Xenophobia: Nigeria And South Africa Have Now A Bad Record

During the 1980s under Shehu shagari, Nigeria kicked out,  in a very brutal manner, millions of african immigrants accusing them of corruption and burglary. Today South Africans are doing the same thing.
Two nations with a very bad record. Where is this continent going ?

 

Turn back a few leafs in history and you will find that other nations have been twice as 'barbaric' as Africa in their treatment of the [/i]other [i] but let's not get into that.

Besides I think that people are somewhat territorial (by nature) and feel as strongly/xenophobic as some of the South Africans. The same could happen in the west. It's the forbidding arm of the law that keeps sentiments in check.

                                                 
This Mrs American woman self. . . . . . .Na wah!!

The attacks on foreign nationals in May this year — which left 62 people dead and thousands displaced — were, rather, the direct result of “naked criminal activity”, Mbeki said.

He was speaking at a tribute to the victims of the xenophobic violence, held at the Pretoria City Hall. It was attended by cabinet ministers, politicians, religious leaders and families of victims.

While Mbeki offered the country’s apologies for the attacks, vowing they would never happen again, he vehemently denied that xenophobia was behind “the dark days of May”.

Referring to his visits to urban and rural areas across the country, Mbeki said it was clear to him that foreigners had been accepted by local communities.

“When I heard some accuse my people of xenophobia, of hatred of foreigners, I wondered what the accusers knew about my people, that I did not know,” he said.

“These masses [South Africans] are neither antipathetic towards nor do they hate foreigners.

“And this I must also say: none in our society has any right to encourage or incite xenophobia by trying to explain naked criminal activity by cloaking it in the garb of xenophobia.”

To support his assertions, Mbeki said the violence was not targeted at poorer immigrants.

“Those who have eyes to see will have seen that much of the violence we experienced was targeted at the immigrants who had property to loot. Those who have eyes to see will have seen that the majority of the immigrants who live in conditions of poverty, as do many of our people, were not attacked,” he said.

But Mbeki did not mention the attacks on jobless foreigners at the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg or the necklacing of a Mozambican man in the poor Ramaphosa informal settlement outside Boksburg.

Mbeki, who has been accused of being out of touch before, said there “are some in our country who will charge that what I have said constitutes a denial of our reality”.

Mbeki offered South Africa’s apologies to the rest of the world: “I humbly convey our apology that we allowed criminals in our midst to inflict terrible pain and damage to many in our society.”

Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula said that 21 of the 62 people killed during the attacks were South African.

He said the government’s reintegration plan for those displaced to return to their communities were well under way.

Currently, about 9 000 people are still living at the temporary refugee shelters set up after the attacks. Some 5175 are in the Western Cape and more than 3 000 in Gauteng.

According to Nqakula, some of the bodies found during the attacks had not yet been identified.

“Their fingerprints are not on our systems, which means their movement into this country was not documented,” he said.

As part of the government’s plan to deal with the more than 1200 people arrested for xenophobic crimes, special courts were set up in the Western Cape and Gauteng.

Those arrested face charges including murder, attempted murder, robbery, arson and public violence.