“If you have millions of young people who feel so excluded from all that is good in society, then sometimes this takes a form of actions against others,” These words the words of South Africa’s finance minister, Trevor Manuel, in an interview published in the Financial Times on Saturday. Judging by this statement by Manuel, it is clear to see that he thinks there is a possibility that the xenophobia attacks over the past three weeks in South Africa could have been fuelled by the poor people in South Africa who are getting poorer because of the economy.

The poor in South Africa are suffering largely due to the high inflation, high interest rates and the ever rising prices of food and power. The poor can no longer sustain themselves in these harsh economic conditions and they may have decided to take out their frustrations on foreigners in South Africa who they may see as being the ones denying them opportunities. There is a lot of poverty in South Africa together with a high employment rate and it does not seem like the situation will get better anytime soon.

It is said that the current government has not done enough for the poor people in South Africa and thus they decided to take matters into their own hands and force away the foreigners in South Africa with the hope of getting job opportunities the foreigners were taking up. Some circles say that foreigners were getting government houses and grants and denying the opportunity from local South Africans. The xenophobia attacks were a big mess and have really dented the image of South Africa. Not many South Africans, rich or poor are happy with the way the local economy is headed. Inflation is spiralling away from the governments target, fuel prices continue to rise and interest rates are set to go up again. The government hopes for the economy to start ‘getting better’ by the end of 2009 i.e. inflation will start to go down and there will be no more interest rate hikes. Maybe then they hope the gap between the poor and the rich will be narrowed down. But in the mean time the poor will continue to suffer and more scenes like those caused by the xenophobia attacks may be seen again in South Africa.

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