TO WHOM DOES CAPE TOWN BELONG?

I suppose it's fitting that my first blog since coming to live in Cape Town comes live from the Mowbray Town Hall where a Huma event, called "To Whom Does Cape Town Belong?", has just started. An interesting thing about this city is that events like these attract big numbers of people -- the hall is totally packed, and there are more black than white people in the audience. South Africa's recent history of xenophobic violence is going to feature prominently tonight: the first speakers are all making particular reference to how people from other African countries are treated here, and also how, for example, Sothos are regarded by Xhosas.

Now who, indeed, is a "true Capetonian"? There's no such thing as a true Joburger -- if you live there for 10 minutes you are a Joburger, end of story. That's not how many people in Cape Town think, though, the current speaker says, but it's changing. For example, 26 years ago, he points out, the vast township of Khayelitsha did not exist.

And right now the speaker is a Somalian refugee, a group of people who live without any protection or support in this city, and who, as small business owners, are especially vulnerable to xenophobic violence. When he and his fellow Somalians left their country, he says, they had an entirely different idea of South Africa than the one they encountered when they arrived here. As refugees under the South African Constitution they are entitled to state protection, but they do not receive it. (And five days ago Thabo Mbeki argued that the 2008 violence against foreigners was not inspired by xenophobia.) "I believe we do not belong to Cape Town," the speaker says. South Africans do not know why Somalians are in this country; they know nothing of the terrible conditions there; they don't even know where it is.