A mob of angry South Africans attacked a mother and daughter who were handing out clothes to Zimbabwean asylum-seekers at the makeshift refugee camp on Cape Town’s Foreshore.
The attackers beat Alison Goldberg of Green Point to the ground before smashing the window of their 4×4 with a hammer and trying to drag her 16-year-old daughter Lili out of the car.
Lili, a Grade 10 pupil at St Cyprian’s, had been sitting in the back of the car passing clothes and blankets through an open window to her mother who was distributing them to the refugees.
During the frightening attack two weeks ago, Goldberg said all she could hear was her daughter screaming.
At the risk of being labelled a pessimist I have been waiting for reports like this. There are a number of wonderful initiatives on the go to assist these refugees and many many people who are working hard and risking themselves to help out. The problem is that by doing so these people are potentially becoming targets themselves just by helping out.
Obviously the intention is to stop all help to the refugees and force them out of the country (I am having a vague recollection of some threat to push all the whites/blacks in the country into the ocean many years ago during the darker days this country experience pre-1994) and these mobs are determined enough to sacrifice their fellow citizens for their “cause”. This isn’t a reason to stop helping out but it is a good reason for these volunteer angels to thing carefully about their personal security while helping out.
The same thing goes for people who are embarking on these protest marches. It is naive to think they won’t be attacked just as the refugees were. The line between refugees and their “conspirators” (aka compassionate South Africans) is a pretty thin line to a violent, murderous mob.
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What do you think?