The genius of apartheid was convincing people who were the overwhelming majority to turn on each other. Apart hate, is what it was. You sperate people into groups and make them hate one another so you can run them all.
At the time, Black South Africans outnumbered white South Africans nearly five to one, yet were divided into different tribes with different languages: Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana,Sotho, Venda, Ndebele, Tsonga, Pedi, and more. Long beore apartheid existed these tribal factions clashed and warred with one another. Then apartheid fell, Mandela walked free, and black South Africa went to war with itself.
All this while, Xenophobia lurked in the shadows, waiting for the perect time to emerge. That time was in 1994.
The incidence continued and the casualty figures peaked in 2008, at 62.
Recently, there has been a flare-up of attacks on foreign owned residences and businesses, registration of an explicitly xenophobic political party and an anti-foreigner march planned for Friday, 24th Feb,2017, This is all playing out in full public view, so nobody can claim they didn't see it coming.
Radicals have claimed that foreign nationals are responsible for the recent wave of drug and human trafficking, spike in unemployment rate as most of the jobns are taken up by foreigners (This part reminds me of a certain orange-haired, pussy grabbing President)
Xenophobia is a word the South African Government has shied away from in the past, as it is a source of negative embarrassment, impacting its bilateral relations with other African countries. It will have to start facing the word once again.
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