2.0 Introduction
Africa has become the theatre of widespread violent attacks, crime, xenophobia, genocide and terrorism (Valji, 2003). Xenophobia as our main focus is a deep-rooted hatred towards foreign nationals, processed through such tragic incidents of attacking and killing foreigners. This act of xenophobia has emerged in Africa since the end of colonialism. This study seeks to utilise the existing literature on xenophobia to explain and discuss its various causes and impacts with a view to providing deeper understanding of its insecurity regime. The study will highlight the causes and impact xenophobia has on nations, specifically on South Africa’s international relations abroad.
2.1 The nexus between conflict and peace: negotiating
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South Africa has changed from apartheid governmental system to a democratic state, but different kinds of discrimination and or segregation ranging from racial, ethnic and nationalism are still prevailing. Nationalism is that which is based on political arrangements, but have in the latter led to a lot of confusion, and has been the center for xenophobia. There are a couple of explanations provided by different authors as to why the issues of xenophobia exist, and are predominantly increasing mainly in South Africa.Valji (2003)in his article “the rise of violent xenophobia in the new South Africa” state that xenophobia starts off as attacks against ‘illegal aliens’ soon it becomes attacks on ‘legally immigrants’ that are in the country with their families, and it goes on to being attacks on South Africans who ‘look foreign’ because they are deemed too dark to be south Africans (2003).according to Valji’ (2003) this is the evil story of beginning of fascism and ethnic cleansing which has been practiced in other parts of the world like …show more content…
He argues that the end of colonialism is not the end of the struggle for scarce resources. He sees the fading of African unity as a return to chauvinism in the most bitter and detestable manner (Fanon, 1990: 126). One of the regularly mentioned reasons for the occurrence of xenophobia in South Africa, which is not different from that of Fanon, is apartheid governmental system (Pately, 2013). Valji states that even before the implementation of the apartheid system, the immigration policies defined the South African state as a racially exclusionary in the 1937 act which described the desirable immigrants as ones from European heritage who will easily assimilate with the with population of the country (2003: 7).There is a notion that there is still hatred that lives in the people of South Africa which result to xenophobic act, which was adopted unconsciously from the apartheid governmental
When conflicting ideologies reach a magnitude so high that agreements aren't even an option, war is generally the conclusion. War is accompanied by a number of negative aspects. Specifically, human fatalities, the destruction of economies, harm to the environment, and quoting the film Platoon, "the first casualty of war is innocence." However, besides all the negative aspects, the side that comes out triumphant, generally gains something of great significance. It could be immense power, stature, or land.
Nationalism in the 19th century truly set the boundaries for Europe’s newly reformed nations. With technological innovations like the steam engine and Maxim rifle European countries now held a power truly feared by others. With this power, they began to triumphantly expand all over the world. Africa was the country that bore the most sufferable pain. Europe imperialism over Africa resulted in situations where people like King Leopold completely abused and mistreated entire African tribes.
The United States is known as the nation of immigrants. It is a place where different cultures meet and diverge. However, despite being known as the nation of immigrants, the Americans have been also known for their sentiments against the immigrants. Anti-immigrant sentiment has long been a part of the culture in the United States.
Which begs the question in society today who is uninvited in South Africa? District 9 shows racism and the violence humans have to those who are difference and even one of their own ( Wikus). The aliens are attacked and also attack one another and display an animalistic savagery. However in South Africa the xenophobic attacks upon one another are similar to that in District 9, to the extent where Zimbabweans and Nigerians are called “aliens”, despite being human.
The Hawaiian Islands has this image of being the perfect vacation destination for people all around the world. The island’s welcoming “aloha” culture is very popular and spoken of around the world. Yet, lately not only native Hawaiians live there, many tourists visit all year long and many families and businessmen decided to move and live there as well. This makes the island diversified and multicultural. Through the years, many waves of immigrations took place and more non-locals began living in Hawaii.
The first great-war shattered the human mind so profound that out of its aftermaths’ emerged a fresh discipline (in 1919 at the University of Whales known to us as International Relations) proposed to prevent war. “It was deemed by the scholars that the study of International Politics shall find the root cause of the worlds political problems and put forward solutions to help politicians solve them” (Baylis 2014:03). International Relations happened to play the role of a ‘correcting-mechanism’ restoring the world order of peace and amity by efforting at its best to maintain the worlds’ status quo. However with the emergence of a second world war much more massive that the first put at stake all the values of that young discipline of IR. The
The europeans who came in and messed everything up now think that blacks cause all of the bad things in South Africa and think they need to protect themselves from it. “We shall live from day to day, and put more locks on the doors, and get a fine fierce dog when the fine fierce bitch next door has pups, and hold on to our handbags more tenaciously”(135). This shows what the white people think the black people in South Africa. They think that they must use multiple locks to be safe from the blacks in South Africa They also believe that the will attack them and steal all there stuff as they walk through the city. “They are murderers, thieves, bootleggers, and prostitutes.
