To Henning, let me assure you that although you may disagree with my assessment and I with yours I was born in Pretoria, grew up in Johannesburg, did 2 years national service, camps in the townships and besides a few holidays abroad have lived my entire life in South Africa.

And allow me to add this from my blog…

So do I keep complaining and lamenting and wondering what is happening in the minds of the people perpetrating this violence or maybe I should go and interview one of the attackers? Maybe I should hear in their words what could possibly cause so much hatred and anger that you can murder a man who yesterday was your neighbour, rape a woman you may have travelled to work with last week and make homeless thousands of innocent children who had no part in the decisions taken by their parents? To me it all seems inconceivable, but then I wake up every morning with food in the fridge, a little money in the bank, two cars in the garage, a job to go to and a school for my children. My father always said “Never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes… that way by the time he realises you are judging him you will be two miles away and have his shoes!” My father is a wise man.

Also, we have a Government more concerned about its ego than its people. There is no need to rehash the Arms Deal scandal, the high-level corruption, and so forth. In a country with crumbling infrastructure, with a population explosion happening in front of our eyes, we have chosen to ignore the need to build and maintain power stations, with its dark and very expensive consequences. Our public transport system is a joke, and promises to get it up and running for the 2010 World Cup are not materialising. Instead, temporary arrangements are being made, so that it can all fall apart again when the tourists go home. A tax base of roughly five million people has to support 48 million, many of whom need start-from-scratch services like running water and basic electricity.

Against this backdrop, foreigners come in in hordes. For the most part, they have nothing but the clothes they came across the border in. They are housed in the squatter camps. They tend to accept lower wages and menial labour, and are sought after: look in the classified pages and see how marketable ‘Malawian’ and ‘Zim’ domestic services are. They open convenience stores. They have money and goods that the established South Africans do not. They are very vulnerable.

SA is, literally and laterally, a broken society. We have ‘achieved’ the highest per capita murder, rape and armed robbery rates in the world. Xenophobia is just one symptom, by no means the first, of the backlash to come.

I have read this article of yours. Well part of it. What a lot of crap! If whites was a million miles away, then why the hell do we have high fences around our house or moved into secure complexes.

You are using all these funny words like Xenaphobia / Black on black/ anti immigrant violence.
You are missing the point, this is nothing else than plain racism.

The way you and others have written your reports on this situation, tells me you are not from South Africa and you do not know the type of masses or the true feeling behind the attacks.

Before you blame or pass guilt, try looking at the politics of this country and the millions of empty promises made in order to get votes for cabinet members with fat salaries. That is your starting point before you can wander what is wrong with this countries picture.

The fact is that any society cannot move forward when they rely solely on the government! The USA is quickly moving in the same direction as we want the State to cover for us on everything from health care to retirement – whatever happened to self-reliance? I’ll be in Namibia again this summer and will no doubt here and see the effects of this to a great extent on peoples ideology as the region groans from thuggery.

Don’t blame anybody but society as a whole. South Africa wanted its chance under black leadership and they have squandered it starting with Mandela! The problems aren’t due to immigrants – it’s the South African boo hoo me syndrome that has held them back. Typical Socialist mantra now that they can’t fix what they said they could if given the Socialist reigns. Good luck – you’re going to need it!

If any white non-communist man had done half of the terrible things Mugabe has done there would have been an invasion form dozens of countries to overthrow him.
Was Serbia any where near as bad Mugabe? No, but we bombed them into submission for the terrible crime of fighting terrorism on there own soil.

I’m sorry Africa, but you will have to solve this on your own.
Any thing America would do to help you will be interpreted wrong and you will hate us for it.

No you just turn a blind eye to a murderous thug who is killing innocents and destroying Zimbabwe. Yeah your much better.