From history we can see that such type of violence is not limited to African countries. Even France has recently experienced street youth violence, this is the same France that had a violent uprising of the poor masses against the rich class a century or so ago!

Mbeki happens to be in power now, had Nelson Mandela been the one in postion as the president at the moment, chances are that, violence would have happened, may not exactly the same way, but some-how those economically deprived youth would have expressed their displeasure in some urgly public form.

About Zimbabwe, when Mugabe is out of power, and hopefully soon, any leader that comes in, will be faced with land and race issues as well as immediate economic meltdown of that nation. I don’t think anyone can improve the economy of Zimbabwe let alone get UK’s financial support without returning the land to the white firmers. And once any leader does that, he or she will have dag their political grave.

I think Mbeki has to shouldder some of the blame here because he has supported Mugabe’s dictatorial regime for years and many of these people are economic immigrants trying to escape the collapsed economy in neighboring Zimbabwe.
Mbeki needs to tell his comrade in arms, mugabe, to give up the fight and let other people fix that country, but his refused to do it and the consequences of that are now spilling over into South Africa.

Ory, thanks for the update on the situation. I am trying to understand what triggered the outbreak of violence at this particular time. I am sure that the South Africans did not just wake up one morning and decide to go berserk. What is it that tipped the scales, moving Xenophobic violence from random attacks to a more orchestrated assault on all foreigners in the country?

Does anyone have any ideas on how we can generate a paradigm shift for African people, moving them from resorting to violence to dialog-driven solutions? Call to enlightenment? Education?