Oh no the Republicans aren't guilty they're not guilty guilty guilty they're all inside right now later they will turn on Donald Trump when they're fraid of losing their own seats and then all the mainstream media hear me now quote me later all of them will turn around go vote republican such courage kills say You see we told you from was an anomaly he is not an anomaly the entire party is based on a foundation of raises that is an absolute fact proved today later the mainstream media will try to whitewash it you'd be no limits to ever vote for a Republican since give you another example here is Jim Jordan. This morning President was very pretty critical of this investigation but 1st to it mention of inappropriate frustrated I mean if you had to go through the 3 years that this is that the president had to live through I think I think it just is an example of the frustration the president feels remember this all started even before he got elected going through that and now this ridiculous charade that the Democrats are putting him through you can understand why the president's press right now I can understand it no I cannot Jim Jordan you goddamn racist I hope you're driven from Washington I hope you never get your want to win another election and anybody who votes for Jim Jordan backing a race is like Donald Trump who put his lot in with him and while you're putting your lot with these scumbags these monsters who go around and eat and abuse facts abuse our laws and then come around and add insult to injury by telling us Vera the victims they are the victims of a lynching please spare me. The entire party is filled with grotesque monsters know here on this show we actually tell you the truth we're a little almost an only outlet in media who actually does yes obviously I have an opinion I don't know if you could tell right but we actually give you the facts 1st and so what is the facts what is the facts doesn't tell Republican Party support Donald Trump or don't they they do almost all of the politicians you can name you the exception is just that much of the exemption now Mitt Romney's thinking about becoming an exception right but every other Republican national politician supports Donald Trump all of the monstrous things he has done. 95 percent of Republican voters yet you say he's some poses 89 percent fine they all support Donald Trump I'm giving you facts later when the mainstream media says to you oh he was an exception and the report doesn't represent the Republican Party they will be lying they will be lying on behalf of Donald Trump they might do it in a very calm way they will show us I'm reading a television program I'm a news actor reading the prompter that a producer read put on there to be neutral neutral to the facts reality not objective not objective objective leave the entire Republican Party and Lord knows what Donald Trump is doing they stand firmly behind him but wait are they will change history and they will say no no the Republicans are wonderful I can't tell the difference between a Republican a Democrat and it and eventually they all voted against the bill say no no no you see what's happening today that's the face of the reform. Right. Welcome to the 151st episode of Glee your account I'm a can't stand sitting My co-host is Kim Sun the hang every week we're going to talk about important stories from the roles of politics and pop culture but on and offline in a way that isn't for the shit out of you signed Incidentally once I'm all right I'm certainly not bored I. Wanted to to ask you actually about something we mentioned on the show before. Extinction rebellion the global protest movement you know based largely around the tactic of blockading sort of large transit areas . Has ramped up their tactics in the last couple of days right so extinction Rilling is a nonviolent environmental group and they organize a 2 week shutdown of central London in protest against the lack of any kind of material response to climate change so far there have been 280 arrests including 2 people in their eighty's so they're clearly a major threat here there's also been disturbing footage release showing British police using a battering ram to break into the extinction rebellion warehouse in Kensington before the shut down in West Westminster next week and according to Guardian reporter Damien Gale the police arrested 10 activists on conspiracy to cause a public nuisance and inside the warehouse there's a lot of their equipment that they will undoubtedly be confiscating any using in a way to either blackmail them into spilling on their organizing tactics or using it again. In order to bolster these charges so it's something that we should really be paying attention to yeah I mean the fact that they're being met with such swift reprisal I think shows that you're being effective and I mean it's just been hundreds of arrests at these protests worldwide the you alluded to the Westminster and Lambeth bridges were shut down in London as well as other roads around the powers of Westminster that's where they do the business of Parliament there and in Berlin they camped out outside of old Angie Merkel's office in the German parliament there they shut down part stomach plus some of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin the area outside the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and in Sydney they shut down the area outside of the homes of problematic podcasters I'm sure that came from. That I was I was the round whenever they did the protest and said Not specifically in that area but I was close by. I just said to round this out and terms of what's going on in the u.k. In a statement extinction or 1000000000 said after these arrests quote this escalation of preemptive tactics by the government and police is a sign that we are being heard and acknowledged as a significant movement we ask that the government focus their attention and resources on responded to the climate and ecological emergency which threatens us all so I know how. And I mean it hits home closer to my backyard anyway the Pacific Gas and Electric Company you know how we get our energy out here just announced it might be shutting down electricity for 2000000 Californians across 30 different counties for an indefinite period of time they say that could last for days and this unprecedented action is in response to the ever increasing fire risk that we all know is driven by climate change so as a matter of fact my apartment barely missed being included in this blackout zone by about 2 blocks so I just I mean I think this is the type of thing we have to get used to and