In the Wake of the World Cup – Violence Starts Again
As we wrote in that article, we were not concerned about the World Cup itself. “Post-World Cup – that is what is of concern to thinking South Africans. The build-up, over the past few years, has meant that the ANC/Communist Party leadership of the country has had to behave itself – and even so the country has earned the reputation of being the most violent in the world outside of a war zone. How much worse, then, is it going to be once they no longer have to even try to behave for the world’s media and when a fickle world has already moved on to other matters?” And: “This may be the very last world event to focus the world’s attention on SA. The ANC government has to be on its best behaviour. But when SA falls off the world’s radar afterwards; when the tourists have all gone and no one cares about SA anymore; then what? This is what: this country’s wicked leaders will then be free to impose their Marxist will even more firmly on all aspects of life, and the world will not care. SA could so easily become just another failed African state, a dictatorship, collapsing into chaos, and the world will not care. When the eyes of the world are diverted elsewhere, the Marxists can do as they please.”
What those naive foreigners failed to grasp is that South Africa under the ANC is very much a part of Africa now. And Africa is a very savage place. And the evidence of just how thin the veneer of “civilisation” can be is seen in what began to happen almost as soon as the last match had been played: there was an outbreak of xenophobic violence in a number of places.
Back in 2008 a wave of attacks by black South Africans against black foreigners from other African states in SA’s sprawling, often slum-like black townships, severely embarrassed the ANC and made many question the wisdom of holding the World Cup in SA. And there were persistent rumours, as the World Cup began to draw to a close, that violence against foreigners was being planned again, and would begin as soon as the soccer event was over. Even liberal black commentators could see the truth this time. Siphamandla Zondi, of the Institute for Global Dialogue, wrote in a newspaper article: “Increasingly, the excitement about our successful hosting of the World Cup is giving way to fears of a flare-up in violent attacks on African immigrants in South African townships and slums. For some time now, rumours about a resurgence of the orgy of violence last seen in that fateful winter of 2008 have increased. Sections of the international press have widely reported that those behind the imminent xenophobic attacks are just waiting for the World Cup to end and visitors to go back home before they start hounding out African immigrants. The local press is reporting that many African immigrants have started leaving their places of refuge in fear…. For these poor souls, the South African hospitality so talked about in the midst of the World Cup is not true. For them, the South African communities that are gripped by the euphoric spirit of the month are also capable of being bloodthirsty killing machines.”[2]
And sure enough, the echoes of the last whistle had hardly died away when – once again – black South Africans began to attack black foreigners living in the black townships. Many foreigners sought refuge wherever they could, such as at police stations. In fact, before the World Cup even ended, many black refugees from Zimbabwe and other places were fleeing back home, fearing for their lives once the World Cup was over!
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