This makes me sick to my stomach. I’ve sat here trying to think of something to write in response to your post and these photographs, but like you all I feel right now is anger.

Fucking pathetic this is… I’ve just finished writing my 2 cents on this story on my blog for tomorrow morning and hopefully this debate doesn’t stop here.

Words can’t actually explain how sad and wrong this is.

This because they’re foreign. Locals who aren’t Zulu have started receiving the same treatment….

Ethnic cleansing to follow….?

What the fuck? That’s horrific, shocking and mind-blowing. Someone needs to step in NOW.

This is unacceptable on a human level, illegal immigrants or not, this is horrific and should be condemned. Notice how this time round it’s white policemen trying to save the burning man, the opposite of apartheid on the whole.

Needs to be treated like a warzone, otherwize it will only get worse. there is no control here at all. If this can happen so easily and so quickly, then who knows how much further it could go AND where it could spread to. THis is not just a threat to democracy, i think its MORE than safe to assume that it is now dead. Bastards.

F&$$ i get o mad when i see this… i left the country, resigned to come back home but having doubts now… Are we going down the ZIM ROAD? I cant be so sure anymore.

It’ going to spiral out of control….if nothing is done now!

This is so sad. That is a living human being. Family of someone, he had a life and dreams. maybe even feeding a family in his home country.

And the worst thing is … they saw a woman hanging over the fence, looking at the thing and laughing as she told others what happened … WTF?!?

You still think there is hope for this country?

[…] think again. This from a South African blogger: I must say, the denialism and all-round quiet diplomacy we’ve witnessed from our South African […]

I am currently living in London and have noticed that South Africans already have a rather bad reputation over in the UK. for the first time in my life i am not proud to be a South African. i felt physically sick when i saw the photograph of the burning man in the london paper this morning. i am horrified. what is there for me to come home to? soaring prices, poor quality of life, fear, suffering, and violence that not even animals would inflict on each other. the people who inflicted this pain on this man should burn themselves!!!!

I’m appauled to see such cruelity to other human biengs.Mbeki,where are we going with “quite diplomacy”?,with”there is no such thing”?,with “what crisis”? is this the road to hell,Thabo? are you and mad mugabe happy now?
A poor family man,a brother,a father,an uncle,trying so hard to live a normal life and this is whant happens to him.Are we that fucked up.Is this our so -called democracy? Where is humanity?Police should start now use max force to kerb these attacks or we will see the likes of burundi and rwanda genocide in our backyard.

I am a South African, living in Dubai. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this video clip and the associated pictures.

I always thought SA would someohow get back on the right path and that the political & social issues would be rectified. It is now painfully obvious that this is not going to happen. We will become another Zimbabwe. I am feeling so many conflicting emotions: anger at the people who are doing this, the government for DOING NOTHING (AS USUAL), fear for the safety and lives of my family & friends still residing in SA and ultimately shame to be labelled a South African.
What a pity that a country as beautiful as South Africa is going to ruin. So much potential, all gone gone gone.

If SA was a business, the entire government would be fired for mismanagement.

SA is self-destructing, get out while you still can.

As a South African Shangaan not only am i angry but am also scared. A man was quoted as saying they will burn the Shangaans. Seeing that SA also has Shangaans like myself in Mpumalanga (Bushbuckridge) and Limpopo what are we to do return to our ‘country’? Is Mpumalanga or Limpopo a country? These people are ignorant and have managed to take us 15 years backwards!!

[…] of the last few day’s xenophobic violence in Johannesburg has left us all feeling shocked and hopeless. The danger here is that it’s very easy for us (and I’m speaking to the predominantly […]

I dont blame people for wanting to leave either. How could we, how self righteous would that be at this point in time. So sad and so SHOCKING. I read on news 24 today an article titled ‘Attacks are very un-African’. Who are we kidding? huh?… Are we quite conveniently forgeting burundi, rwanda, Kenya, sudan…. the list goes on and on. And before anyone pulls the race card on me, im NOT SAYING THAT BLACK PEOPLE ARE VIOLENT, it has nothing to do with that, just pointing out that Africa is more that just an acquaintance to this kind of horror. And there we were thinking that OUR country perhaps had the antidote to the metaphorical poison that has been chocking other parts of the continent for so long.

