Schwartzerwitz: September 2008

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Refugee camps to be dismantled end of September

Gauteng refugee camps will be dismantled end of September

Gauteng Social Development MEC, Kgaogelo Lekgoro, says the refugee camps that accommodate the victims of the xenophobic attacks will finally be dismantled at the end of the month.

This follows a Constitutional Court ruling that stopped the government's plan to dismantle the camps last month. Lekgoro says of the more than 20 000 refugees who were accommodated at six camps, only 2 000 are still living at the three remaining camps.

He says most of them are illegal immigrants who will finally be repatriated. Lekgoro says they are working together with Home Affairs to reintegrate those who have legal status in the country.

Meanwhile, Western Cape Minister of Community Safety, Patrick McKenzie, says Somali shop owners in Khayelitsha have been threatened if they don't close their business outlets. McKenzie is in receipt of a letter from the Zanokhanyo Retailers Association. The association is calling for the immediate closure of foreign owned businesses. McKenzie says threats by local business owners are xenophobic and a threat to peace. - SABC

Every Pogrom needs an Armband....

Welcome to Schwartzerwitz. The inevitable consequence of 4 million illegal immigrants arriving in South Africa. More desperate than our local folk they are willing to work longer harder faster for less. The immigrants are more reliable than South African unskilled labour and have outcompeted the local folk. No matter what anyone says it's not FAIR on our locals. Adding 4 million hungry mouths to the country has exacerbated the rocketing food prices felt across the globe. Adding 4 million potential electricity users to the mix has undoubtedly worsened the electricity situation. Having 4 million people send home money to their family drains the economy of money which should stay within the borders. Adding 4 million people and not registering them as taxpayers has cost the country billions. What chance does our government of ridding the country of shacks as per the Millennium Development Goal when 4 million immigrants build/rent shacks. Murambatsvina in Zimbabwe....? Just move to a shack in South Africa. On an individual basis this site condemns violent acts against individuals. However as a collective the illegal immigrants deserve no sympathy and should be deported back from whence they came. These people are economic refugees - "not real refugees" - and they are(generally speaking) in South Africa illegally.

kwerekwere.

The inside cover of my Oxford English dictionary features a word with which I have become all too familiar: the word is kwerekwere.

(It may be more familiar to you with one of its vernacular language–dependant prefixes prepended — the Sotho singular being le– and plural ma–, the Nguni singular being i– and plural ama–). This word is used to refer to black (in the morphological sense) Africans who are not South Africans — South African being defined as Sotho, Nguni, Venda and Tsonga ethnic groups (by that measure the Swazis, Batswana, etc. would be South African?). This word has a very negative sting to it and is often used with contempt. From what I gather it has undertones which speak of how black Africans are believed to be sub–human, too dark and have a pungent smell.