As Anthony Smith points out in his study titled The Ethnic Revival (Cambridge, 1981), latent ethnic rivalries are a worldwide reality. They accelerated the breakup of the Soviet Union. The assertion of group identity simmers and smoulders today in various parts of Africa, Europe and Asia.

Before colonial rule, internecine warfare was a reality within what became South Africa. Of course, in more modern times, ethnic hostility is fuelled by economic greed and material dissatisfaction. Deep down in the human psyche lurks vengeance for past suffering, a desire to right the wrongs of the past and to assert identity. The root of the conflict over Gaza is surely the pursuit of what the primary founder of Israel, David Ben Gurion, espoused: the re-occupation of parts of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Gaza, which made up the biblical state of Israel.

The quest for national congruence cannot ignore the poly-ethnic reality of South Africa, officially asserted by its eleven languages. To some extent, a sense of relative deprivation accounted for the riots and looting of 1985, 2021 and 1949. That sense of deprivation is being exacerbated by the socialism pursued by the ANC, whereinordinate wealth is enjoyed by the politically connected, while increasing impoverishment is the lot of the masses.

One wonders where Ubuntu is in all this and the finger-licking brotherhood promoted by a fried chicken franchise.

Narendh Ganesh’s reminder of the 1985 Inanda riots is timely and thought provoking. However, his view that those riots should “not overshadow the fact that South Africa is a country of one people” is not borne out by history and reality.

As Anthony Smith points out in his study titled The Ethnic Revival (Cambridge, 1981), latent ethnic rivalries are a worldwide reality. They accelerated the break-up of the Soviet Union. The assertion of group identity simmers and smoulders today in various parts of Africa, Europe and Asia.

Before colonial rule, internecine warfare was a reality within what became South Africa. Of course, in more modern times ethnic hostility is fuelled by economic greed and material dissatisfaction. Deep down in the human psyche lurks vengeance for past suffering, a desire to right the wrongs of the past and to assert identity.  The root of the conflict over Gaza is surely the pursuit of what the primary founder of Israel, David Ben Gurion, espoused: the re-occupation of parts of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Gaza which made up the biblical state of Israel.

The quest for national congruence cannot ignore the poly-ethnic reality of South Africa officially asserted by its eleven languages. To some extent a sense of relative deprivation accounted for the riots and looting of 1985, 2021 and 1949. That sense of deprivation is being exacerbated by the socialism pursued by the ANC where inordinate wealth is enjoyed by the politically connected while increasing impoverishment is the lot of the masses.

One wonders where Ubuntu is in all this and the finger-licking brotherhood promoted by a fried chicken franchise.

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