[…] not close to the atrocities happening, it affected me emotionally. Mainly due to my good friend Gregor’s post being the first one to read on a Monday […]

It is pitifully sad that it takes large scale action to make everyone suddenly concerned. This has been happening since the birth of the ‘Rainbow Nation’, albeit on a smaller, less media grabbing, scale. Extreme xenophobic violence has been far from uncommon in this country for a long time now.

The same people who are commenting with such vehement disgust about all of this, are the same people who didn’t give a shit a month ago. Many of these commentators are the same people who undoubtedly contributed to false positive propaganda about how everything in SA is just peachy - The very same propaganda that has cloaked such attacks up until now (and inadvertently sent out the message that these attacks are fine - qua non-reaction). All journalists, media consumers, voters, and political leaders should feel ashamed, as we are all to blame for what is happening currently (just as we are to blame for all the antecedental murders and abuses that have been happening before this belated outcry). Wake up people!

So that includes you then Alex? or are you different?

Strange, but I always thought the pronoun, “We” was inclusive of the person who uses it.

Of course it includes me (it includes everyone in this country). Perhaps I should have capitalised it for all the slower readers (WE).

Did I hit sore spot Ross? Highlighting moral hypocrisy tends to do that I suppose….

No you are wrong, not everyone is to blame. Thats a right silly comment, sorry. Dramatic, but silly. The powers that be, sure, they are certainly to blame, but everyone who reads the news and votes? silly. Sure i feel fearfull, nervous, anxious, angry, and sad. But ashamed? Sorry no. And yes i am a slow reader, what was it you said i or WE should have done to stop it? Self righteous.

LOl. Good for you Ross. All I am saying is that before looking for solutions, we need acknowledge that this outcry is a tad on the ‘too-little-too-late’ side. Your emotive involvement in this discussion should have happened a long time ago, if you were in fact truly concerned.

I never offered any solution, because the solution has long expired in my opinion. Xenophobia has been brewing under accepted denial for a long time now.

Perhaps this mass action is a solution in itself, as it has finally made people stand up and look, and, most importantly, talk about it.

But in interests of preventing this from becoming a petty flame war: You are right and I am wrong. Now re-point your anger at those who are committing these atrocities, while feeling self-righteous about your anger.

Alex, what you term as “pitifully sad that it takes large scale action to make everyone suddenly concerned” is part of our general social condition. Our society has been numbed down by the prolonged historic and current events, that unfortunately only extreme circumstances can “wake” us up to.

What is important nevertheless, is that people are reacting, even if they haven’t before (maybe they never gave “a shit”), but now they do. The fact that the media is pushing this, the fact that people are commenting, discussing, venting, can only help add more pressure and spark and encourage change.

I find it interesting thou that you condemn those people who have been commenting and who “suddenly give a shit”. Have you not been quite upset for the past week, more than usual?

Alex, ok, I wrote my comment just before reading your last one - which makes more sense to me.

“Perhaps this mass action is a solution in itself, as it has finally made people stand up and look, and, most importantly, talk about it.” This is exactly what I was also trying to convey…

Gregor, to be honest, I have thrown myself into this as the ‘bad’ guy, simply because I have been most upset that people are only reacting now.

Put simply, I was more angry when this was happening under a cloak of indifference, and the people to whom it was happening had no voice (like for example a Mozambican man I had to give money to a while ago (whom everyone else was ignoring), so that he could get his hideously broken arm fixed at one of the private clinics, simply because the nurses at the local government hospital refused him entry because he was a foreigner). This incident nearly brought to tears, like a blubbering baby - his utter helplessness was staggering. So, to answer your question: No, I am not any more angry than I was before. I do not like to think in scales, one person’s injustice is just as important as twenty to me.

I still feel that we are all to blame, as an entire country. If others disagree, fine - but I shouldn’t be labeled as ’self-righteous’ for believing we all have a part to play.

I keep promising myself that I won’t get involved in these debates anymore, as emotions always rule supreme.

“Now re-point your anger at those who are committing these atrocities”

Thats what i was doing before you rudely interupted me…

just kidding, ok im sorry, virtual hug * *