scientists and organizers are talking about this level of breakdown in social services in our normal institutions that we seem to be taking for granted. Largely when you know this is what we're talking about when they talk about a climate emergency we have to wake up to it now and I think we shouldn't get used to it that that should be the point that they want to get used to this being a reality why whether it's suffering during the summer or you want to really have winter but you get the idea or suffering during the winter they want to get used to the fact that this is going to happen when this really shouldn't be our reality precisely without for that do I guess we should get to our main event this week today we were delighted to be joined by Bonnie she organizes with the Social Justice Coalition down in Cape. Down South Africa we talked to her about the rise in Kenya phobia in South Africa in recent years the context of the broader Continental politics migration how fascism alternately in all of its ugly forms scapegoats the oppressed and what folks down in South Africa are doing about it but that took until. We're lucky enough to be joined by Mussa good Bonnie an activist who serves as head of advocacy organizing for the Social Justice Coalition a radical civil society organization based in Cape Town South Africa thank you for being with us today my son and dividing me today it's an absolute pleasure so much that can you give listeners some background on yourself your politics and what led you to become an activist my pilot myself a lot of politics that. I live I was born in 1002 and this is important maybe for some contact and South Africa. So I was rolling towards the end of a $99.00 to $5.00 Africa's apartheid sort of ended in 1904 so I was I was born in a climate of a very changing would have been very difficult to call in new wine boys in South Africa and the time in which I was born and not act so my parents participate in an activity my mother's brothers were all in guerilla warfare and training with them under this season which is generally known as m.k. I was really just born into it community that was quite act I'm long gave birth to my oldest as though I was sure that a protest so that if that gives that some background as to. What kind of activism that was all around my family my context sure the time in which I was going up and then I went to scene of a city and I lie. I myself and a later stage in my life with. Student politics and one of the key issues was around student fees although my university time was just before the freeze in the school protests that happened in South Africa but they had always been pressure on the Institute on institutions of higher learning to read look at the funding models so we were really active around the idea of student funding but also I suppose the more acute issues of hours are not the time around student housing and student hunger and that even when people to ration was paid there with still the residual issues of eating every day on campus and being able to find accommodation if the student housing provided by the institution is insufficient so very many students for example sneaking in in in in labs and computer lab laboratories the escaping at the library a 24 hour section at a library they had insufficient food so those are some of the issues that I then worked with the other students and a colleague of mine at the time the student movement. And I then eventually graduated and after that I worked in corporate communication. I mean it was by a full and interesting means the. Current interest I mean also does the work didn't speak to me and who I was I wanted a job because I needed a job and so I took the job it was nothing that I. Could attention interest me in any way and the organizational culture was anti people and anti-human and anti-life So it was just a weird way of getting fired that I I refused to tell the construction workers to not use often and I was of the I'm not going to call them that thank the good idea you should call them that and I was fighting for the nation so. And just like a really like reckless person in that regard that there's a lot of things that they need in and says a lot of things perhaps not with not without in serious thinking about who would be like and then I applied as a kind of recklessness as an example the best time. I mean it gets me into a lot of trouble but now I suppose I work in an adult that really does that a facilitate that that kind of that that kind of thinking and I write it is Stacey then when I finished university around $1013.00 and I didn't get the position and I went on into Johannesburg I worked in African full hour for an African from face the world to watch movies. And then I decided to return to Cape Cod. And I'm in the s.j.c. Called me and they're like What are you doing what are you up to I'm just like I don't know who are you quoting 4 years later Ok you remember the recruiter and they're like No we've like come into view we have this position open and been struggling to find it and we just we never got you from the interview that you had with us 4 years ago and now I'm here as the head of advocacy and organizing for the s.j.c. And what and how is Jesse started in 2008 into the organization now has been in existence for 11 yes the latest let's start around is an attack of 2008 in South Africa so we started with the Mini for aid for people who had been displaced it is improbable. We didn't did community outreach programs which I enter some awareness around in a for Libya immigration and the status of immigrants that are living in south. And to try and sort of calm the violence to a certain extent so our I mean our organization is really born out of out of those initial conflicts of 2008 but then happen is that that sort of the dust sort of settled on that as so they really just spring up now and again in the dust settles and then you. All this violence and then something happened in this mess that. We're definitely going to get into all of this in in the course of the interview I want to ask you though an issue that is probably at the forefront of every American listener of ours who is just sort of starting to learn a little bit more about South Africa what is the deal with you on mosque when you are going to take him back can he be in voluntarily repatriated. Oh oh oh oh oh no there's no there for you oh I frame it I'm glad I mean like one that. Let him just let him take up when he like he's building a sip to go to Mars we could just see him up there and just leave in there. I mean banks were like taking. Yeah I was you can probably