By: Louise Marsland


“South Africa has in the past few days been confronted with one of ugliest incidents in the post-apartheid era. Scores of our brothers and sisters have been subjected to acts of humiliation and violence simply because they were not born here. As the ANC we wish to reiterate our unequivocal condemnation of such acts.

“It becomes the natural obligation of all South Africans to condemn these barbaric acts and we call on all South Africans to take a stand against such acts and condemn them as hate crimes. They can only take our society backwards... these attacks on foreign nationals across our townships are an attack on not only foreigners, but an attack on the values of our civil society. We call on all our leaders to unite to call a halt to these senseless attacks.”

Embrace our neighbours

He said the ANC called on Home Affairs to apply immigration laws consistently. The ANC would continue its policies to embrace our neighbours and that South Africa has a unique opportunity to help to give leadership to the world on how to solve the problem of racism. “I think we have what it takes to give leadership in that regard... xenophobia is but an element of racism.”

“All South Africans need to work together to build a better world. There is a clear need to scale-up levels of education about foreign relations. We cannot exist as an island... I trust that all media institutions represented here will partner with government to promote the existence of all nations...”

On questions from foreign journalists on why the violence happened at all, he described the origin of Alexandra township in the 1920s and the overcrowding that had resulted over decades, leading to squalid conditions, where it took one incident to ignite a township. He said it was regrettable that law enforcement response was delayed and that the violence was not contained and the immigrants protected and escorted back to their homes on the very next day.

On xenophobia, he said: “I move from the understanding that people are not always agreed on everything. Human beings are never defined by one element. When they gather as poor residents, unemployed, envious of what their neighbours have, and somebody comes and says your conditions would improve if you got rid of these people, they will go for it. They are struggling and competing for limited resources... and don't quite understand that it is not due to these people that they are without jobs. But once they gather in a soccer stadium in support of their favourite teams, their attitude changes completely... this notion of xenophobia can also take the form of regionalism, somebody migrates from one province to another... we must at all times strive to teach fellow human beings about fellow human beings. The ANC has a proud history in that regard: South Africa belongs to everybody who lives in it, black or white.”

Download Motlanthe's speech to the IMF here.

For more:

• Has Government communication failed SA over xenophobic attacks? [poll]
  
• [IMFSA] Key communication trends [blog post]
  
• [IMFSA] Lessons learnt… ANC deputy president responds
  
• ANC deputy president condemns “ugly, barbaric” attacks [article]
  
• Communications chaos over xenophobia crisis [article]
  
• Aggregrating online coverage of xenophobic attacks [article]
  
• ‘Xenophobic attacks hurt SA's image abroad' [article]
  
• SA press freedom not under threat - Pahad [article]
  
• Launch of MediaClubSouthAfrica.com [article]
  
• [IMFSA] Lessons in how to deal with the media [blog post]
  
• [IMFSA] SA needs to capitalise on positive stories more [blog post]
  
• [IMFSA] Xenophobia threatens progressive society - Pahad [blog post]
  
• Business, tourism leaders call for decisive action on attacks [article]

[22 May 2008 09:43]

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