"Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien"

I read this article in the online Mail and Guardian today. Its another story of xenophobic attacks, against a Zimbabwean lady and her young sister. There was a spate of attacks against Somalians a while back too. But I think its an ongoing thing really (another example).

One of my flatmates is a lawyer. She attended some workshops on foreigners and refugees in South Africa last year. Some of the stories she came back with were unbelievable, in the way foreigners are treated in our country. Often the problem is with official bodies like Home Affairs, which is a scary thing. But scarier still is the fact that ordinary people often hold such venomous beliefs about foreigners. She said that one of the disturbing things about the workshop was that the workshop participants themselves were quite outspoken about how badly they regard foreigners.

To quote Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba: "There [is] a tendency among South Africans to regard all immigrants as criminals who wanted to steal jobs" (from here).

Which is bad enough in and of itself. But when you realise that so many of our current leaders spent years in asylum, aliens in foreign countries, it becomes all the more absurd.

I'm not saying we need to invite all foreigners to work in South Africa, of course we need sensible policies for these sorts of things.

But there is no place for stripping people of dignity because they are foreign, being suspicious of people because they are foreign, mistreating people because they are foreign, taking advantage of people because they are foreign and vulnerable, blaming people for our own problems because they are foreign.

And the fact that these things (and worse) are happening is a reproach to our nation.

I once sat next to a man from Sierra Leone (if I remember correctly) on the bus and he told me the most disturbing stories of how he had been treated. How he had been robbed, how his family lived in fear, because it was known in their community that they were foreign.
And he said the saddest thing: that they had come here in search of a better life, but it had actually just become a nightmare. That things were so bad for foreign people that they were starting to think of returning home, to the poverty and unrest they came here hoping to escape.

Again, what a reproach to our nation. Surely as a nation we want to be standing up for the oppressed? Not turning our backs on them?

I think its time we make a communal stand against this. Perhaps the dramatic forms of xenophobia that make the newspapers aren't something you deal with in the usual course of your life. But we all know how people speak about Nigerians, for example. Or have heard people speak about foreigners stealing jobs.

I think the time has come for us to speak up in conversations like that, politely, and make a stand for foreign people.




I did a quick Bible study to see something of what God feels about foreigners (referred to as aliens in the Bible), and here are some verses:

• Deuteronomy 27:19
  "Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow." Then all the people shall say, "Amen!"

• Psalm 146:9
  The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

• Leviticus 19:34 The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

• Leviticus 23:22 When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.

• Leviticus 24:22 You are to have the same law for the alien and the native-born. I am the LORD your God.
  

• Numbers 15:16 The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the alien living among you.

• Deuteronomy 1:16
  And I charged your judges at that time: Hear the disputes between your brothers and judge fairly, whether the case is between brother Israelites or between one of them and an alien.

• Deuteronomy 10:18 He [The Lord] defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.

• Deuteronomy 10:19 And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.

• Deuteronomy 24:14 Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns.

• Deuteronomy 24:17
  Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge.

• Deuteronomy 24:19
  When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

• Deuteronomy 24:20
  When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow.

• Deuteronomy 24:21 When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow.

• Deuteronomy 26:12
  When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied.

• Jeremiah 7:6
  If you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever.

• Jeremiah 22:3 This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.

• Zechariah 7:10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.

• Malachi 3:5 "So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the LORD Almighty.