tell me we have a lot of old. Oh no I'm sure I actually did want to ask you more about the social justice coalition because one of the defining mission statements of the Social Justice Coalition is fighting for the rights not just of marginalized people of course you do broadly but especially those living in what in angio speak or known as informal settlements can you talk about why there is a focus on these informal settlements so-called And what they are saying fall of the settlements would be what generally is known internationally as. Informal speaks directly to that and formality in that. Structures which are safe and legal for need and not immediately and that's a very important distinction and instead of unlawful this is not in the galaxy and so on and willfulness speaks to not having the permission of the state illegality speaks to great king and you know all of this. So the difference is that illegality results in a criminal act. So there are many and lawful things which are not necessarily criminal and informal settlements are not criminal they are simply and lawful in that they have not been given they're not state sanctioned it's not a government program for people to set up housing and settlement. And so informal settlements are the defining are a huge feature of African housing and because of the shortage of housing and because Mitt some people might know of the just the history of the land the position of South Africa and the Land Act of 1930 which gave white people 89 percent of the land. And at the time right people were about 15 percent of the population and at the 75 percent of the population had to make do on whatever was left and which was 11 percent of the Latin and so and gradually even even that 11 percent who has been eaten quite significantly since then and since 1940 it's been going the to action to reverse that So the landscape of South Africa and the spatial inequality of Africa is quite right and that the right people are still hoarding 'd masses and masses of land and the creation of the people this does this it means a Miss cuts across all kinds of land so this is a residential land where people can live this is a cultural land that is productive and allows people to be able to act. The stores I mean even just like the season rich white people have ordered and can continue to hoard and South African states and so that's just how the landscape is an out of those question of not being I'm having so many people who don't have access to land and formality would be an inevitability of that kind of landscape that people would then set out their own homes informally because. We have no cases to stay in and currently in pay pound 25 percent of Cape Town is informal and informality would be structures that are pulled from Congress I and sheet of plastic or any other waste materials that people would be able to find so they are those areas are usually pulled on very ecology pretty compromised communities that are prone to fires they're prone to drought. Prone to floods I haven't found much drought in winter. So the city uses the. Correct me if I'm wrong the state uses the fact that these are not sort of sanctioned housing units to not provide any services whatsoever to the residents largely But I mean so that. Say for our wonderful Constitution in that very many except for the most recent ones very many of the political and some would have access to some kind of water so they would be water. And they would be some form of sanitation a little BUSY quite an adequate sanitation so it wouldn't be a full blast. It would be what we call a portable flush toilet what people would use when they go camping. Or a chemical toilet that you would use perhaps when you are at a concert the ones with the blue jar or in the plane that. Sanitary solution and this would probably be shared around a community of luck thousands of people and you'd find not even regularly cleaned. And there are a serious issues around that almost annotation because they also are far more expensive than flush toilet and the state continues to use those in order to I imagine you know with the service providers there must be some capital investment that has to given people temporary services that have been around an economy. And for a very long time. The government's approach to informality was that it's temporary that you know when people have set up temporary sent out and for communities that they would be moved to formal communities and they would be there only for a short period of that when the pain if the informal settlements in South Africa that a 30 years old. And as they were I mean 50 years ago it became as a party it was sort of. It was sort of dying art it became easier for people to do things like set up informal space and the government was less strict around that during apartheid it was very very difficult to sit up in a kind of an almost. And that wouldn't be that would have been a criminal act. And so now because of the party that's no longer criminal so some of the oldest ones are about the 2 years old and some of the newer ones I mean there's one every day there's one that springs up because of the pressures of not being able to provide housing and just in college alone where. There's been a growth of informality in about 60 percent in the past year. And that just comes because in the past 10 years the state has not provided for. The state private developers they haven't been if I would develop to the low cost housing Northgate housing for the last 10 years which has resulted in people then being people can afford rent so that's a big thing for Africans or that our rent is largely unregulated so your landlord decide anything and what. A feeling. That they can decide what they think their property is worth now and you must find out another alternative place to live in the very many people can't afford it and so which then people to living an occupying vacant land and setting up a home with us. There's so much background here that I think we should at least touch on the basics of the recent flare ups before we begin sealing back the layers and among the circumstances we're hearing about there's been looting of foreign shops and riots in Johannesburg pogrom seconds African foreigners who are blamed for low wages and job losses and foreign residents and their South African born children are even fleeing now by the hundreds Yeah. The what what is happening in South Africa I think in the beginning that we have so I think. I think there are then a phobic sentiments that are only just growing beneath the surface of our our our our culture as of Africans I think