Johannesburg — IT MAY be flippant to point this out, but after a week of gruesome violence against immigrants that has killed 22 people, at least we all now know what "xenophobia" means.

But while one might have expected that the scenes of horror across Gauteng would focus the minds of our leaders on what needs to be done to stop the violence immediately and prevent it starting again in future, it doesn't seem to have done that at all. SA's political leaders have been extremely slow to respond, if they responded at all. Taking their cue, perhaps, even its policing services haven't exactly been quick off the mark. And even where they have responded, the messages have been ambivalent, at best.

It was only on Sunday, a full week after attacks on foreigners began in Alexandra , that President Thabo Mbeki finally got around to condemning the violence. And he did it not from Alex or Cleveland but from the luxury of San Lameer, in KwaZulu-Natal, where he was meeting his International Investment Council.

Perhaps it was that high-profile group of foreigners who pushed Mbeki to say something, anything, as the looting and burning spread into the Johannesburg city centre. And even then it was not much: the cabinet would set up a panel to investigate who was behind the violence, he said. The police must act firmly.

So far neither Mbeki nor any of his cabinet ministers have made an appearance in any of the trouble spots. Nor has Gauteng's premier, although provincial MECs such as Firoz Cachalia did visit the affected areas last week. And though the new African National Congress (ANC) leadership has done better than the government, it hasn't gone out of its way either. The party did issue a statement early last week condemning the Alex violence unequivocally, calling on South Africans to take a stand against what it described as "hate crimes". And on Thursday ANC president Jacob Zuma made a point, at a graduation address in KwaZulu-Natal, of expressing concern and outrage: "Xenophobia has no place in a democratic, free country like ours," he said. Even so, none of the ANC's top six leaders have made their presence felt in Gauteng's townships.

Perhaps, with an election approaching, there is some ambivalence among politicians about being seen to be unsympathetic about poor service delivery in the townships and the impact this has had on the locals. But that ambivalence could prove extremely dangerous. Unless a clear message goes out that the government and the ANC are taking this seriously and that, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu put it yesterday, "this is not how we behave", the risk is that the violence will spiral.

As it is, the government's own ambivalence about foreigners has helped to create the space for the xenophobia monster to thrive and for criminal elements to exploit it. The police too have played a role in creating the monster, with officers well known for harassing immigrants and extorting bribes from those without papers.

What's needed is not just a clear message from SA's political leaders that violence against foreigners is unacceptable. What's needed too is for the government to recognise and communicate that immigration is a positive economic force, bringing skills and entrepreneurship, not a threat, and that foreigners should be welcomed, not attacked.