Open for business

I am sitting at my desk at work. I can hear the traffic outside and the phone still rings. There was a photo shoot in the studio today. My kids went to school and have gone home with friends for playdates. This is quite a normal day. Except, I just read that there are about 27,000 people displaced from their homes in a city whose official population is some 2.5 million. Yes, 10% of Joburg has been displaced due to xenophobic attacks. Its mainly foreigners that are getting the axe - or rather the necklace (which is the very disturbing practice of putting a tire around somebody's neck and lighting it on fire), but those housing and employing foreigners are also a target.

People are dying, people are starving. Many have been beaten or raped and at the very least, they have been unable to fight back as the few possessions they own have been taken from them or destroyed. It started because a group of South Africans heard from somewhere that foreigners were getting preferential allocations to government housing. This information, coupled with massive unemployment, rising food and petrol costs, growing disassociation and disenfranchisement from the government - and probably also a couple bottles of beer - led to the first attacks on Zimbabwean nationals living in Alex Township. Others caught on to this and the wave of violence spread, through and outside of Joburg. The classic xenophobic beliefs that foreigners are taking "our" jobs and commit all the crimes fueled the classic mob mentality and within a few moments, the thugs got involved. They were doing it anyhow, now its just an easier environment to work in.

Thousands of people, many of them already refugees and (as the current government refuses to accept that Zimbabweans could possibly have reason to leave home) economic migrants, some documented, some not, have been left displaced again. South Africa does not have a refugee camp policy. These people have been seeking refuge in churches and police stations. Ironically, it is the "Red Ants" now guarding these makeshift camps. (The "Red Ants" are a branch of the police force responsible for the search and eviction of undocumented migrants in the inner city and known for the cruelty in which they carry these orders out.) The call has gone out for everyone to bring in food and clothing, especially for the children. Everyone knows someone who is gathering up to take in to some shelter or other. Community associations are up in arms - its just that the government has been awful slow in taking up arms against the terror. The pictures are horrific. The stories will make you cry.

There is a war against foreigners going on in "my" city. I wonder if I should be worried about my safety. I wonder if there will come a point when I need to jump on the next airplane and off to safety. I wonder if I am really a foreigner; how can I be now? And as I ponder all these things, I sit at my desk in a city with violence erupting and exploding around me and I answer the phone calls that are still bringing work in. The city is burning, but if you need a make up artist, we are open for business.