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Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Social anthrax


Anthrax is a deadly bacterium. Found naturally in much of Africa, it waits patiently for decades embedded safely in its environment, until that environment comes under enough stress. A severe drought for example may trigger its release. When unleashed, anthrax attacks and kills weak animals entering their bodies through any sores or wounds, thereby ensuring only uninjured animals are spared. With the weaker animals culled, those remaining are left with more resources and a greater chance of survival. It's a desperate yet devastatingly effective mechanism to relieve strain on an environment in order to save it from collapse.

In the aftermath of the frenzied xenophobic violence that recently shook South Africa a critical question looks at what sparked this nationwide disaster. After the first attacks flared up more followed from all over the country as if spread by wildfire. Although there have been allegations of coordination in some of the attacks, these have only been at a local level for coordinating the attacks in specific townships and even then no substantial leadership has been identified. In searching for the method of coordination, the press and media conducted the story country wide but surely didn't drive people to attack, this might have activated their motivation that was already there.

Much like anthrax the attackers needed no coordinators. Their reaction was triggered by the dire circumstances of South African townships. Most South Africans are poor and have a daily struggle for food, shelter, clothes and medical treatment; the basic elements of survival. Living on the brink of existence they form a volatile society. When that system is pushed to a point where large numbers of people feel they are on their way to their demise, social mechanisms much like anthrax set it, in this case xenophobic and ethnic attacks. All it may take to get to this point is a sharp rise in food prices and the continued influx of foreigners and rural South Africans toward urban areas.

A desperate person is capable of dangerous action but when there are thousands of desperate people crammed together the unthinkable can happen and it has. Mobs flared up to do battle with their circumstances. They looted, killed and chased away foreigners to ease the strain on their economically drought stricken environments. Although the large number of foreigners have added to the economic strain of townships, they are not the cause, but still they were identified as the enemy by mobs that really didn't need much of an excuse to find a frail target that would leave them with fewer mouths to feed, more beds to sleep in, less competition and simply less strain in their immediate situation.

The global increase in food prices has left people all over the world fighting for resources. Since the prices of many staple foods have risen sharply Italy has experienced new xenophobic attacks against Romanian immigrants and in Kenya eleven people were murdered by a mob accusing them of witchcraft, which may be unrelated to food shortages but perhaps people there too have been pushed to a point where mobs look for an excuse to attack and kill people to ultimately alleviate the strain on their system.

South Africa's xenophobic attacks were particularly violent and widespread in part due to the large populations that occupy the environments that flared up but also partly because we have such great prosperity. Our dual economy has a sick outcome on our nation's overall health. The well manicured suburbs, fully stocked malls and luxury vehicles that are like an oasis for some allow us to forget the desperation that is only ever minutes away. South Africa hosts two worlds separated by language, culture and wealth. Even though this relationship is intrinsically unhealthy there is another problem. The two world's vital statistics are often blurred and averaged into one, not only by statisticians but through our own eyes and everyday experiences. Even though the statistic are still poor, they don't seem quite as dire as they would if they accurately reflected how most people in South Africa Live.

In poor townships people eat the cheapest meats if any, from heads and feet to entrails. On street corners you can find vendors cooking pots of gray offal boiling on fires stoked with twigs, old furniture and anything that will burn. Plastic crates are burnt as fuel for warmth. Sicknesses and injury that are easily treatable with modern medicine often go untreated to become chronic or even terminal. Crimes like rape, kidnap, murder, assault and theft are common with very low conviction rates, but perhaps the area where the two worlds of South Africa contrast the most is options.

The options of township folk are stripped down to the most basic. They spend much of their lives trying to fulfill their primal survival needs. This is an environment where people struggle at the best of times. When a strong external force such as global price increases suddenly lowers the standard of living there even further, their reaction is almost like a primal mechanism. Urged by their instincts and common suffering they form mobs. Then a whole new psychology comes into play. The nature of a mob is one that is like an organism with its own will that sucks the participants into behavior that is driven by the group. Some of the recent attacks were so gruesome, one wonders what kind of person could do such a thing but it wasn't a person it was group of people frenzied as if drunk on primal urges. Having said that the individuals in the mobs perpetrating the attacks cannot be excused and they must be held accountable and prosecuted if possible.

Their reactions were to alleviate the strain on their environments but also to take control. Many of the attacks involved resettlement of RDP homes thought to be allocated unfairly and theft of possessions. Their circumstances usually don't allow them to to take control of their wealth or be empowered to guide their own destiny, they are more often observers as outside forces shape their futures. Not in the mob though, in the mob they had the power to achieve an immediate redistribution of goods (as they thought fair). To a large extent the mobs succeeded in their task. Tens of thousands of immigrants have returned to their home countries or fled to refugee camps, leaving thousands of jobs unoccupied, tens of thousands less to feed, clothe and shelter.

These drastic results are an indictment on the South African government that has failed to deliver results for their empoverished electorate in 14 years. The social anthrax that we have seen recently is a symptom of South Africa's most pressing problem: poverty. Much like a response to the xenophobic attacks the South African citizens waiting eagerly on our government, are met by the absence of our leaders and vacuous approaches to solving our problems, like quiet diplomacy. Xenophobia is just one symptom of poverty but we experience others daily and will continue to do so as long as the underlying problem is not treated. For now the violence has subsided but still most South African's fight to meet their most basic needs and when people's primal needs aren't met we can expect primal action.

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