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Racist Attacks In South Africa?
Around twelve people have been killed in a series of mob attacks by South Africans on Zimbabwe refugees. The attackers appear to be inhabitants of the poor black townships around Johannesburg, who fear that Zimbabweans fleeing Robert Mugabe's brutal regime are taking jobs and housing, as well as contributing to the high levels of crime in the neighbourhoods. However, news reports say that immigrants from other African countries, including Mozambique, have also been targeted. The murders appear to be particularly vicious, with one reporter claiming to have seen a migrant burned to death.
Both assailants and victims are black. So how have the French and English language press concluded that the attacks are "racist?"
Would readers not notice the horrendous attacks unless the word "racist" is applied? Your correspondent had to look carefully to discover that the violence is being carried out by black gangs - a casual reader could have been convinced by the headlines that South Africa's whites are attacking blacks.
Later editions use the phrase "xenophobic" which is closer to the truth. But how was the phenomenon deemed racist in the first place? Well, Jo'burg city council has condemned the attacks as "sowing seeds of division not very different from our racist apartheid past." Another source speaks of the "exceedingly xenophobic" South Africans born after the end of the apartheid system. Xenophobia, it explains, is a product of a generation "steeped in (South Africa's) racist past."
So racism is like original sin, and has poisoned succeeding generations? There is no denying that the trauma of apartheid could take decades to overcome - but to attribute racism to acts where the classical definition clearly doesn't apply does people no favours. Moreover, it can be used as a convenient bogeyman and means of absolving the current government of responsibility.
South Africa's problems are beyond the scope of this blog. The European press, however, is not. The press slavishly defers to the official line of the ruling ANC party. If the SA government deems the attacks racist, the press unquestioningly repeats its claims. Even if EURSOC has missed the last cyclical and tribal violence, violence between citizens of different countries and attacks on migrants are now classed as "racist" whatever the colour of the perpetrators and victims, it is still a controversial definition, and is one that the press needs to clarify before using in prominent headlines.
