My kids call it camping time, because then we use all our camping gear. Once again most of Alberton suffered huge inconvenience on the worst time of the week – Sunday night last week when Eskom introduced level 3 load shedding. The lack of electricity serves as a major catalyst to deepen the economic crisis that will result in business shedding even more jobs and grow unemployment and poverty.
This is the basis of an unstable environment and it manifests in various different ways. One of the manifestations is the insurgence of renewed acts of xenophobia. It is not just KwaZulu-Natal that is burning, but on our own doorstep acts of xenophobia are rearing its ugly head. The Executive Mayor Cllr Mondli Gungubele has called for calm and tolerance as the ongoing xenophobic attacks threaten to spread to the areas of Makause and Marathon informal settlements in Germiston close to Alberton.
The Mayor called these acts of crime. Even though the areas are calm again, what is happening in the country right now is completely unnecessary. The Council committed to work with communities to ensure that concrete plans are put in place to deal with any violence perpetuated against foreign nationals. The Mayor confirmed that the metro had already activated a joint operation centre to deal with the situation. Even though we are all frustrated with some of the challenges we face, we should guard against the deterioration of our democracy and the decay of our society into one of criminality.
Xenophobia exposes a lot of the cracks we have as a nation, but we should guard against total anarchy.
To win the struggle against xenophobia, communities must learn to live ‘in unity instead of tolerance’. “Unity is what must drive us. It teaches us to live in harmony with the acceptance that we all need each other to survive.” The ongoing violence due to xenophobia is not good for the economy of the city and the country, because at the end of the day we are all threatening the future and stability of our community.
Lets work together to build a better South Africa. follow me on Twitter @neildiamond7 for regular updates.