South Africans have a culture of division and the ring and literally all of that is really one from a part is that we have a fixation on the other. And and what happened is that when we have economic pressures that the government also cannot resolve and government officials are also struggling to sort of locked me let me do as South African people as try and find the next person going and so there's an affair with a pact in 2008. Reverberations of the global climate in 2008 which is to to the to the global crash and that Africans are feeling it too and at the same times and Robert it came to a screeching halt and I think the numbers are that there are about 5000000 documented Zimbabweans in South Africa and those and those attacks in 2008 were fuel by by by a large Zimbabwean presence in South Africa that had led to South Africa because of economic pressures that South Africans were also faced with the same sort of with the same sort of contexts and so it was really a war of the poor against the poor and we see again this year they mean hundreds and thousands of retentions this and South Africa as the year opened so as as banks are beginning to there is just a recent bank strike now as as industries are beginning to technologically advanced there are a lot of people that are finding that they know they are getting laid off so recently people who work in banks have been laid off and they thousands because then I'm our you know people can do banking on this awful banking on their laptop and there is no need for a physical person in the bank anymore. Which has meant that the. A lot of people's work has become redundant so a lot of mechanization in very many industries in South Africa even in a lot of make and I think being introduced right it has been the backbone of our economy for a very long time and mining. In it and so you're finding that people are beginning to lose their jobs and that foreign nationals are becoming scapegoats for the kind of economic pressure and to a large degree some of our politicians particularly into hands have fueled those sentiments within people and so there's even in South Africa not an overwhelming idea that African foreign nationals are criminal they they represent the entirety of South Africans criminality you know and so what people are doing is using this language of cleaning up the streets and cleaning up the neighborhoods and getting rid of drive and the ideas that are a national appeared Ling dogs in our community all the Titian have and that's when the May have to harness. Has gone into buildings that he has seen before all of our national and sort of infected everyone and. Inflation and put people on pot and then into prison. Documentation and this is that a state official and yeah I mean you know actually confronted him you participate in a televised debate. On cities and race earlier this year that included the mayor of Johannesburg Herman Mashad you took him to task on his the in the phobic rhetoric his complicity in this crisis and he he did exactly what you said he claimed 80 percent of the the people in these inner cities in Johannesburg. Housing Units that he claims are are not under government control anywhere more essentially 80 percent of these people are undocumented and he be you know he pivoted from a critical question about you know his comments on for national service trade of calling for. In the borders you gave a piece of your mind would you take away from that exchange for homeless. Or that. Elon Musk cannot come back we just haven't left him you have a lot of our own problems he. Added When it even get that number from it's just ridiculous like it cooks absenting as he goes along he has nothing to substantiate that I have colleagues that work in and housing in the city and very many of the people that he arrested met him later produce their 5 African documentation to show that they were in fact Africans are not our national And so when people are seeing the sentence being so so there is in the listing sentiment of xenophobia of Africa hating the other so what ever the average is so it's then a phobia when there's a foreign presence of tribalism when you can when you can see that I'm not 0 or I'm baby and not you know a not so Ana it's right or black when you can you know we don't need much revived. And so when someone finds an eye before us in any form and depending on a level of vulnerability at that moment that will ensue in violence and I think women must have a knew exactly what he meant by that and he's now a very he's acting shocked I mean he sees come out in the media as it is very shocked by the recent as an affair with attacks how Pham How will our with. What you wanted what you've been calling for the kind of things that you've wanted and so in even so even telling you how I mean the political party gain some strength in Johannesburg during the last election and that people voting and very xenophobic live people voting for people who are complaining around strengthening our border closing and in our border and there was just a whole. A lot of sentiment of a very anti immigrant sentiment in South Africa from like may need an up to the action that what we're going to do when we are in power is to get rid of the horror nationals and so what has happened to me is not something that is completely unimaginable for people who have been calling for that for a significant amount of time and it's not and it's also quite telling that those attacks sort of flared up and John is where I am and Russia has been doing most of his work and containing and other parts of the country have been largely or to lift the decrees affected by this and a whole bit of tat and so for me it's that very rare for him to be shocked but also equally weird of the South African police or the South African government to respond to these attacks criminal attacks and not the full because when we begin to not use the language that is why we've been misdiagnosed the issue time and time again. That is that that is the issue here I mean. The South African ministers the police and labor as well as many other residents in these areas are insisting that is a current says aren't seen a phobic and that it's just crime but South African president siren the foes a did condemn the violence as enough phobia while the former health minister on the other hand with some far as to say that foreigners are overwhelming the South African health care system they're taking up 9 added 10 beds in some hospitals so can you talk more about the government's role in this so I mean when the when Also it's just a weird for me as to no one can seem to