I read the Observer today as I am in Madrid and have no access to the Sunday Crimes. There is a two page article on the xenophobic attacks in South Africa. As is always the case with these things, the article is a bit simplistic, but the headline was striking: ¨End of the Rainbow Nationa?¨ Money quote:
An astounding lack of political delivery surrounds the South African crisis. Neither Mbeki nor his likely successor, Jacob Zuma, have altered their diaries in the past week to visit the displaced or speak to the nation. Instead, ministers, police chiefs and senior civil servants have put their energy into a two-pronged exercise of denial, aimed at proving that the attacks are linked neither to poverty nor to xenophobia. The intention is clearly to deflect any accusations that Mbeki’s ‘quiet diplomacy’ over Zimbabwe has led to an uncontrollable influx of foreigners and, thus, to xenophobia. Neither will the ANC tolerate suggestions that it has neglected its own poor.
Ministers and senior civil servants have gone to extraordinary lengths. National Intelligence Agency director-general Manala Manzini has dusted off struggle rhetoric and claimed that a ‘third force’ – mysterious right-wing ‘elements’ that supported the apartheid regime – is at work with a view to destabilising the 2009 elections.
Others, such as police spokesman Govandsami Mariemuthoo in Gauteng province, insist that ‘copycat criminal elements, not xenophobia’ are at work. As a result, it is now unclear what charges, if any, will be brought against the 400 people police claimed last week had been arrested in connection with the attacks in the Johannesburg area.
The reigning confusion feeds into the foreigners’ widely expressed belief that the attacks have been orchestrated by elements within the ANC – a party that has been deeply divided since Zuma was elected party president against Mbeki’s will last December. Grassroots supporters of the Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party, which fought the ANC in the early 1990s, are also being accused of involvement.
The assertion that elements within the ANC is responsible is a new one.
Pierre, when you get back I’d like you to read my post based on the Sunday Times’s research.
http://mhambi.blogspot.com/2008/05/rainbow-racists-are-rational-and-not.html
and then our old debate on whether South African racism is rational
http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/?p=460
Do you still hold this position that racism is irrational?
I am sure many of you saw at least some of our President’s address to the nation last night. I only saw the short piece that was part of the seven o’clock news so will not address the content of what he said. That is not what caught my eye, rather what he looked like on screen. Here was the man sitting in a huge chair ( it literally swallowed him) upholstered in bright red velvet. He was dressed in a very smart (no doubt imported) suite, white shirt and necktie. He sat up very stiffly and was obviously reading off a screen as his eyes never connected with the camera but focused on what he was reading. Why did I find this image so shocking. Because there was no connection between him and his people. He sat there looking like a freakish cross between a crown prince talking to the dirty poor people and a overly strick school headmaster. Yes he was not addressing a pleasent subject but an image consultant will tell you that many things in that picture was wrong. To connect with his people a less formal dress code could help, a less imposing chair is needed and a more relaxed sitting position could do wonders. Most of you would probably say this is nonsens but anything will be better than that image he sent out last night. He looked truely discusseded talking to the nation. And that is no way on trying to win people over and convince them to to act accoridng to your wishes. THis image of our Presidnet seems to underline Pierre’s opinion that he can no longer reach out to his people.
P.S. Wessel, there is no such word a “allot”, it is “a lot”. Sorry for being so pedantic but you use it so often that I thought you might as well get it right.
So the NIA is now into the disinformation business. I still wonder whether the presence of an intelligence agency with a domestic focus and mandate is constitutional at all?
Because then its function is to spy on citizens. But its a free country. If somebody is doing something wrong the police should deal with it. According to law and the criminal justice system. Like the FBI. Which is a police force. Not an intelligence agency.
The CIA is an intelligence agency but with a strictly foreign function. It does not spy on American citizens inside the USA.
The very notion of an “intelligence agency” with a domestic focus is intollerable within a constitutional democracy.
And now its even worse. This NIA is not only used to spy / snoop / intrude surreptitiously into the privacy of citizens – its openly used to sow disinformation.
It is entering the political domain – they’re now part of the political discussion and manufacturing political opinion.
Wessel. I understand that there are often very good reasons why people stereotype others on the basis of their own experience but we do not always do this. Our stereotypes follow culturally constructed patterns. So while I might have been held up by someone with blue eyes I am not going to suddenly hate and fear all blue eyed people because blue eyes is not a culturally constructed identity category. In that sense racism and xenophobia are irrational because they are based on cultural understandings of the world that do not always reflect reality. Many black South Africans see foreign Africans as a threat and as perpetuating crime but only 3% of those in prison in South Africa are foreign (while if it is true that there are 6 million foreigners in SA there should be about 10-15% foreigners in our jails). There are reasons for this hatred but it is not instinctive and it is not inevitable. It is the product of our sick society. Only by challenging the assumptions underlying the hatred and fear will we begin to change it. To say it is natural, I fear, will eprpetuate the racism and xenophobia and will not begin to address it.