Imagine you go to your local general practitioner complaining of headache and fever. After the mandatory 15 minute consultation your doctor decides you’re probably suffering a severe bout of flu. Although influenza is a viral infection you leave the offic
Forget the third force for once
So far government has been at pains to tell the country that the outbreak of violence is due to a cocktail of complex factors. They cannot pinpoint the exact cause. Yet ministerial utterances on the matter have an alarming leaning toward implicating a sinister ‘third force’ in starting and perpetuating the violence.
Essop Pahad, minister in the Presidency, started government’s campaign of misdirection with some classic hate speech. “We need to understand that xenophobia has historically been used by right wing populist movements to mobilise particularly the lumpen-proletariat against minority groups in society,” he said. Is he suggesting that a group of khaki-clad gentleman is behind the problem? Head of the National Intelligence Agency Mganala Manzini spewed similar sentiment. He said: “Definitely there is a third hand involved. There is a deliberate effort, orchestrated and well-planned.”
Government’s early comments indicates that while they’re not yet prepared to share what they believe the reason for the violence is – they might have made their minds up behind closed doors. All South Africa has to do to solve the problem is find the mysterious ‘third force’ and crush it – just like one crushes a scorpion!
Don’t shoot the messenger
And it amazes that while government admits it doesn’t know what caused the recent outbreak of violence; they have a full grasp of what didn’t cause it. The National Assembly Safety and Security Committee on Wednesday damned a statement made by Democratic Alliance MP Dianne Kohler-Barnard on the grounds that her comment was irrational and reckless and confirmed the DA’s obsession with fuelling xenophobia. Perhaps we’ve found the mysterious ‘third force’ after all.
What Kohler-Barnard suggested was that the influx of illegal immigrants could not be ignored as one of the root causes for the problem. She reportedly said that illegal immigrants were “wondering in and out of the country, attending our schools, using our hospitals and clinics and eating our food…” It may have been harshly worded but there’s plenty of truth in the comment. And while this line of thinking might not have convinced the committee it’s shared by many ordinary South Africans.
The problem stems from home affairs’ inability to account for the movement of foreign citizens into and out of our country. We watched a recent television interview in which a Department of Home Affairs representative said there were approximately 38 000 individuals with refugee status – and a further 90 000 outstanding applications – within the country’s borders. Yet in the wake of recent violence thousands of Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and other African nationals have streamed out of South Africa to weather the storm in their homelands. The majority of African nationals in the country are here to do exactly what Kohler-Barnard said. They’re here to benefit from the better life that the riches country in southern Africa can offer.
The ‘somebody else’s problem’ field
To get to the bottom of this violence we’ll ditch political opinion for an academic view. Donrich Jordaan, head of policy studies at the Centre for International Political Studies at the University of Pretoria blames xenophobic attacks on “rampant violent crime, mounting poverty, the uncontrolled influx of illegal immigrants and an absence of a democratic culture.” And that is as close as we’ll get to the truth.
The real danger is that as the violence subsides government will employ a little known technique to deal with it. It’s called the ‘somebody else’s problem’ field, a device widely documented in the works of science fiction writer Douglas Adams. If you apply an SEP field to xenophobia the problem will simply disappear. Inquisitive passers by who approach the xenophobia issue may experience slight discomfort; but will inevitably dismiss it as somebody else’s problem. But be warned – the SEP field only renders the problem invisible – it cannot make the problem go away!
Editor’s thoughts:
There’s no doubt that the recent xenophobic attacks have been caused by a mix of complex factors. In our view the country’s porous borders and resultant influx of illegal immigrants must be fairly high on the list. Do you think government suggestions of ‘third force’ involvement hold water? Send your comments to gareth@fanews.co.za, or add them below.
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