Schwartzerwitz: Somalis traders fear for their lives

Friday, June 26, 2009

Somalis traders fear for their lives

Somali traders in the Western Cape are "terrified" local traders will turn against them after hundreds of residents gathered in Franschhoek earlier this week and stoned foreign-owned businesses. (from IOL)

Aside from saying the incident stemmed from "a dispute about food prices", police have not indicated whether it was motivated by xenophobia.

Meanwhile, in a similar situation relating to food prices, local and foreign traders in Gugulethu are trying to reach an agreement after local traders insisted the Somalis, who they believe are taking over business in the area, increase the prices of their goods. On Thursday Mahad Omar Abdi, of the Somali Crisis Group, said they were terrified.

"We're in a terrible situation and are scared. What happened in Franschhoek is horrifying. And this just keeps on happening ... (The South Africans) want us to increase our prices, but we won't. We will not go ahead with it ... But we don't know what will happen to us next or where," he said.

Police spokesperson Bernadine Steyn said hundreds of residents, possibly up to 1000, had been involved in the four-hour clash in Franschhoek on Monday.

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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.