In a debate at the University of the Witwatersrand on Tuesday night Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool drew a link between the recent wave of xenophobic violence and larger currents of intolerance in the country. “Xenophobia, racism, sexism, in fact all fundamentalism, all acts of intolerance belong to one family and if you are to deal with one member of the family, you have got to be consistent in dealing with all members of that family,” he said.
In a sense Rasool's arguments most reminded me of the larger debates about transformation that characterized South African politics in the second half of the 1990s. That the country has already moved away from these fundamental tenets of the process embodied in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process is dispiriting and Rasool is right to encourage South Africans to revive those principles and to remember the linkages of various forms of intolerance.
