The Hidden Fence

As several people in Switzerland are worrying about what is happening around Jo’burg in the last days, I have decided to write about my thoughts. My understanding of the whole situation is based on discussions I had with colleagues at work and from what I heard on the radio and read on News24, the most popular South African news web page.

The first thing I would like to mention, is, that this violence is against (black) African immigrants living in the poor townships. Until now I have not come into contact in any way with these events except for seeing a SANDF (South African Defence Force) helicopter flying by my office window this afternoon.

Things started on May 11 or 12 in Alexandra, a township about 4 km away from where I live currently. In that first event two people were killed and over 40 injured. About what was the reason for that incident there are many opinions. The government and police think there is a “third force” behind these attacks. This might be the case, but what is also true is that the government was not doing much about immigrants in the last years. There are for example no refugee centres for the over three million Zimbabwean refugees, so they just settle in the townships, which are found around big cities like Johannesburg.

On Wednesday May 21 President Thabo Mbeki finally reacted and called in troops. They are now helping the SA police to raid townships and so far arrested several people and found fire arms and ammunition. Newest numbers speak of over 42 people killed and over 17,000 displaced in the last ten days. The biggest fear is now that this violence could spread out to other cities like Durban or Cape Town.

As a final note I would like to speak about the first travel warning issued by a European country, the one by the German “Auswärtiges Amt” (department for foreign affairs): They are saying that under the current circumstances you should not go to townships, neither alone nor in guided groups. I think it is in any case totally irresponsible if a white tourist would go to a township. In my opinion the situation is currently not more dangerous for (white) foreigners in South Africa than it was before those xenophobic attacks (see also my text about security in Johannesburg).

Click here for a map of locations of xenophobic violence.