Indeed, Henning. The high walls and security complexes are relatively recent, as are the informal settlements: I can count 5 in my area (southern Cape peninsula) that have sprung up since 1994. Government’s reckless promises of houses, etc. might have something to do with this.
Also, we have a Government more concerned about its ego than its people. There is no need to rehash the Arms Deal scandal, the high-level corruption, and so forth. In a country with crumbling infrastructure, with a population explosion happening in front of our eyes, we have chosen to ignore the need to build and maintain power stations, with its dark and very expensive consequences. Our public transport system is a joke, and promises to get it up and running for the 2010 World Cup are not materialising. Instead, temporary arrangements are being made, so that it can all fall apart again when the tourists go home. A tax base of roughly five million people has to support 48 million, many of whom need start-from-scratch services like running water and basic electricity.
Against this backdrop, foreigners come in in hordes. For the most part, they have nothing but the clothes they came across the border in. They are housed in the squatter camps. They tend to accept lower wages and menial labour, and are sought after: look in the classified pages and see how marketable ‘Malawian’ and ‘Zim’ domestic services are. They open convenience stores. They have money and goods that the established South Africans do not. They are very vulnerable.
SA is, literally and laterally, a broken society. We have ‘achieved’ the highest per capita murder, rape and armed robbery rates in the world. Xenophobia is just one symptom, by no means the first, of the backlash to come.
