ANTI- XENOPHIBIC CAMPAIGN

In this piece of writting, I shall outline the Fundamental reason for the choice of the campaign about Xenophobia and explain how it is concerned with knowledge but not with its practical application as well as illustrating the how are theoretical dimensions of “Race”, Class and Gender come to play. I shall do this by separating this journey into three different aspects. Lets say u are at airport so you are about to take a flight from one place to another, don’t worry about your safety because the aspects are not as hectic as u think. Since we are about to use the plane, we are required to have the departing procedure, middle of the journey where the flight is far above the ground and of course the last part will be the landing procedure. Firstly, shall depart this journey by precisely explaining the meaning of xenophobia and specify the emergence of it. Secondly, In the middle of our journey I shall explain the choice of the campaign about Xenophobia and explain how it is concerned with knowledge. Lastly, I shall land or disembark the plane by explaining the theoretical dimensions of “race”, class and gender.

Xenophobia is bad because it has even constructed bad tendency on the growing youth. One Mozambique guy once said something that proved that social construction is the key. He said, that there was a child from the township who was around 10 years old who called him “Iphandhle” (foreigner) and not just that but he even said “Vimba iphandhle” which means catch the foreigner in Zulu. Just imagine if a young kid who is still growing up is saying such phrase to a person who is old enough to be his or her father. Above all Xenophobia in South Africa has been based more on race and class.

Race has been the fundamental key of xenophobia in South Africa because the foreigners where spotted by the physical appearance. The more black or darker your skin is, the likely you are to be regarded as a foreigner (Sichone, 2008:260). We thought for once that South African`s societies have learned something from their previous apartheid government but it turn out that they haven’t learnt anything because their still classifying one another with their physical appearance (Madywabe: 2000). “What makes attacks on some foreigners unthinkable has to do with how sexualised, class marked and racialised South African stories about immigrant communities” (Gqola, 2008:213) South Africans have moved from Xenophobia to Negrophobia. Many South Africa have moved from the fear of strangers and negative hostility to the fear of dark skin people or a fear of black people which is what is well known as Negrophobia.

In construct, Class is another concept as well in South Africa that has been part of Xenophobia. If you look at all the township that xenophobia emerged from, the likes of township like Alexandra, Diepsloot and Soweto are dominated by low class society. These lower class communities have been long waiting for better life and efficient service delivery that they have been promised after they have voted in every election that have took place in this country. The foreigners are regarded as the ‘threat’ to the better life for all in South Africa (Sichone, 2008:259). Neither of the higher class nor middle class had ever been connected with the xenophobic attacks in South Africa; hence the lower class had because of they have used the foreigners as scapegoat for their long waiting of employment, better life and efficient service delivery.

Well as we know that Xenophobia had been a big problem the question that rises is ’how do we avoid such things in future because we can`t really pretend like everything is fine consequently life must go on. Firstly, it is about time the institutions take a big role is such issues by teaching people on the societies on how to deal with such issues if they arise again. The elected leaders it is time to take their position by doing their duty and stop being corrupt.  And to the entire South African`s, it is time they learn and accept that we are all people no matter how dark is your skin, no one is illegal in this country and everyone is a foreigner somewhere. We need to start building contact among us and bring back the spirit of Ubuntu (humanity) and last but not least it is time to stop complaining about poor service delivery to eliminate the use of foreigners as scapegoat; hence learn to push the right buttons because their not the one`s to blamed for our corrupt leaders who can`t deliver what they promise our society consequently we need to understand that no matter how hard the situation in the community mobility is present therefore we don’t live in the closed system.