Xenophobia in South Africa

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]And this is not a place where you would expect to see the fire of xenophobia break out. Someone lit that fire. You have to conclude that. That's a logical conclusion in my opinion. It doesn't happen spontaneously. Especially not at this scale. Not at this scale and not at this speed. And not with this level of media amplification in this particular moment in history.

[00:00:20]Now, something produced this. Something produced this. and understanding what produced it and why it was produced in my opinion will also help you understand uh what's happening on the continent of Africa overall.

[00:00:32]South Africa isn't like other African nations.

[00:00:35]I don't mean that in the way that the that the colonizers mean it because they used to say that too and they still say it to one extent or another. They mean it as a compliment, meaning it's more civilized, meaning it's closer to Europe. That's what they mean when they talk about South Africa is not like the other African nations. I mean something that's almost the opposite of that.

[00:00:50]South Africa is the only country on the African continent where the colonial power never left. They never left. Think about that. In Kenya, the British left.

[00:01:00]In Sagal, the the French left. In Nigeria, the British left. In Algeria, the French left. The Algerians had to fight a bloody uh war uh for many many years to make them leave, but they left.

[00:01:10]So, in country after country across the the African continent after independence, uh the foreign colonial uh class packed up. They packed up mostly and the indigenous population took over and they took uh formal you can say formal control of the state. But what happened in South Africa in 1994? That's not what happened. What happened in 1994 was that the white minority population uh lost formal political control. They lost the ability to write the laws and run the government in their name. But they kept everything else. They kept everything else. They kept the land.

[00:01:43]They kept the mines. They kept the banks. They kept the corporations. They kept the financial markets. They kept the uh control over the media. You understand? When Nelson Mandela walked out of prison, he walked into a country where roughly 8% of the population, the white minority, 8% still owned the overwhelming majority of that economy. And 30 years on, 30 years later, that's still basically true. Now, why is that relevant to anything that's happening today? Because of who that 8% is. You understand?

[00:02:11]Because of who that 8% is. Let's not dance around the subject. When we talk about Chinese billionaires, billionaires in China, their wealth is embedded in China. Their families are Chinese. Their businesses depend upon uh Chinese state policy.

[00:02:26]Their futures are completely bound up with the future of China, with China's future, they are structurally a part of the Chinese national project.

[00:02:34]Understanding now, even when they're in conflict with the government, even when uh Xiinping is squeezing them or something, they're bound up with China.

[00:02:43]The same with the Russian oligarchs and it's the same with Indian industrialists to one extent or another. It's the same thing with families in the in the Gulf.

[00:02:50]Same thing to one extent or another in Indonesia, Iran and these places. In these countries, the wealthy class is tied to the nation. The nation is the source and is the protector.