Community stands up against Xenophobia

eMBALENHLE – The African Community Dialogue Forum held a meeting at the Kusile Lodge to discuss issues affecting the community, including Xenophobia.

Mr Johar Ali, the national chairman of Oromo Community, said South Africans should understand why people immigrate.

He said for many refugees it is a matter of survival rather than economic gain.

He acknowledged the intervention of Government to calm the situation.

During his speech, Mr Ali said that four African countries will he holding their elections within two months and there is a possibility that more people might come to South African looking for protection.

Those countries are Burundi, Ethiopia, the DRC and Rwanda .

“Solving immigration issues in South Africa is not going to be easy, because other African countries see South Africa as a beacon of hope because they already took the journey to freedom and are ahead of other African countries,” said Mr Ali.

He said South Africa already established a better image, not only for African countries, but for the whole world and that on its own makes other African countries want to establish their countries which will look like South Africa.

“Attacking other African people will not only damage the image of our country, but will also affect this country’s business opportunities,” said Mr Ali.

He said it is time to look back from where we have come from, because South Africans were received with warm hearts in other countries during the struggle.

“There are South African companies established in other countries and this country would not want to see our brothers and sisters working abroad face the same horrific situations faced by refugees in this country,” said Mr Ali.

A number of other issues were raised during the dialogue, including the increasing number of shops owned by foreign nationals in our townships.

The number of shops and the low prices they offer, are now beginning to threaten big shops such as Pick and Pay and Shoprite which are employing nationals people and should they shut down, most people will be affected.

Foreign national shop owners were also accused of not employing local people.

It was discovered during the meeting that there are bylaws governing businesses in townships and the government is not implementing them.

It was revealed that some of the foreign national shop owners submitted applications to the municipality from 2005 and no certificate was awarded so far for them to function legally.

Another burning issue was the selling of drugs by foreign nationals.

He said people should make sure that they report people selling drugs to the police.

It was said during the meeting that local people do not only discriminate against foreign nationals, they also discriminate against one another according to the language they speak and the provinces they come from.

“If we are not careful, we will end up fighting each other as South Africans because there are people who get angry that people from other areas are being employed by Sasol while the locals are there,” said one of the attendees.

Mr Themba Lukhele, a municipal councillor, said locals and foreign nationals should find a way of working together and have regular meetings to iron out their differences.