substantiate their claims on this we. Just say the statistics are I'm looking for them and you can't find them because it's like they're manifesting out of thin air. 5 judge basically So everyone who has a particular viewpoint on foreign nationals. Immigration is to to stick to prove a certain point at a particular point in time the truth of the matter is that Africa actually doesn't have a sense of how many documented or undocumented people are in this country that we just don't know because there is no data to show that and we haven't collected that . In. Around 10 years ago what the state had that it had all the troops so that everyone who are undocumented to go register with the Department of Home Affairs so that which is we could just get a sense of how many people are here and what does that mean for the current resources that we have and because people that been allowed for us to be able to have a sense and to to know what kinds of interventions when necessary to make I don't think we actually have an idea of what the foreign national population 'd that exists in South Africa. I don't and also this just is alarming say that even when we do have an idea of how many foreign nationals are in South Africa documented or undocumented whatever we think documented means is that all every single foreign national in South Africa has come in need of aid or is not so gainfully employed so that when entire presence of our international is resulting in a strain on the economy or the strain. Which is very interesting because a lot of of the attack had happened to foreign nationals who were running their own business which shows that there is some contribution that those foreign nationals were making and that that had some level of South sustainability and which have Africans then were trying to destroy So those for me are just like I mean I'm yet to hear very convincing argument and I think the government being forked tongue on the issue of so what happens generally This happens all the time every single going home because that is that mostly South Africans also get killed the same thing have . I don't the 5 people that will make. That it will be attacked in the last few months 3 of them would have acted the same train happened in 2000 that very many of the people that were killed in 2008 many of which were also African and that just goes to show that people just look alike like we don't we don't know isn't Bob It was about African from the face of it all got the same we're all but that doesn't mean that it's not of the full because it's just that it was a case of mistaken identity I have. Because they're much stock in much taller the fact that they won't leave home during going to look at tax because they look very much like what someone would assume is not what of African looks like which is very rare because generally South African Bobby and people from Mozambique look at the say and maybe they might go back if that different but I mean you would read it just have to know all to know that sometimes it might just be a little taller and much Doc but can many which also been speaks to that level of how there is them around. Too because we have plenty of immigrants from which I know for example living in South Africa from the su to. Who are necessary well become to these attacks to the extent that Zimbabwean and Nigerians do yeah I want to unpack this a little bit more actually because in the us we mostly encounter the notion of xenophobia or anti immigrant sentiment as a framing of the right because it actually rather softens the underlying motivators and does Gates I think the race is a different sort of flavors of white supremacy that are behind our attitudes towards immigrants from different parts of the world so I've heard South African activists and commentators Rose activists from from the rest of sub-Saharan Africa reframe the issue of Xena phobia in South Africa as one more accurately described as Afro phobia so I wouldn't. And I ask you just to get people's sense of the demographics in order or white or Pakistani you were Chinese foreigners also being targeted How do you sort of make sense of the role of anti black racism in what's being I think probably too broadly referred to as senior phobia so this is interesting that we've I don't think as a country that hasn't had a Chinese mentioned in the world and South Africa is not is not. Is not is not excluded from that narrative we only have had Chinese people who have traded in South Africa I mean I don't remember there not being one in any community all the time that I've been here all of had Indian and Pakistani Chaitin in South Africa India Pakistan and hated and so some degree even the Somalian taters have been able to be integrated into the in the Islamic community is absolute after. That have always changed and what is might be important to notice also of Africa is home to the biggest Indian diaspora in the world and the and their main Indian people have been from Africa for the past 500 year and they came to South Africa and so when when the Indian Pakistani 'd intent is of Africa they are able then not mostly to be able to integrate into those communities. Of South Africans who are Indian origin of basically and so would not be as prone to violence because they would have the energy to meet stated of being South African or if integrated into it of African community that can offer them some kind of section such Somalians of Sky have struggled to integrate. To the same extent but they definitely are part of the Islamic communities in South Africa and those have been able to afford them some kind of protection because there is on the communities themselves are have trade are traders basically even in the South African countries that most. Most of the communities will be self-sustaining through trade and through shops and whatever what has brought Somali traders particularly and threaten and birthright to their lives and then setting up stories in what were previously black communities what the are black communities and not to necessarily limited their trading to the Islamic Indian authentic communities that already exist and have Africa's aware and to that it's really just chopped up into 3 and you have to scratch us out when you go wrong and if you begin to sort of move out of that state and into another state in which sort of negotiate your presence there and so the Somalian Chait is because they are in black townships and fell victim also to these attacks but to a large extent the Chinese the Chinese Pakistani people although now do face some violence previously were untouched and that's because