Johannesburg: Demo gegen Angriffe
Laut dem APF kursierten beim ANC Informationen sich nicht dem Marsch
der ‚ultra-linken’ anzuschließen. Dennoch hat am Anfang der Demo die
zum ANC gehörende Ministerin für Public Service and Administration
gesprochen, ich finde ein wichtiges Zeichen. Das APF schreibt, dass
einige Busse in den Townships nicht zur Demo losfahren konnten, weil
sie von Ausländerhassern bedroht wurden. Die Demo ist von den Migranten
in der Joburger Innenstadt jubelnd aufgenommen wurden.
Mit
den Gewaltakten der letzten Wochen ist klar geworden, dass es im Moment
keine linke Formation in den Townships gibt, die in der Lage ist, den
Unmut gegen die Herrschenden zu wenden, bzw. gar die Flüchtlinge zu
verteidigen. Wie der kanadische Südafrika Experte David McDonald vom
Southern Africa Migration Project (SAMP) http://www.queensu.ca/samp/
sagt,
gibt es in allen gesellschaftlichen Schichten Südafrikas einen massiven
Hass auf Einwanderer, nur dass er sich in den Armenvierteln am ehesten
auslebt. Die Konkurrenzsituation vor dem Hintergrund einer andauernden
sozialen Krise, die ihre Wurzeln in Apartheid und dem Neoliberalismus
der letzten Jahre hat, dürfte hier die Hauptgrund sein. Aber auch die
verinnerlichten, rassifizierten Wertevorstellungen. Xenophobie ist
somit kein rein „schwarzes“ Problem in Südafrika.
Einen guten
Text zu den Gewaltakten der letzten Wochen hat die Abahlali
baseMjondolo (ABM), der Bewegung aus den Armenvierteln um die
südafrikanische Hafenstadt Durban veröffentlicht. Der Text gibt einen
guten Einblick in die Gründe für die aktuelle Gewaltwelle gegen
Migranten in Südafrika. Und er thematisiert die Verantwortung des
Staates, der Polizei und der Behörden und reagiert auf die Forderungen,
dass den Armen nun erklärt werden soll, was Xenophobie ist.
Am
Ende werden Forderungen wie die nach Papieren für alle und einer
sozialen Wohnungsbaupolitik erhoben. ABM ist eine der größten
Bewegungen der letzten Jahre, die mehrere tausend Menschen bei
vergangenen Demos gegen Wohnungsnot und Räumungen mobilisiert hat.
Hier noch der Demoaufruf: http://de.indymedia.org/2008/05/217890.shtml
Beim Labour Net Germany gibt es einen guten Überblick von Analysen und Berichten zu den Ereignissen der letzten Wochen. http://www.labournet.de/internationales/suedafrika/fremdenjagd.html
Einige Fotos von der Demo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26992164@N08/
http://picasaweb.google.com/nicolas.red/AntiXenophobiaCoalitionMarch
Und noch ein Bericht vom APF (englisch):
Anti Privatisation Forum
Statement on the Anti Xenophobia March in Johannesburg which took place on Saturday, 24 March 2008
Monday 26th May 2008
The
Anti Privatisation Forum with the Social Movements Indaba and a large
coalition of organisations marched on Saturday 24 May 2008 against
xenophobia and hate, through the inner city of Johannesburg to the
Gauteng Legislature to submit a memorandum to government. The public
responded to the call from the Coalition Against Xenophobia in a
colourful demonstration for the inclusion of foreigners in our
communities. Over 5000 people marched despite SMS messages circulated
in ANC circles discouraging participation in a march organised by the
'ultra left'. Well, thanks then to the ultra left for mobilising
communities and concerned residents of Johannesburg against the
insidious hatred bred by poverty, developing links with immigrant
communities and being clear about why we are poor.
Fears are
patrolling our freedom and already determine with who or what South
Africans associate with. It is regrettable that the APF can report that
the buses from its affiliates in Atteridgeville and Shoshanguve had to
be cancelled for threatened reprisals. Buses and taxis from other
townships did otherwise arrive for the march unhindered. For APF
comrades, this was a march unlike any other at its start at the Pieter
Roos Park below Constitutional Hill, the Minister of Public Service and
Administration, assumed the platform to number herself among the 'we
Africans united against the scourge of hatred'; one demonstrator at the
march held a placard professing ‘Free markets/Free Immigration/Free
South Africa’. Nonetheless, the vast majority of the marchers were
agreed that the government’s consistent failure to deliver adequate
basic services to poor communities, combined with macro-economic
policies that have benefited corporate capital/the rich, are a large
part of what is behind the explosion of xenophobia and hatred amongst
the poor who live in this country. The memorandum addressed to Premier
Mbazima Shilowa as well as the Departments of Housing and Home Affairs
calls on the "South African government to acknowledge its role in the
crisis, and to assume responsibility for providing solutions to the
problems that speak to the root causes of the problem." This would
include, the memorandum stated, the suspension of "the neo-liberal
macro-economic policy approach."
While the government will be
hard-headed in its insistence on finding a criminal motivation to the
xenophobic attacks, the demands submitted to government are unlikely to
be met. What the demonstration did achieve was an affirmation of
African working class unity and to break the spell of tension that has
been stalking Johannesburg streets for the last two weeks. Residents of
Hillbrow and the inner city cheered the march from their balconies as
is it proceeded down Claim and Pritchard streets. The loudest cheer en
route to the Gauteng legislature came from the predominately Zimbabwean
refugees at the Central Methodist Church. Immigrants taking refuge at
the church had prepared to come to the march but their busses to the
starting point had been delayed. Banners they had prepared the evening
before were as critical of government's policies as the Coalition's
memorandum: 'Mr Mbeki: is this what you call quiet diplomacy.' Incensed
by the xenophobic coverage in the South African press, particularly the
Daily Sun tabloid, another wit declared, 'Aliens are what you find on
Pluto'.
Amongst the speakers on the march was a representative
from the Refugee Fellowship based at the Central Methodist Church.
Representatives of the Zimbabwean, Congolese, Cameroonian, Ethiopian,
Mozambican, Somali and Nigerian immigrant communities also had
opportunities to speak, all welcoming the solidarity demonstration. As
government continues to treat the xenophobia as a criminal phenomenon,
they have very little faith that the police will do anything to solve
the problem. The South African police violently raided the Central
Methodist Church in January this year, brutalising the desperate people
sleeping on floors there. How can the police be trusted to find a
solution to xenophobia when so many of them are confirmed xenophobes,
relating to foreigners as cash machines? When the Remmoho Women's Group
visited Alexandra police station on Tuesday, 20th May, refugees there
spoke of harassment by members of the police force.
The
solution to xenophobia is for 'the enemy at home' to be targeted by our
organisation and our action. These enemies are not foreign immigrants
but the corporate and government elites who commodify our basic
resources, retrench workers, casualise employment, profit-gouge on
basic necessities most crucial to the poor and engage in double-speak
when it comes to treating all who live in South Africa with fairness,
equality, and humanness. Treating xenophobic South Africans only as
criminals reminds the APF of government's criminalisation of our
members who protest for basic services. Both xenophobia and service
delivery protests will not go away unless those with political and
socio-economic power listen to the poor, unless social development
involves people and is not conceived as a benefit trickling down from
investments. With the upsurge in violence, the ANC government must,
with all urgency, acknowledge that the time to start back-pedalling on
its failed policies and arrogant political ‘rule’ is NOW!.
No-one is illegal!
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