THE successful hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup was undoubtedly a plus for South Africa, a country whose crime rate is among the highest in the world. While the event offered South Africa an opportunity to be truly the Rainbow Nation that it has always wanted to be, the spectre of xenophobia threatens to spoil that huge milestone as the welfare of thousands of foreign immigrants who contributed to that country's successfully hosting of the World Cup skirt the knife's edge of simmering racial intolerance.

And for South Africa's large army of migrants the end of the world's most popular sporting event was probably a harsh reminder that home is always best.

Among the migrants are Zimbabweans who fled their country's 10 years of economic meltdown.

With Zimbabwe's political future still hanging in the balance due to incessant fights within the shaky inclusive government of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the migrants face one of their biggest dilemmas.

They ponder the prospect of returning to a home where jobs are still hard to come by with unemployment figures estimated at about 94 percent, according to the United Nations.

The health and education sectors, which are critical in maintaining a healthy and informed nation are still in the doldrums, while capacity utilisation in industry and disposable incomes among the workers have remained below the levels required to rejuvenate the country's economy.

Although the introduction of multiple currencies in February last year did bring about stability, lowered inflation and completely reversed the downward spiral, economists say it is still a long way before the country's economy could rise from its current precariously state.

According to an International Monetary Fund report titled: Zimbabwe: challenges and policy options after hyperinflation, although Zimbabwe's economy has started to grow, the multi-currency system the country opted for is posing a number of challenges.

Chairperson for the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, Douglas Gwatidzo, said under the prevailing scenario: "They (migrants) have to make an informed decision...The reasons why they left have not yet been adequately addressed... There is still political uncertainty in the country and no one knows for how long we are going to go with the government of convenience."

Responding to an email enquiry on Monday, one Zimbabwean professional who chose to remain anonymous, given the present situation in South Africa, said:"I haven't come across anybody who says they have witnessed it (xenophobia violence). I only heard one taxi driver this morning saying they may not be working tomorrow (Tuesday). A colleague at work says they were saying they don't want to ferry foreigners. Otherwise the situation is cool for now -- I will say no evidence of the creature for now."

While many continue to take their chances others are heading for the Zimbabwean border to assess the situation from there.

Some local analysts however, believe this is the best time for the Zimbabweans outside to return as the country navigates one of its most critical times of rewriting its constitution which has been a bone of contention since colonial rule.

It is estimated that there are close to three million Zimbabweans now living in South Africa whose input to the new constitution would undoubtedly make a major difference.

A journalist based in South Africa said this week while Zimbabweans have eased business for commerce and industry, they have also worsened labour relations with local workers, who sneer that they are cutting down wages with their lower demands to "work for anything" and thus putting South African workers out of work.

These are the same sentiments that Zimbabweans in South Africa come across everyday in their lives, be they teachers, accountants, football players, domestic workers, security guards, farmer workers or whatever field one can think of.

Eventually, this friction begins to spark tensions, and it is these tensions that culminate in the xenophobia that increasingly characterise South Africa at the moment.

This week screaming headlines of the lootings of shops owned by foreigners in the Western Cape province were everywhere in the bustling streets of Durban.

The Western Cape is predominantly a grape-farming and wine-making region and in the past decade the number of Zimbabweans working as farm labourers there has turned into a flood.

This has created palpable tensions in Western Cape province's poor black townships such as Zweletemba, because more Zimbabweans are increasingly competing for less farm jobs with locals, thereby impacting negatively on wages and raising tensions.

In addition, commercial farmers prefer foreign workers because of their work ethic compared to local labour.

Into this explosive rural scenario in the Western Cape throw in the deep dislike other enterprising foreigners such as Somalis and Ethiopians also suffer and you get a volcanic reaction.

The seasonal nature of the farm work on the Western Cape farms -- where grape picking starts in the summer months from November until April -- means that at the moment there are already less farm jobs than in the summer season.

This makes tensions soar.

In a province like Kwa-Zulu Natal, the tensions are not visible but that does not necessarily mean they are not there.

The Zimbabwean drivers, security guards and waiters that predominantly characterise the Durban developed business environment also bring a strong work ethic and lower labour costs, and this breeds the same tensions in an economy already under stress from the global recession, high unemployment and general disenchantment with the status quo.

"I believe that is one of the reasons why xenophobic tensions and attacks are taking place on a parochial level and don't share a national character across the breath and width of South Africa. The triggers are the same but the situations differ from place to place and time," said the journalist.

"Like the housewives at my flat talking at the washing line, they are untouched by the xenophobic events already flaring up across some parts of the Western Cape townships like Mbekweni, Makhaza and Klapmuts where Somali-owned shops were looted this week on Monday because the problem itself is not homogenous.

"The South African society is not homogenous, but stratified into different classes and levels riddled with wide inequalities and racial imbalances that find their roots way back to the corrosive effects of the separatist doctrine of apartheid that tampered with the collective memory of the country. It will take a long time to understand this and find solutions," he added.