This is such a hard article for me to write as my thoughts are scattered and I don’t know how to pull them together in order to be rational and clear in what I am about to say.

Where to start? I have foreign friends *always only refer to them as my friends….always only add the foreign part, when I’m talking about their home language, French or Shona* They’re cool, nice, funny and humble people *okay, not all of them* But point I am trying to make is that, they’re just like any other South African I have called friends……….But this is not about me and my friendships, it’s about how hurt, ashamed and sad I am feeling because of current happenings around my country. It’s about the helplessness that has adorned me.

My heart is bleeding but more importantly people are bleeding, dying from ignorance, dying from none delivery, dying from poverty, dying from a lack of dialogue, dying from envy andI am at an utter loss. Writing this article is not going to save a life, is not going to stop the violence but its cathartic and hopefully it might touch someone and educate? *Is it too much to hope for?*

We have so many reasons why this is happening and the one that I hear being thrown around a lot is, “lazy”, please stop it immediately! As that is belittling the situation and the reasons, also it is opening a Pandora’s Box……. When white South Africans throw it in your face don’t get mad because when our brothers where burning our other brothers, that’s what you said? What makes it right for you to say it and wrong for them? *Coz, you are black!?*

In their study, Xenophobia and civil society: Why did it happen? Patrick Bond, Trevor Ngwane and Baruti Amisi found that when it came to identifying ‘causes’ of xenophobia, there are often temptations to replace grounded structural analysis with symptom-searching. In their research they found three theories, the first being ‘Scapegoating’, this would explain the hostility towards foreigners in relation to limited resources such as employment, housing, healthcare and services coupled with high expectations for social change during a transition. The report goes on to explain that “In the post-apartheid epoch, while people’s expectations have been heightened, a realisation that delivery is not immediate has meant that discontent and indignation are at their peak”.

People are more conscious of their deprivation than ever before. This is the ideal situation for a phenomenon like xenophobia to take root and flourish. South Africa’s political transition to democracy has exposed the unequal distribution of resources and wealth in the country.’ In this context people create a target to blame for on going deprivation and poverty. The scapegoat theory suggests that foreigners become scapegoats because they are seen as a threat to the aforementioned housing, employment and services.

Secondly, there is the problem of ‘isolation’ which situates ‘foreignness’ at the heart of hostility toward foreigners. The isolation hypothesis understands xenophobia as a consequence of apartheid South Africa’s seclusion from the international community. ‘There is little doubt that the brutal environment created by apartheid with its enormous emphasis on boundary maintenance has impacted on people’s ability to be tolerant of difference’. This theory suggests that South Africans are unable to tolerate and accommodate difference and indeed find difference challenging. *Okay I know what you are thinking, another blame assigned to apartheid!……rolls eyes* But it is a fact and its true, how are we going to be tolerant of other African communities when we are not even able to tolerate one another?

*Thank you the Homeland Act.* the stereotypes that exists about Xhosa people, Zulu’s, Tswanas and all other cultural groups? My God! I am South African but still feel unwelcome in certain South African areas! *Dear fellow Africans, I apologise! You came to the wrong country, the people here are broken, they’re prejudiced against each other….How can they welcome you with warm hearts and Open arms when they can’t do that to their fellow south Africans?* What am I saying? I SOMETIMES FEEL LIKE A FOREIGNER IN MY OWN COUNTRY BECAUSE OF WHAT THE HOMELAND ACT DID.

So, before we all get excited and start throwing our two cents worth opinions around and writing open letters *like some misguided celebrities* think, assess and be truly critical of yourself and your views about fellow South Africans and Africans. Who is to know that next time it won’t be me being burned?