South Africa, at Rainbow's End

A former South African I was interested to read how just before the race riots stemming from unemployment; poverty; a high cost of living; and an unbelievably high crime rate ravaged the country; that the price of fertiliser in South Africa have gone up 100% to 150%, those of feed went up 80% and fuel prices had risen 60%, whereas food prices had "only" risen 40% over the same period.

As a result, farmers are fighting shrinking profit margins, and many had given up farming. This, according to Etienne Terre'Blanche, MD of the Milk Producers Organisation.

"If any country would totally rely on food imports, it would be in deep, deep trouble," he said. "Import prices of maize to feed cows and of fuel would keep going up. Something would go wrong, somewhere down the line."

Indeed it has:

• To date 43 people have been murdered and tens of thousands forced from their homes in a dozen Johannesburg suburbs and satellite townships. With it has come looting and rape.
• Thousands of immigrants are fleeing the county.
• Others packed Johannesburg's bus and train stations, police compounds, churches and community halls.
• Now the violence is spreading across the country to Cape Town, Durban and the Free State.

The attacks mostly come at night. Sometimes the mobs know where the foreigners live but if they are in doubt they ask a simple question in Zulu, the lingua franca of the townships. Lack of comprehension is dangerous.

This fuels concerns that the violence is not just a result of poverty and unemployment; it is also tribal, indeed, political in nature.