On being South African: identity, religion and culture

Until recently we spoke of the “new South Africa” with a certain relish. We imagined that we had turned our backs on our colonial and apartheid past. While there was always sufficient prejudice and racism and religious bigotry around to cause us to question this assumption, we hoped that these outbursts were hangovers from the past that would in time wither away. The recent xenophobic attacks have changed this perception. Newspapers remind us that we have a long history of hating others. Building on a World Values Survey on International Attitudes to Immigration, the Southern African Migration Project (Samp) has found that South Africans held the harshest views on foreigners among 29 nations surveyed before 2002. A new as yet unpublished Samp survey, in turn, shows that our xenophobia is getting worse, suggesting that one-third of South Africans want all foreigners to be kicked out of the country. 9% of respondents said they would use violence to do so