Community opens its heart to xenophobia victims

MARY KLUK

It says a lot about how generously the community responded to the Board’s appeal for donations, that even after we had contributed to the two main sites dealing with xenophobia victims in Gauteng, we have been able to send a further 80 more boxes of material to KwaZulu-Natal, which has been particularly hard hit by the violence. I commend and thank our community for this wonderful and heart-warming response.

On Monday South Africans celebrated Freedom Day, marking 21 years since the inaugural elections that launched a new era of multiracial democracy in our country.

It is especially at these times of profound concern that we all feel over the attacks on foreign nationals, that we need to embrace anew the values of human rights and zero tolerance for all forms of discrimination that underpin our society. The latest xenophobia crisis demonstrated how easily these basic values can be forgotten when anger and hatred are allowed to get out of control.

Over the weekend, unfortunately, we witnessed another instance in which the non-racial, democratic ethos of this country was undermined, this time by no less than the president of the Student Representative Council at Wits University, Mcebo Freedom Dlamini.

In an exchange with others commenting on his Facebook site, Dlamini made a series of hateful comments about Jews, including endorsing assertions that Hitler knew what he was doing in perpetrating the Holocaust and expressing agreement with the notorious “Christ killers” deicide libel that has been used to propagate anti-Jewish hatred for nearly two millennia. He further expressed unabashed admiration for Hitler and what he had achieved. 

Wits Vice Chancellor Adam Habib was quick to come out with a statement deploring these comments and unequivocally dissociating the university from them. We are following up with his office to ascertain what further action is being contemplated against the individual concerned.

In addition, a formal complaint of anti-Semitic hate speech has been lodged against Dlamini with the SA Human Rights Commission, and we are providing as much support that we can to the SA Union of Jewish Students, whose members have been most immediately affected by this incident. The core mandate of the SAJBD is to protect SA Jewry against anti-Semitism in all its forms.

We will not, indeed cannot, allow people to get away with such defamatory attacks, especially when they hold representative office. Such overt incitement to hatred, in addition to being offensive and hurtful in and of themselves, is also dangerous in the country where, as the xenophobic violence so starkly demonstrated,  hate speech can easily lead to acts of violence against those targeted. This point was clearly stressed in our submission to the SAHRC.

As in the past, the Board will leave no stone unturned in ensuring that this reprehensible behaviour is appropriately dealt with and that a strong message is sent out that those who engage in anti-Semitic hate speech, will be held accountable for their actions.

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