South Africans are not xenophobic: Mogoeng

South Africans are not xenophobic: Mogoeng

Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng says South Africans are not xenophobic.

Mogoeng-Mogoeg-UKZN-ECR
Nushera Soodyal
Mogoeng spoke about the attacks on foreign nationals while addressing today's graduation ceremony at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Westville campus.

The Chief Justice, who is the Chancellor at UKZN, says we need to get to the root of this issue.


Mogoeng believes the country has experienced economic difficulties when cases have flared up.

""In 2008 there was an economic meltdown - all over the world. People were hungry, people were retrenched on a massive scale. The tendency that springs out of any desperate situation was to commit crime and to commit crime against those around you. Let us stop saying things that people will clap hand for."

Meanwhile, former Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela says the recent violence in the country is an ugly shadow of our past.

She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the UKZN.

Madonsela was recognised for her work while in the Office of the Public Protector and for her contribution towards a better society.

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Addressing students and guests, Mandosela said the xenophobic violence in parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal could be described as the end of ubuntu.

"Why is it important that we should reclaim ubuntu and what can we do," she asked.

"Firstly, what has gone wrong? It is my considered view that the violence we have experienced and the deficit of ubuntu is part of the complex and ugly shadow of our past. In that degradation of humanity, a part of us was destroyed. And that part needs to be rebuilt," she said.


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