Britannia Radio

Editor’s Dispatch 2010/07/14 http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=417499 THE World Cup is over and we’ve hardly had time to finish patting ourselves on the back before a new crisis arises. Now we’re faced with this “xenophobia threat” which appears to have sprung unbidden even before our rainbow nation afterglow had a chance to fade. I’m not normally drawn to conspiracy theories but I find the timing of this to be weird. It’s almost as if it were carefully planned to embarrass us. It is hard to work out where these claims originated and how they have escalated to dominate headlines as the World Cup had co me to an end. I know that there always has been – and continues to be – a threat of xenophobic violence in South Africa. As we have often pointed out, little has been done by the State since the terrible attacks back in 2008 to prevent a reoccurrence. But it defies common sense to imagine that they would happen now at a time when South Africans are revelling in being part of a global community clearly in love with South Africa. I don’t buy the theory that criminals have conspired to orchestrate a wave of looting and plunder under in xenophobic cloak. I believe this story is far more complex. We in the media have been too side tracked by the World Cup to dig more deeply into the “xenophobia threat” story which has been bubbling through out the tournament and which seemed to lurch towards becoming reality on Monday. But we need to dig and dig fast to challenge the assumptions and theories being put out in public about what lies behind this. On the other hand, I’m also encouraged to see my colleagues in the media tackling this issue head-on and hard. On Umhlobo Wenene FM’s Breakfast Early Express, Mphuthumi “Putco” Mafani has been challenging listeners’ xenophobic prejudices and assumptions about “foreigners”. I must also salute the Daily Sun for a powerful front page yesterday confronting its readers with a choice between a peaceful, R ainbow N ation or sickening violence against “foreigners”. For a paper which was once heavily blamed for contributing to xenophobic violence , I think this was good of it. A year ago we investigated the murder of Somalis in our community and reflected how South Africans appeared to behave like “dogs snarling at a suburban gate when strangers come to call”. I hope never to have to write such words again.