Thursday, May 29, 2008

The Apocalypse: Nigerian Riots


When Donajih and I were in New Mexico about a month ago we stayed in a lady's house for a couple of nights. She was like super nice and really understood the struggle that immigrants across the globe are going through. She is one of the few people that have looked me in the eye and that i feel i have connected with. Donajih and I woke up in our last morning there and had coffee with her before we took off... she started talking to us about the the end of the world, wars, hunger, and all these things that almost made us cry (Ok, im exageerating). She basically told us that we were at the doorstep of the apocalypse... ok, so maybe she was overreacting too, but she did get to my head a little bit, just a little bit.

Yes, things in the United States are pretty bad regarding immigration. In toher parts of the world though things are much, much worse. I am not sure that people realize that we are killing each other everyday. People are being displaced from their familes and homes at the cost of xenophobia. That is really what it is.

When i came across this article today, the lady from New Mexico was the first image that came to my head. Maybe the apocalypse is closer than we think.

Complete article

Tens of thousands of mainly Zimbabwean and Mozambican immigrants have been forced out of their homes since the onset of the xenophobic attacks in the middle of the month have left 56 people dead.

While many of the victims of the riots have simply decided to leave the country for good after their shacks were torched or razed to the ground, others have been sleeping either out in the open or head-to-toe in community centres.

National police spokeswoman, Sally de Beer said no major incident had been reported in the last 24 hours, bolstering hopes that the violence had been finally brought under control with the help of troop deployments.

The xenophobic violence has been a major embarrassment for the continent's economic powerhouse which has portrayed itself as a beacon of racial tolerance since the demise of the whites-only apartheid regime in 1994.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is due to host his Nigerian counterpart Umaru Yar'Adua next week, has come under fire for his response to the crisis.


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