While physical attacks have calmed the country is still in a bit of chaos after the few weeks of extreme violence against foreigners in South Africa. There has been a great deal of discussion about why the violent outbreak occured, and what we can do about it. The government's immediate concern is to deal with some 30,000 diplaced people who fled their homes. Although some communities have asked for their return, from what I hear they are not willing to go back. Until now the refugees have been sheltered in police stations, churches, and community centres, but they are overwhelmed and ill-equipped to deal with a mass amount of people for more than a few days. The current solution has been to set up 7 refugee camps around the city. Some people argue that this is an improper response becuase hasty set up of camps will likely result in poor sanitation and health risks. I also wonder if it won't simply reinforce the divide between the 'local' and the 'foriegner'. On the other hand, some suggest that if incoming refugees were placed in camps to begin with, they would not have set up in informal settlements (townships) and created the competition that influenced the tensions between South Africans and foreigners.
The blame has been heavy on the government: if they had a policy in place to deal with refugees, then poor South Africans would not feel they have to compete with poor refugees for very limited resources. It is noteworthy that the presence of refugees in South Africa is a recent phenomena--they were not allowed in under aparthied, and so they only began coming here in the mid 1990's (initially Mozambiquans during their civil war). Since the South African constitution is so liberal, indeed the 'motto' of Cape Town is "A Home for All", and because it has been so stable and prosperous, South Africa became something of a mecca for refugees thorughout Africa which is why there is now such a large population of refugees from Mozambique, Angola, Somalia, the DRC, and elsewhere. Another major cause are economic factors like an unemployment rate over 25%, which consists primarily of youth with a secondary education--excluded from low wage labor jobs that immigrants are given as well as from highly skilled positions they do not have the training for. Certainly other factors (liquor, cell phones, etc) contributed to the mob mentally and the escalation and spread of the violence.
So the question is what to do next? How do we repair and build good relations between the many "us" and "them" divides that exist here? Leadership is blatantly lacking, President Thabo Mbeki left the country and went on with his planned schedule throughout the crises with very little comment, not even when the image of a man being burnt alive appeared on the front page of the newspaper. He is also criticised for his "quiet diplomacy" in Zimbabwe in the midst of their own crises after elections, declaring that "there is no crises". The 1,000,000% inflation, food shortage, and political attacks there have resulted in a mass exodus into South Africa of about 3 million Zimbabweans, obviously putting further strain on the resources and simmering tensions. Clear and positive leadership (as Mandela demostrated during and after aparthied) is a neccesary ingredient to peace building. Hand outs to refugees have to be carefully thought through--while there is an immediate need to keep them fed and warm and safe, there is also a concern that the local poor will again become angered when they themselves are cold and hungry. The solutions which are needed, primarily policy related, will not be easy or happen quickly, I would just hope that short cuts are made with short term solutions becoming installed long term solutions which will not solve the issues at hand.
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