Go Home Or Die Here: Violence, Xenophobia, and the Reinvention of Difference in South Africa.

Summary

The xenophobic attacks that started in Alexandra, Johannesburg in May 2008 before quickly spreading around the country caused an outcry across the world and raised many fundamental questions: Of what profound social malaise is xenophobia—and the violence that it inspires—a symptom? Have our economic and political choices created new forms of exclusion that fuel anger and distrust? What consequences does the emergence of xenophobia hold for the idea of an equal, non-racial society as symbolised by a democratic South Africa? On 28 May 2008 the Faculty of Humanities in the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg convened an urgent colloquium that focused on searching for short and long term solutions. Nearly twenty individuals—mostly Wits academics from a variety of disciplines, but also two student leaders, a journalist and a bishop—addressed the unfolding violence in ways that were conversant with the moment, yet rooted in scholarship and ongoing research.

Read here: Violence, Condemnation, and the Meaning of Living in South Africa,

Author: Loren Landau in S. Hassim, T. Kupe, and E. Worby (Eds.), Go Home Or Die Here: Violence, Xenophobia, and the Reinvention of Difference in South Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press: 105- 118.