History Matters

Durban police constable Kwesi Matenjwa confesses – on the morning of Saturday, 1 November – how “the great white shark”, City Manager Michael Sutcliffe, ordered his unit to evict (without alternative accommodation) 47 desperate people, mostly from the Eastern DRC. Sutcliffe accused the refugees – mainly women and children – of being involved in “crime”, [...]

The Centre for Civil Society, based at the University of KwaZulu Natal presents a photographic exhibition detailing the challenges of a community of foreign nationals during the outbreak of xenophobia in the Durban area. The photographs depict the plight of this community during their journey of no end from the doors of the police station [...]

Refugees still living in Durban’s Albert Park were confronted by SAPS this morning who came to remove their shelters (a small number of displaced foreign nationals have refused re-integration into communities and repatriation efforts, even from the UNHCR, have been rejected). Read here below an email sent by Oliver Meth to History Matters: Early Saturday [...]

The HSRC has just released a report on its findings of the causes of the outbreak of xenophobic violence that occurred in May 2008. The report also addresses the lessons that need to be learnt from this terrible period in our nation’s history. As with all of HSRC’s content, the report is available for free [...]

People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP) is a community based NGO that has been working closely with refugees in the Cape Town area. PASSOP is chaired by Braam Hannekom, a Zimbabwean who has been living in South Africa for some time, but is fuelled by a small team and many volunteers. The work [...]

Attention all volunteers, activists, concerned citizens, politicians and recorders of knowledge The events that began in May 2008 relating to xenophobia in South Africa have resulted in the displacement of approximately 80 000 people as well as 62 deaths and significant psychological trauma to countless individuals. At first, the imperative for civil society lay in [...]

Henry C. (Jatti) Bredekamp, CEO of Iziko Museums of Cape Town Cordially invites you to The Public talk entitled: Addressing Xenophobia: is South Africa progressing, redressing or transgressing? by Regis Mtutu (Zimbabwean activist & an international campaign coordinator for TAC) & Pearlie Joubert (Journalist) Chaired by Terry Bell (Columnist) PLEASE JOIN US ON 30th July [...]

TAC has put out a request for volunteers: The TAC, ALP, ARASA and others, under the banner of the newly formed Social Justice Coalition, are still heavily involved in the campaign against xenophobia. We are working on a few main spheres: Gathering of information and assessment of sites Humanitarian Aid (supply of material goods and [...]

First Alexandra, then Diepsloot. Days later, inner city Johannesburg. Then Thokoza, Zandspruit, Thembisa, Industria. Seemingly no part of the Province of Gauteng left untouched. Days later seemingly, other parts of the country. These staccato like short geographical references have by now become familiar tropes for what is being referred to as violent xenophobic attacks. All [...]