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THE lethargic reaction by the South African government to the outbreak of xenophobic violence in that country is partly responsible for the escalation of the scourge which has now spread to Johannesburg — the commercial capital.Whether the government of President Jacob Zuma will be able to contain the spiralling and senseless violence targeted at foreigners remains to be seen but what is clear is that the attitude of his administration and the sentiments of senior officials of the ruling African National Congress could have indirectly spurred the proponents of xenophobia to continue with their activities – safe in the knowledge that the police and other law enforcement agents would treat them with kid gloves.

President Zuma has largely been silent on the matter, only springing into action yesterday where he delivered a statement to Parliament when the violence had spread to Johannesburg.

In an interview with the media in that country earlier this week, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said he believed the solution to xenophobia was the establishment of refugee camps for foreign nationals arguing that “the only thing that you can educate people on is that when there are refugee camps, there is a clear relationship of communities and the refugee communities”.

In a pre-recorded interview broadcast on SABC’s SAFM on Wednesday night, Zuma condemned the violence and called for calm. While we appreciate and welcome his statements, we can’t help but feel these have come a little too late considering the scale of the problem.

We contend that the South African government could have acted sooner and arrested the festering violence before it spread to other parts of the country. Given the history of xenophobia in South Africa where 60 people were killed and 50,000 forced to flee their homes in the worst episode of the scourge in 2008, we believe the government should have been well prepared for the current outbreak and put in place measures to contain it.

Xenophobic attacks began slightly over two weeks ago in some townships in KwaZulu-Natal and quickly spread to Durban following remarks by King Goodwill Zwelithini who labelled foreigners lice and that they should leave South Africa. King Zwelithini is heard saying in an audio recording obtained by Gagasi FM, a Durban radio station: “We must remove these lice from our heads and let them burn in the sun. All foreigners in South Africa are lice”.

Such inflammatory statements, akin to messages broadcast by Rwandan radio stations to direct tribal massacres during the 1994 genocide in that country, are unfortunate and are thought to have ignited the xenophobic violence.

Following the Zulu King’s unfortunate utterances, President Zuma’s son, Edward, also weighed in, calling on the South African government to put a stop to unnecessarily accommodating foreign nationals. We aver that the South African government should have strongly condemned these utterances and leaned on the King – the leader of the 11 million plus strong Zulu kingdom – to retract his misguided statement and publicly apologise to all foreign nationals resident in South Africa.

President Zuma’s silence on the matter and his failure to rein in his son, could have tacitly encouraged the marauding mobs that have been rampaging throughout townships and informal settlements hacking foreigners and looting their shops and torching their homes with reckless abandon.

The South African government has simply failed to provide leadership in the face of an escalation of violence which is spreading so fast it could soon engulf the whole country and result in widespread carnage and possibly genocide.

Even some South Africans were yesterday lamenting their government’s shortcomings in dealing with the problem. Popular singer Thandiswa Mazwai of the group Bongo Maffin, expressed concern at President Zuma’s failure to take visible leadership. “Sometimes in a crisis,” Thandiswa said, “the president might interrupt TV and radio broadcasts to condemn an act and ask the people behlise umoya (tamper their anger). Kuyenzeka (it can happen).”

We totally agree.