I suppose they had become the very 5 of of what we understand to to be trade and merchants a merchant prince of Africa and they have been on in the news it's at so I want to I runs to say that there is some truth to the idea that it's Africa but not to say that in the recent attacks that were in Johannesburg and it's on that for example Pakistani Indian and Chinese trade had been looted and attacked but it is not it is not the overall. It is that the overwhelming way in which these attacks generally happen to fall and of course Europeans and European Americans get off scot free if you will of course also I don't I don't think I mean I I don't think that Africans know the difference between white people black of African I don't I even struggle like either I don't know like. An Italian looks like from like a white but I mean. Of all. Because I didn't live. Action there also just quite strains that I have the interactions between I mean the foreign nationals that are in South Africa are being attacked because they knew him in those communities which added an interesting layer to the violence of someone attacking Danny and someone killing the neighbor who we know they've all read from for the past 5 years. And people you know sort of snitching on the neighbors that I know my that one is also you know Nigerian I know that one is also is Bobby and these people have lived next to each other for years and years and because we don't have access to whiteness really and after communities with this I don't usually strike we don't have access to whiteness we don't have access to whiteness to the extent that we even know it different light from another White House and so many South Africans there's just this homage and I was a show of black what whiteness is and no rain interrogation into that presence but also a sentiment that white people who are coming to Africa are coming as investors just there to hear that people are thinking that they were fighting for coming to South Africa they coming to invest and to you know make the economy productive and saw they ought to be protected and one or the other way so there's some of that the thoughts that people are having but I live in Cape Town and I can tell you just from being a person who moves around the city that a lot of the drugs that are circulating in Cape Town are coming from White are a national from Eastern Europe so at the places at the places in Europe and and recently we've had like Lattimer creature should say this. Has just been. That african been thing to the highest you know our most secure prison that we have and so it's just not being able to have a nuanced conversation about. A white foreign presence in South Africa because black people in and out of South Africa don't have access to White are in prison right now or they don't interact with them and so they wouldn't be able to differentiate between a Ron White person and another white. Batches Navy very many white people don't know that the Huns between black I think that speaks to what you mentioned before and terms of the other is a sin that's going on and how there's a 1st labeling of criminality that put upon those that are considered foreign and how this doesn't apply usually to white South Africans but I wanted to talk to you about South Africa being a site a migration from the rest of sub-Saharan Africa and he touched on this before but what can you tell us in terms of what drives migration to South Africa. So what the economy is is the clearest part of it so. Sort of the undoing of. That was always going to fall on to South Africa. And countries that have strong economies like Namibia and which are now that are also quite cozy have much stricter immigrant palettes in the event of Africa dies or pops in this chorus of Africa. But also what really drives integration South Africa is that difficult to get into and because the fickle to get into it people don't want to leave once they're in here and so an example would be a collapse which is the West African So Africa from the regional block whole saga which is of the Southern African Development Community. And an equal ass would be in West Africa and then there's the 2nd act in Central Africa and there'd be in East Africa I'm just talking about sub-Saharan Africa and everyone else is in sub-Saharan just think that they maybe not as African. Made me or the purpose of the. This conversation to talk about subsaharan Africa alone and when we and when you look at Eco asked for examples of very interesting think of happened in a car and then in that they have allowed people to move in between I think 13 countries and with a single possible and that Possible them allows them to live in any of those countries for 6 months of a review but also be able to work on those and what the fuck up about South Africa is that because we don't have integration within the region one summer and it's in here once for and someone comes into South Africa Big can't leave because if they leave they might not be able to come back but what West Africa has been able to do is to facilitate a process where I can go to Nigeria to buy groceries if I live in a kora country and I can come back the next day and I don't have to stay there my entire life because I can still have access to groceries without having to live there for the rest of my life and what I'm doing in South Africa is that between Zimbabwe and South Africa very many women is obvious for example would be quite happy to come to South Africa to get a few items that they can get in the barber it and then return home but because returning home could be so difficult that they went in the middle of a come back to South Africa they then would rather just stay in South Africa indefinitely which is then which then brings the question of a strange resource. Much makes that much more pronounced the same situation is happening in Iraq has had some very progressive laws even around all the universities within that region in the East African in the East African region have the same accreditation so I studied in a university in Kenya it is a newer container without having without that being seen as an exemption of qualification so that to facilitate the movement and the working of people within that region and from Africa hasn't been able to do that and there's an interesting reason I mean rubble of that. He's also one of the youngest of the of the stuff in Africa and that's because Africa joined quitely because of a pot. And African hair it's a lot of it's rigidity around Gratian to apartheid history of keeping everyone out and locking everything in and we haven't been able to