History shows us that ethnic violence begins with words. It often includes a steady campaign of insulting and dehumanising the “other”.
In the 1930s, and earlier, the Nazis depicted Jews as rats, demons and parasites that ‘stole opportunity and wealth’ which, Germans were told, rightfully belonged to them.
Sound familiar?
It culminated in Kristallnacht in November 1938. German authorities watched without intervening as the pogroms began.
Civilians and paramilitary forces took to the streets to destroy and ransack synagogues, Jewish-owned stores, homes and buildings.
Tens of thousands of people were rounded up, assaulted, killed or ushered into concentrations camps.
Ironically, the Israelis use almost identical insulting language to dehumanise the Palestinians, referring to them as sub-human, animals, vermin, thieves and parasites.
The founders of apartheid in SA similarly justified their viciously enforced and iniquitous segregation policies by demeaning black people as other, different, inferior and not worthy.
March and March’s campaign is no different. They demean immigrants as drug dealers, child traffickers and thieves. They accuse them of stealing jobs and opportunities.
The organisation cocoons its desired outcomes in legitimate terms. They claim they are simply protesting illegal immigration and want government to strengthen its enforcement.
But, its comments and actions are seldom couched in a way that would see this legitimate outcome.
They pick on and mock all foreign nationals, whether they are legally in SA or not.
They also insult and use racial slurs for South Africans who happen to be of Indian, Chinese or of other descent.
It should come as no surprise. March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma has tweets dating back years that mock people from Limpopo for their complexion and make derogatory remarks about the Tsonga and Venda languages.
In our wonderfully diverse country, there remain people who have no respect for anyone who does not look, speak or act like they do.
Her assurance that there will be no looting and that “no-one will be violated or killed” during the June 30 protests is patently insincere and carries no weight whatsoever.
Promising no harm while inciting anger and hatred by demonising people is cowardly and duplicitous.
The June 30 deadline itself carries with it an implicit threat of reprisals.
The toxic rhetoric has struck fear in all foreign nationals in SA, even those here legally.
This is a nation supposedly built on a constitutional promise that “never again” will we allow oppression, exclusion, and arbitrary power.
The constitutional promise that every individual’s dignity and rights would be respected and upheld took us from being the polecat of the world to its darling.
The way we are acting now is fast eroding the goodwill our exemplary democratic constitution earned us.