Conflict resolution as a field of study as indicated has formed hypothetical bits of knowledge into the nature and source of conflict and how conflicts can be resolved through peaceful systems to effectuate a dependable settlement. Morton Deutsch, was the first to form and understanding into the helpful results of collaboration as a scholastic enquiry. In his view, various variables like the way of the debate and the objectives every group in a conflict goes for are crucial in deciding the sort of introduction a group would convey to the negotiation table in its endeavor to unravel the conflict (Morton Deucth, 1985, p.24). To him, two essential orientations do exist. These are competitive and cooperative.
This essay is an effort to discuss why matters or race and racism are more than just the attitudes and behaviours of individuals. I will be discussing what racism is and the different forms of racism and I will explain how racism is socially constructed, furthermore, I will give a brief discussion on the history of racism and also discuss some of the key concepts and perspectives to offer a sociological analysis of the complexities of politics of difference and identity, furthermore, I will show how this applies to schools in the South African context. Race is one of the traits that accompanies a person’s social identity, it contributes to the definition and formation of a person’s social identity. Race can be defined as a person’s physical characteristics such as skin, hair or eye colour, it is one of the factors used to differentiate and categorise people where people can be categorised as black,
Have you ever been hostile towards, feared or distrusted people of other cultures, regions, religions or colour, that is, in all, been belligerent towards people who are foreign? Have you laughed or found humour in the prejudiced or abusive comments passed on foreign people? Well, then you suffer from an uncured and fatal disease-Xenophobia! According to the dictionary definition, Xenophobia is the unreasonable fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners or of that which is strange or foreign. It is a combination of the word ‘xeno’ (foreigner) – which originated in Greece and ‘phobia’ (fear).
“Conflict is a struggle over values and claims to scarce status, power, and resources, in which the aims of the opponents are to neutralize, injure, or eliminate the rivals”. (L. Coser,
Maya Verdier Global Studies 2H Mr. Grace Set: 1 South African Apartheid Apartheid was the policy of segregation, political, and economic discrimination against non-European groups in South Africa. Apartheid was introduced in 1948 and created a tremendous turning point in South African history. South Africa was colonized by the English and Dutch in the 17th century. The English and Dutch later became called Afrikaners, and these two groups had a power-share over Africa until the 1940’s. When the Afrikaner National Party gained a strong majority Apartheid was invented.
The intolerant attitudes learned during Apartheid still dwell among some of the citizens. Another explanation of the violence that occurs in South Africa is blamed on the ANC government’s service delivery bad record, what Apartheid didn’t damage, the ANC did. South African xenophobia has also been explained by the level of social and economic inequality in the country. It has been noted that the greatest punishments of xenophobic violence have been carried out in borders of formal society, where foreign nationals compete with the poorest South Africans to make themselves a basic living. And then lastly, South Africa’s immigration policies are also blamed for exasperating the problem.
The author takes the topic of Xenophobia to be a human condition that arises out of a lack of proper meaning interaction among people. For example in Oxford University people from other African countries, except South Africa were referred as to Mukwerekwere or Likwerekwere, Afrikans etc. To show that even people from other places were experiencing Xenophobia Refentse mother, while at Tiragalong, she believed that all Johannesburg women are evil and men destroyers even before she meet Lerato Refentse’s girlfriend (Mpe, 2001:29-63), which is leading to the element of fiction known as Dystopia were a person dislike a certain place because she/he imagined it as a bad place (Abrams and Harpham (2012:416-417). Xenophobia also falls under the biggest issue that the world especially South Africa suffers from, immigrants are facing discrimination and violence in the world, though much of that risk stopped from the institutionalised racism of the time due to apartheid. These immigrant were also accused of causing high crime rate in
The survey states that four out of every ten South Africans believe that apartheid was not wrong in its oppressive actions, as well as one third of white South Africans believing that poverty in South Africa in the present day is not a result of apartheid (Wadvalla, 2013). Seeing that this data was gathered twenty years apart the first democratic election in South Africa,