undo that. And have Africa also I mean and the reasons why we had to do that in the park it's a lot of the countries in Africa were gaining independence quite rapidly and the fact that in government in 1000 Africans to know what was happening in the African country and they sort of locked us in so we wouldn't we didn't know what was happening when we didn't even have a history that talk about Mozambique which is our neighboring state when it received independent receiving independence in 1800 or so on that which is then become an inland receiving independence or even like in Gonna in 1000 of the 7 when governments in the in the in the South African state in a want of acting can still become influenced by the African sentiment of independence and something about Africa so that we can never know what's happening in the rest of the continent but also I would African by doing that so I mean the propaganda of it that the of their partake state is quite strong sort of create an eye veering of the Africans for blacks of Africa and that's just the culture in which we are all incorporated and we have a lot of work to do to undo that legacy of a party that sees us really integrating ourselves onto the African continent as African a lot of special effort but sometimes I get the sentiment that Africans Yeah it's definitely I think fair to say that there's a sense of South African exceptionalism that that operative here and really undermining the possibility for greater regional integration really makes me think of Moammar Gadhafi the Libyan leader famously wanted to establish a you. Knighted States of Africa but this sort of goal of de balkanizing Africa seems to have fallen by the wayside as the specter of apartheid fades so I mean. The Gadhafi speaks of that but it's really really quite an old idea I mean it's. Really about that. And I think much much. And the hope was that with the independence of the African as as the African states were becoming more and more independent what can be seen in is the fading of the borders in Africa and in a good but a percent of the borders in Africa straight lines which doesn't make sense because people don't order themselves according to straight line it because of African map if it's in front of you now you'll see that the street map going through South Africa and the member is a straight line like a complete 90 degree line going through a country to another which means that the line from the who belongs where Egypt in it because people do not order themselves according to straight line that there are people who want to be South African who are on the other side of the sauna and there are people who want to be South Africans who are on the other side. But on the whole I'm in the South African so there's a largely and in the 2 Misi of even the how of how the colonial lines of ordered where people ought to be which then means that the movement of people is quite forest in the continent and even For example the languages that we speak sort of bleed into each other and they found more like that language as you move into that area so for example. On the border of Africa so you have what's on the right and it's the 5th time it is a national language of South Africa so you wouldn't know what I'm about so I would so I know from the time that the country and then it's on a from South Africa I simply speaking to them because we speak the same language. Some looting is happening live so to that is a country list of 2 which is in South Africa but it's a different country and a sovereign state but most such is also spoken in South Africa and then you have size a land where society is also in a language of South Africa and you have to own that which is spoken growth in Africa and Mozambique and you have shown a which is which in intelligible with Benda spoken in South Africa as well and so we just begin to see that actually these lines don't even make sense for hoarding to let how we ordered ourselves and and how people and how people are and so the very legitimacy is illegitimate because even people in the movement and the family are having cross-court the relationships which are quite rigid you know our contacts so and then we begin then to sort of criticize the not just to Missy of all this but I I think as far as states are becoming more independent I $94.00 particularly with with South Africa independent from a par at it which we have termed the colonise asian of a special type because the centuries of African independence in 1010 but really that really makes them go from Africa actually got in the pen made in 94 when we had democracy in South Africa what we are then beginning to experience is that when the idea of borders of concrete time and this also comes from like the u. N. So when so when they use it is embrace in fact a nation by states which were under colonialism one of the rules that they use and is that what we can't mess with the previous or the of the Cluny that those borders must remain intact but states must get felt determination within those borders. And so some of these connotation has been reinforced by international law a generally and how people move and imagine them south and who they are in terms of their identity the borders in Africa. Quite an adjustment to the experience of being an African and we went through our continent. But I'm interested in and perhaps even thinking if there's a school that seeks to revive those conversations over to Balkanize Africa and that seems to be feigning a way and what we've beginning to see particularly at Africa is that an assertion of a sovereign state and to use those boundaries as what we understand to be in a just in that space in order for that to exist. So that that conversation has really but I in Africa at the moment everyone seems to be quite protectionist and I think what's happening as well is that we are experiencing the anti immigrant sentiments from the rest of the world and we. Also expect that particularly in this last election we are definitely having Trump more sentiment and I mean if you look at my Sharma as an example and even if you just look at the break that breaks it is the big xenophobia all of. It's both on keeping people out and we're beginning to feel the same sentiment within the African context as the right is rising also that the right is not of finding its feet even here on the continent in itself. I want to actually talk about that and I want to switch gears and talk about the overwhelming disinter mission campaign that has focused almost exclusively on South Africa there's been a wealth of right wing propaganda about black South African