‘World watches in silence’: Pityana condemns anti-migrant violence
Barney Pityana, who is regarded as one of Africa’s leading intellectuals, has condemned the recent wave of anti-migrant violence in South Africa, which has left people dead and caused millions of rand in property damage, saying the world was watching in silence.
He made the remarks yesterday, the first day of the Africa and African Diaspora Conference in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg.
The conference, which brings together delegates from Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia under the theme “The return to Africa”, serves as an independent, unifying platform dedicated to advancing African sovereignty, reparatory justice and sustainable solidarity between Africa and its diaspora.
Pityana, the former vice-chancellor of Unisa and erstwhile chair of the National Lotteries Commission, also spoke against the “genocide in Gaza” and actions of the US government, saying, “It may look like we live in a different world, or it may look like all our energies, efforts and endeavours and struggles have come to nought.
“When you look around the world in which we live today, you see blatant and stark racism. You see in our country, you see strong anti-immigrant movements that seek to throw people away, in their suffering, out of this country, for whatever reason.”
Anti-migration groups such as March and March have been leading protests across the country, calling on those who are in South Africa illegally to go back to their countries. Some of the protests turned violent, with cars and property said to belong to foreign nationals attacked and set alight. In one incident, a foreign national died after being attacked.
When you look around the world in which we live today, you see blatant and stark racism. You see in our country, you see strong anti-immigrant movements that seek to throw people away, in their suffering, out of this country, for whatever reason.— Barney Pityana
The government, labour federations and some NGOs have condemned the protests, saying foreign nationals can’t be made scapegoats for the socio-economic crises confronting South Africa.
Shifting his focus to geopolitics, Pityana said, “We see war, and a head of state and his wife being taken from their home in one country and thrown in jail in another, in the US. We see a war in Iran and everything else that has happened.”
Former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured in a US military operation in Caracas on January 3 and flown to the US, where they remain incarcerated at a detention facility in Brooklyn, New York.
Countries including Russia, China, France and Colombia criticised the raid as a breach of international law, while the US defended it as a law enforcement and counter-narcotics operation.
“We see genocide for three years now — a genocide in Gaza and the continuing genocide in the West Bank of Palestine. Let me tell you this: in all of that, it seems to some of us, especially to the victims, that the world is watching in silence,” Pityana said.
“There seems to be no World Council of Churches, and the evangelical movement that we have come to trust … the voice of the church doesn’t seem to be responsive to the pain … and suffering that we see day by day.
“It’s fair to say that nothing will bring peace to the world except us dealing with these issues as effectively as we can.”
The conference, which will have a declaration and action plans, ends on Friday.