S3 Episode 4: Fanning xenophobia | Hatred by media
Since the lockdown, four Somalis have been killed in South Africa, showing how xenophobia and police brutality collide. The story of a brave football team that won the league in war-torn Cameroon.
xenophobia
Rising xenophobia needs to be challenged
Amid widespread economic decline and the alarming lowering of standards of political discourse in South Africa, opportunistic xenophobes are stoking the fire against migrants.
Xenophobic South African mobs: ‘We are sanitising’
Residents of areas in Thokoza cite frustration about their own mass unemployment to justify evicting migrant neighbours and burning their property in the streets.
Football can help tackle gender-based violence
A number of stakeholders agree that the beautiful game could play a critical role in confronting violence against women in South Africa. But is the sport capable of overcoming its demons to do so?
Covid-19 just the latest excuse for British racism
In but a few months the coronavirus pandemic has spread across the world. It has been outpaced in places such as the UK only by the racism that has been given a focus by the virus.
Trucking violence blamed on high unemployment
Following ongoing violent attacks on mostly migrant long-distance truck drivers, the South African Human Rights Commission is trying to uncover the reasons they are targeted.
Book Review | Yellow and Confused
Ming-Cheau Lin’s memoir offers a glimpse of the lived experience of a Taiwanese South African that is uncannily relatable, yet deeply personal.
Viral racism
As yet officially unnamed, the coronavirus is being dubbed the China Virus by some news outlets, spurring anti-Chinese sentiment and an all-too-familiar xenophobia.
Xenophobia victims bussed back home
Gauteng’s disaster management centre and a number of aid agencies are helping migrants affected by the xenophobic attacks in Katlehong to return to their home countries. But not everyone wants to go.
Joburg: A city with migrant heritage and culture
Capitalist platitudes rise to the surface in South Africa’s Heritage Month. In the wake of the xenophobic attacks, as citizens we must have conversations about our migrant culture.
The people who sparked the xenophobic violence
Zweli Ndaba is the chair of the Sisonke People’s Forum. He penned the flyer that spurred hostel dwellers and truck drivers to take part in the shutdown that led to xenophobic attacks in Gauteng.
Keagan Dolly challenges SA athletes to use their voices for good
The Bafana Bafana forward spoke passionately about the need for footballers to speak out against the country’s social ills and lead by example as athletes and ambassadors.
Taking a stand against xenophobic aggression
A group of women banded together to protect migrants in their Coronationville street from an approaching violent mob, but they aren’t the only ones standing up for their neighbours.
Light Reading | The rise and fall of hope
A 2016 picture of a Somalian shopkeeper almost beaten to death by a mob in Tshwane reminds a photographer of the cyclic nature of South Africa’s xenophobic violence.
Xenophobic ‘shutdowns’ turn indiscriminately violent
The ‘shutdowns’ spreading across Gauteng are intended as targeted xenophobia. But the actions of one mob in Joburg’s inner city show that, in practice, they can harm anyone in their path.
Xenophobia heightens with calling of ‘mass shutdown’
Four government ministries claim South Africa is not xenophobic, seemingly ignoring the outbreak of violent xenophobic attacks around the country.
Text Messages | Up next, tyranny
Current world leaders are bringing to life Plato’s millennia-old warnings about democracy and the danger a few tyrannical men in positions of power pose for the future.
How Toni Morrison can help us fight xenophobia
Xenophobia is festering in South Africa, stoked by the actions of the state itself. How do we stop violence against migrants? The thoughts and words of the late Toni Morrison can help.
Political Songs | Ghana – Dorothy Masuka
A song all but forgotten by its creator provides hope for acceptance in a time of persistent xenophobia driven by rightwing politicians.
Alarming surge in xenophobic language
Globally, rightwing politicians increasingly blame migrants for a range of problems. At home, the government, police and even trade unionists are doing the same.
Truck driver ‘war’ about more than migration
Attacks on truck drivers are more than xenophobia, they are part of a political project to further personal agendas and create new centres of power amid a breakdown in trust in the rule of law.