violence against Afrikaner farmers in recent years one of the most striking examples has to be Canadian woman Southern she made a documentary on the alleged plate of white South African farmers and this became a kind of sensation that ended up being talked about by every right wing pundit from Canada Australia. So Wiki tell us about the situation and what has the South African reaction been to this wave that incitement. Something you can hear it in live as a way to move out of Africa it's an informal relating law. That I think I think I think of difficult to feel your Socceroos and probably. Because of the rugged being right and the interesting enough in the South African elections now that just passed we saw a rise in culture right. In the ultra right movement in fact Africa and they got like 8 percent of the vote and they haven't really been able to reach one percent in the last 25 years but that was a very interesting thing for me too to observe and they really were complaining with a can't slow game plan which means hit back might and so there is. A right sentiment growing in Perth Africa and they think of Afrikaner of them at least you know gaining foot and the idea of is that why to become a zation that right people are really for me just imagining because nothing in the in the crimes that moves to the idea that there are any targeted on the right arm and in fact I think office that recently about 2 weeks ago we had the crimes that such a release by the national department of need and when violent crime is happening the Kliptown is the most and violence the t. In this country Cailleach where I work and do my work there are 150 murders a year in pain none of the white community is a white farmer community even show up on those that just. We all appears anyone in danger in South Africa there it's the black or a woman it's not white. And it's quite the infuriating it's an. Inferi ting Phantom and when people begin to position themselves as victims when when you begin to realize I'm a repentant white South African. And how they refuse to recognize the humanity of other people and in every opportunity they have they position themselves as the heroes of the victims of any and any kind of country even when there's no proof for that kind of information and what they are because also right there's a lot of money in those circles even that peddle research that doesn't make sense so they've created fully such institutions to produce this kind of me is that that promise of being killed them a 100 or in the thousands just doesn't exist so I mean we have a right wing nice search groups emerging in South Africa pretending to be like unifying groups and we have an extreme right group after Africa Forum which does Afrikaner work and now we even have the Internet we have the Race Relations Institute which does not thing to sort of bring people together but then by its people further and they just conjure up the we have this kind of research and it just doesn't make same and because of you know sort of the money and the muscle that that can promote whiteness that exist in South Africa we constantly have to be on soaring well or creatively counter-narrative so we never do work basically for foreign releases a report and then we have to spend all out on an energy out of black poor communities that are actually in danger to whom but after a forum has just said it is complete bollocks Yeah you know this really speaks to I think you alluded to this already but the fear of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the entire sort of history of the African National Congress post apartheid. Below betraying I think the opposite of what. Victimisation complex of the white South Africans would have you believe that actually you know this condition of global financial institutions that the a.n.c. Drop a land reform for them from their charter I mean that basically guarantees that whatever that law from the 1000 times was essentially remains in effect defacto because it's still around 80 percent of the land is held by white South Africans so I just want to get you to talk a little bit more about precisely how it is that. You know the white South Africans have been able to from Apparently the sidelines they're not really in formal positions of power still managed to scapegoat the marginalised for the structural economic injustice is endemic to capitalism but also their particular brand of racial capitalism how the how they've been able to maintain my view is that a lot of Africans have undermined every single opportunity to to work together and this is the majority of whites of Africans that of course I mean even within the a.n.c. Even during apartheid there were very progressive white people or. A longing sense right now. That they have there is Being and a mining a process of national unity. And to integrate South African So I mean the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was an interesting one so the charity is an interesting one and connection made. By very many people and and they and I studied that the T.R.'s together with the touch of course. Could be quite by people except for the people in those countries so there's a lot of the t r c I don't think was unuseful. 0 or 0 or well the sort of like you know if they say that I don't think that I don't. Think that we as South Africans at the time or maybe the resistance movements that were around had another option so the other so it was in a t r c I suppose or civil war I mean I don't see any other advance in of the option that was a big. Guy. And that we were not when I say we ever came in the majority of black people we were not negotiating from a place of power the only power that we had was a superpower of our people but we had no arms we had no army at m.k. Can do is a had actually never fought a war ever they had had minor acts of sabotage that they had done in the country but they actually never had any kind of military he had never actually had any kind of military experience and pup and the African military had been had been had course construction's for white males but 20 years into that to the South African which was the strongest on the continent there was no way that we could have even the cork was in Barbarella. And because above itself was trying to figure out a new independent state and there was no one that can come to the aid of South Africa and the Soviet Union that have come to the aid of Africa very many times and it was in itself on its needs and so the negotiations of the t.r.s. Even those were not powerful people negotiating with other powerful people definitely the masses of the.