Ebrahim Rasool
20 June 2008
opinion
For two weeks last month we witnessed a criminal orgy of violence against immigrants throughout the country. Gangs of panga-wielding youths led the charge against their African brothers and sisters, resulting in 62 deaths and forcing tens of thousands from their homes.
This naked display of hatred of fellow human beings shocked the nation out of its complacency, while commentators around the world remarked that the "miracle" nation was falling apart.
There is no shortage of explanations for this implosion. These range from poor service delivery to growing inequality, unbearable living conditions, the history and culture of apartheid violence, and so on.
Over time, the reasons will become clearer and necessary steps will be taken so that this never happens again.
At the height of last month's violence, many South Africans justifiably asked: What has become of the new South Africa?
What of the values of tolerance, respect for human rights and dignity that lie at the core of our constitution? What of the declaration made boldly in the Freedom Charter that "South Africa belongs to all who live in it"?
I believe the answers to these questions are to be found in the way tens of thousands of South Africans have reacted to the crisis.
In the Western Cape, citizens opened their hearts, wallets and homes to offer all kinds of relief to the victims of these vicious attacks.
From the Soetwater camp on False Bay to the Zolani centre in KTC, ordinary South Africans came out in great numbers to provide security, offer relief and say to their brothers and sisters that they need to come back home.
These were more than acts of human solidarity: they reaffirmed that South Africans have learnt from their brutal past and that the core values of our constitution are entrenched in the national consciousness.
Consider what happened in Khayelitsha, one of the affected Cape Flats townships and home to about 750 000.
Following violent eruptions in Du Noon on May 22, looting quickly spread to Khayelitsha, but was contained within a day without loss of life, nor were there battles between the police and residents.
According to Reverend Templeton Mbekwa, chairman of the local crisis committee, the success of the containment was less a result of police intervention than communities taking charge of the situation.
Mbekwa says that when the crisis hit Khayelitsha on May 23, the clergy, the community policing forum, political parties, the Khayelitsha Development Forum and all community formations came to-gether to stop the looting.
A crisis committee was immediately set up, with four broad tasks: security stabilisation, humanitarian relief, conflict resolution and reintegration. This was a community initiative that was able to isolate the tsotsi element, in any case a distinct minority.
In addition to residents recovering stolen goods, the committee set up a conflict-resolution process, including meetings with business leaders and a community radio phone-in programme, in which residents raised whatever issues they had with immigrants.
Mbekwa says his committee concluded after this that at the core of this tension was competition for limited resources: housing, business and government services.
A mediation effort is under way, and the Khayelitsha community welcomed its non-South African residents back into the community last week.
Masiphumelele, a shantytown next to Fish Hoek, is also a truly South African story.
After the looting was contained there, residents held meetings to deal with the crisis. They recovered stolen goods from the looters' houses and stored them at places of safety until their owners could return and claim them.
Then they drafted a declaration committing all members of the community to live in peace with their immigrant sisters and brothers.
They went a step further. Barely three days after the looting, they braved a tense environment in Soetwater camp to ask forgiveness.
Words cannot capture the generosity of spirit displayed through this humble act by the most ordinary South Africans living in Masiphumelele. All South Africans should be proud of their actions.
And there's more to the story. From Langa to Capricorn, communities took measures to prevent violence. In Capricorn, for example, community organisations worked with the police, gathering intelligence to prevent assaults there.
Individuals trying to prepare the ground for violence were warned not to cause trouble.
There was increased policing and looting was averted.
Now hundreds of mediators are travelling the province, preparing communities for integration.
The mediation deals with issues creating tensions in communities and establishes permanent structures so that any potential conflicts can be resolved peacefully.
The provincial government has allocated up to 2 000 Expanded Public Works Programme jobs as part of this process, which we hope will take up to two months.
At times like these, attention obviously focuses on the violence and its immediate outcomes.
But the actions that have taken place in communities throughout the Peninsula also highlight a generation of people who believe a democratic South Africa is a project worth defending.
These are not just individuals but leaders of communities. It is people like them, and millions of other South Africans they lead, who make us believe there is hope for the future.
These leaders didn't encourage looting, they stopped it. They could have appealed to the populist resentment against their brothers and sisters not born in this land and blamed them for the really desperate state of affairs in some of these communities.
Instead they spread the message that "South Africa belongs to all who live in it", with all the contradictions that come with that statement.
The events of recent weeks have certainly taught us a few things.
One is that there are everyday leaders who can rise to the challenge. Two, that many of us haven't given up on this country just yet.
Three, that in times of crisis, the easiest thing to do is to find someone to blame. Four is that the dream of a non-racial democratic South Africa is firmly entrenched in the national consciousness.
I hope this consciousness will continue to produce citizens capable of rising to the challenge and who reject the siren song of populism, which can ultimately lead to xenophobia and tribalism and their terrible consequences.
Ebrahim Rasool is premier of the Western Cape province of South Africa, which includes Cape Town.
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