Calls for accountability as anger over immigration and corruption swells in South Africa

I stated the other day, "Let me be clear: I completely disagree and abhor this targeting of immigrants, particularly those from Africa. The emphasis is on the wrong issues...."

I see the government has now had an urgent meeting of some key ministers and some civil society groups like March and March to 'deal' with this issue. The leaders of the civil society group left the meeting early, and it later emerged that the meeting was haphazardly organized and was probably a waste of taxpayers' money and everybody's time.

You see, this is again an indication that we are unfortunately governed by people who are floating in the wind, who are focusing on the wrong things, and who deal with problems that have been allowed to gather steam in a knee-jerk way and again after the fact.

We thought that now that we would have the #tonedeafDA and others being part of government with the #lostthePlotANC things would be better. How utterly disappointing & useless have they all turned out to be (they are in the same cabinet but quietly push in different directions).

This thing is simple, really:

1. Ordinary South Africans, who are not white and live in informal settlements, in poor communities, townships, Cape Flats, and other such areas, are struggling to make a living or survive.

2. They see rampant stealing of state resources with no consequences and people who look like them and are now ministers, MPs, MPLs, councillors, and underworld criminal kingpins who live nice lifestyles whilst theirs remain the same and got even worse.

3. Into that cauldron they see people who are the same colour as them coming into SA, living amongst themselves and making a living, getting jobs, starting businesses, and obviously also using public resources like schools and clinics that they are used to using alone.

4. While analysts, clever people, and some of us periodically release reports and data that the unemployment statistics are better, the crime statistics are improving, the commissions of inquiry are uncovering the bad; the economy is growing, etc., the lived reality for ordinary South Africans are actually something else.

5. Commission after commission, the courts have documented how public funds were looted and criminal interests were allowed to flourish. Despite what the president and those in all spheres of government say, people believe that those who govern us have not only failed to confront these problems effectively but have at times enabled conditions in which corruption and criminal syndicates could thrive.

6.People thought voting for other parties & abstaining from voting would help but still nothing has seemingly materially changed for a huge majority of South Africans.

7. People are pi**ed off about corruption and crime. failing infrastructure, unemployment, incompetent politicians who seem more interested in power than service, etc.

Communities feel abandoned and angry about the pressures created by illegal immigration and the strain placed on already struggling systems.

A. At some stage the dam must burst because people are angry because they think nothing seems to work to get them to break from that abyss they find themselves in the cycle of struggling to live.

B. The danger is that the anger; pi**ed-offness and pain seek a target, and it's easier to target those who it seems easier to do that to: immigrants from other parts of Africa.

C. It starts at clinics; move to places of work; then to schools; then to whole communities.Enter March and March and other such groups.

However, when people are pi**ed off and seem desperate, it is easy to blame a race or an entire group of people for everything that is wrong. It feels easier than confronting the complicated reality in our country. But South Africa will never heal and progress if we simply exchange one type of resentment for another. ii. Can we talk honestly about immigration pressures aand porous borders without demonising foreigners? We have suffered so long from division on the basis of race or otherness, so is it too much to ask that we stop viewing one another as enemies?

To those in government, I say this:

1. It's not complicated...just get on with having a singular focus and that is to create a better life for all South Africans.

2. South Africans want to be led by humane, wise, and accountable leadership that doesn't live above their means and can provide the simple things like dignity, justice, accountability, opportunity, freedom, safety, and equality that are promised in our Constitution.

3. Deal with the issue of immigration in an open, fair and consistently competent way that everyone can buy into and understand, and for goodness sake, don't create bogeymen and women of defenceless people through your intransigence!

Let's work together to build better South Africa for all before it all goes up in flames.

Advocate Rod Solomons, national vice-president of the UCT Association of Black Alumni.