EDITORIAL: Mob violence shows up state’s failures
The contraction in the country’s accounts is being felt in a very visceral sense on the streets
The xenophobic attacks in Soweto in which four people were killed last week are a chilling reminder that while our politicians convene inquiries and mull constitutional amendments, things have deteriorated to a worrying extent on the streets. The deaths occurred during a spate of attacks and looting aimed at shops owned by foreign nationals in Soweto and elsewhere in the country’s economic hub. It was only the latest flare-up in a pattern that has been repeated for years: mobs of mainly unemployed young people descend on spaza shops owned by the foreign nationals who have increasingly won business away from their local competitors. On Wednesday a Somali shopowner, fearing for his own life, opened fire and killed a 23-year-old customer, Banele Qhayisa. Police arrested 27 people for looting and detained some shopowners for the deaths of looters. It speaks to the bristling conflict in areas where the scramble for survival is the most desperate that one scrappy incident is all it takes ...
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