There Will Be Blood, Brother

The ugly, gloating face of xenophobia once again leers over the streets of africa. Hard times and growing intolerance have seen violent mobs on the rampage against african entrepreneurs from nigeria to Somalia. FORBES AFRICA went among the violence and vexed voices on a Friday afternoon of madness in South africa’s capital city.

- Yonela Mgwali

African turned on African. Mobs looted shops, threatened lives and smashed anything they could get their hands on. There were languages from across Africa shouted through the streets of the capital of Pretoria on this confusing afternoon – one language was heard above the rest; the language of the boot.

By 11 AM, in Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria, angry youths stood by the side of Town lands Road – rocks in hand. Earlier they had thrown rocks, witnesses said, at any vehicle entering where the so-called foreigners live. A police van stood by, just out of rock range.

For the mob, getting rid of fellow Africans, they call foreigners, was their aim; bigotry their game.

“All those who are selling drugs, nyaope (South African street drug), doing prostitution and human trafficking should voetsek (go away in Afrikaans). Would Robert Mugabe allow me to sell drugs in Zimbabwe? No, never! So why is our government failing us. This is war that’s not going to end. As you can see, it started slowly but let me tell you it’s going to get huge,” says Thembi Skhosana, a South African protester in Marabastad.

In many ways Skhosana epitomized the ugly threat on the streets.

“If our government doesn’t tell these people to go, people are going to die. [The government] is used to killing people, like they did in Marikana, so even now blood will be spilt,” she says.

Skhosana criticized the authorities for failing to clamp down on foreigners without permits.

“It’s best that we take the matter into our own hands. Police have failed. When they take bribes that means they’re also taking things into their own hands; we might as well deal with this our own way.”

On the other side, people also prepared to deal with things in their own way.

In Marabastad, Somali immigrants took up machetes, sticks‚ rocks and knives.