Like Mbeki in 2008, many government and ANC party functionaries have refused to label the latest outbreak of violence against foreigners as xenophobia. Why is there this reluctance to call a spade a spade, what was the spark that ignited the latest flare-up and what is the prognosis for future outbreaks?

It was like déjà vu. As I drove alone south on an almost empty N3 in the pre-dawn gloom towards OR Tambo to catch the early morning flight to Pietermaritzburg, I was astounded at the overt racism of the callers either in their justification of the attacks on the foreigners or their “humane human-rights” solutions to the problem.

All of the callers to the Early Breakfast show – as it is styled – on 702 Talk Radio were predominately from the townships.

Main picture: Xenophobic attacks halted business in Durban’s CBD

At work in Pietermaritzburg, I enquired facetiously from the first black person that crossed my path whether the attacks would spread northwards up the N3 towards Pietermaritzburg, I was firmly informed that it would happen before the sun set. The reason for these attacks, she offered, was that they are stealing the locals’ jobs.

Why did I refer to these attacks as déjà vu?

Looters obatining some heavily discounted merchandise

In late January of this year after completing a 15km night race at the Barnard Stadium in Kempton Park which was at the height of the xenophobic attacks in Gauteng, the very same arguments were being advanced. 702 may as well have just played back those listeners comments.

Nathi Nhleko – The Minister of Police

Apologists for the ANC have been performing semantic gymnastics not to have to use the X word. Instead some have mislabelled it hooliganism. Yet others such as the Minister of Police, Mr Nathi Nhleko had advanced more sophisticated explanations. In his case he labelled it Afriphobia.

The reason for these contortions is that to admit to ANC members being responsible for xenophobic attacks would amount to an admission that ANC members were racist. That acknowledgement is not in line with their good story to tell. Furthermore was it not the wicked Dutchman, Jan van Riebeeck, who introduced the concept of racism to South Africa when he set foot on an uninhabited stretch of vacant coast called the Cape of Good Hope?

According to the ANC’s hymn sheet, only whites are capable of racism.

To the ANC, the term Black Racism is an oxymoron, an impossibility, certainly not a likelihood to be admitted to. Agreeing to the term Afriphobia implies self-loathing as opposed to hating one’s fellow human beings. It better to confess to a more heinous crime than to profess that racism is alive and well amongst the ANC’s voters.

The one excuse that I have not heard yet in this analysis is that Apartheid is to blame. I am still waiting for this explanation.

It took a communique by the SA Human Rights Commission to make an unequivocal stand that the attacks were overtly xenophobic by nature. Apart from this declaration agreeing that blacks are capable of tawdry craven racism, it also represents a dramatic expression of their lack of Ubuntu.

What were the solutions espoused by these callers?

The first was the carrying by ID Documents by all South Africans. Gwede Mantashe has recently also advocated this solution. After the emphatic rejection of the pass by the PAC at Sharpeville in 1956, the ANC is unlikely to sample that fare again.

The other solution was to intern all foreigners who are not gainfully employed or bona fide students in Refugee Camps. According to the Callers to 702 Talk Radio, this is what the policy of most African countries is.

Both solutions reek of the lack of or even rejection of Ubuntu.

King Goodwill Zwelithini

The spark that set the South Africa House of Ubuntu on fire was the alleged callous call by the Zulu King, King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu that all foreigners must be expelled from South Africa.

That’s as maybe!

Notwithstanding his strenuous denials, his words were like sparks on a tinder dry field. The suppressed anger at the audacity of the foreigners to work harder and longer hours for less pay was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

There is no denying that fact that the criminal element took advantage of the situation and utilised the cover of the uncertainty to loot these unfortunate people’s shops and businesses.

These hordes – there are literally millions of foreigners legally but mainly illegally in South Africa – were initially allowed to stay in South Africa amongst the local population in gratitude for their country’s assistance during the liberation struggle.

What the ANC reaped, the ANC is now sowing.

These foreigners without any other means of survival but their wits and productivity are rightly usurping the jobs of indolent pampered locals.

The vein of anger within the local black communities is at a flashpoint with some callers even denigrating the ANC for not “dealing” with the foreigners.

In the light of the ANC’s unwillingness to repatriate these migrants, the likelihood of recurrence of these attacks is high.

The only positive in any otherwise bleak prognosis, is that the ANC’s supporters are being exposed as being just as racist as those on whom they affix that facile incendiary epithet.