What is xenophobia? Xenos means a stranger, and phobia means fear. So we have the fear of strangers and foreigners.* (Dictionary help from this site) The word 'xenophobia' has been thrown around a lot in South Africa lately, as the press's favourite buzzword in relating to the motive for the rampant gang attacks on thousands of South Africans who originate from other African countries, many of them illegal immigrants.
It's an incredible and horrifying story: a few weeks ago, gangs of people started viciously attacking these immigrants, destroying their houses and possessions, brutally attacking them bodily, and sometimes killing them. Thousands of people have had to flee for their lives, mostly with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing. Desperate to find a place where they can be safe, they have taken refuge in local police stations and other municipal buildings, under the protection of the South African Police Forces. While the government initially said that these attacks came from "criminal elements," time and logic have proven that the motivations behind these attacks are more than criminal, and the attacks have certainly not only been executed by criminals; they are deeper reaching, and need to be understood. So, what is this 'xenophobia' all about?
The mobs have given reasons for their active hatred: apparently, the immigrants threaten the locals by flooding the work market; also, the mostly destitute immigrants, who crossed the South African border to flee the terrible conditions of their countries of origin (largely Zimbabwe), are happy to work for less than the general going rate, because for them, any work is good work, and any pay is good pay. Their becoming the lowest common denominator in the work market has, apparently, unsettled many of the local-born South Africans from potential job opportunities.
From one point of view, to give this as a reason for pillaging these people's possessions and pursuing them with crazed blood-lust, driving thousands from their homes to run for their lives, is preposterous. The anger, rage, and venomous spite does not match up to a fear of being unemployed. I grant that they may be frustrated and disappointed, but to come to such a point stretches the limits of rational and civil behaviour.
However, by examining the severity of the violence and its wide spread, we can see that this resentment and anger has not just been turned on in a short period of time. Clearly, these people's frustrations and disappointments, whatever they may be, including the apparent fear for unemployment, have been mounting over the last months and years. I don't know enough about the people of the mob, but I gather that they are mostly also very poor, living in 'squatter camps', living on the edge. Life in such conditions is not usually comfortable or enjoyable (to say the least), and we can assume that they had a much greater background resentment and frustration than comfortable suburban dwellers.
But all the same, as Jews -- despite our unfortunate internal divisiveness -- we know all too well what it must feel like to have to run for your life from a blood-crazed mob. Our naional history is drenched in blood. We know this too well, and when we see it happening to someone else, we are deeply obliged, and hopefully internally deeply driven and motivated, to roll up our sleeves and help. Why is Israel often the first country on the scene with rescue workers in the event of catastrophes in other countries around the world? Do you think Israel has something to prove? I doubt it. I think that the Jews in Israel understand all too well what it's like to be in such dark and difficult times, and they rush to send aid because, as a people that's gone through so much suffering, we can really empathize with those who suffer.
G-d tells us many times in the Torah to be especially careful with the feelings and well-being of a stranger and a convert, as well as widows and orphans. "Remember what you went through in Egypt!" He reminds us. You know all too well what it's like to be hunted, persecuted, victimized, bullied and downtrodden. Be very, very sure that you never allow such things to happen again, to anyone else.
The Jewish community here in South Africa has been overwhelmingly generous with donations and organizing aid and facilities for the refugees, as have other sectors of the South African public. But we can't lose sight of the fact that for this thing to have happened in the first place is something tragic and deeply worrying. How can we make sure something like this never happens again? What do you think?
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Pictures: Girl crying, mob
* Harry Potter fans: contrast to Xenophilius Lovegood: xen- = strange, philius = related to love; Xenophilius is the one who loves strange things.
