township denizens, in situations more dire than the present food rises has put us to, but we’ve never, ever, been so foolish and cruel as to take it out on migrants who are already suffering under difficult conditions, far worse than we endure. We should be ashamed. It is part of our culture of Ubuntu to regard wonderers as messengers of God. Needless to say we’ve, in this, offended even the deity. To all the Zimbabweans, Malawians, Somalis, and even our own Vendas who has been affected by the cruel vulgarity happening at present in Alex township, South Africa’s father township, your pain is our shame as the majority of South Africans.
