"…People are angry because they are unemployed, poverty-affected people struggling for basic needs every day," said Dean Christopher Barends, a local Lutheran minister. "This will explode into something."
One perspective on current situation in South Adrica, where there have been challenges to this country’s great progress this week. From CNN.
Althought nothing justifies the violence, just like with the riots of Los Angeles in 1992, I agree here, that the issue is poverty, and lack of hope. Operation HOPE will celebrate our one-year anniversary in South Africa next month, June, 2008, where we are teaching financial literacy, a course in dignity, and a course in entrepreneurship, where jobs are not viable. We have already made a small difference in South Africa, and will do more. Much more I believe, strongly, in the future of South Africa — John Hope Bryant, founder and chairman, Operation HOPE, Operation HOPE of South Africa, and HOPE Global Initiatives.
On Monday, South African President Thabo Mbeki called for an end to the violence.
"We dehumanize ourselves the moment we start thinking of another person as less human than we are simply because they come from another country" he said in a statement.
"As South Africans, we must recognize and fully appreciate that we are bound together with other Africans by history, culture, economics and, above all, by destiny. I call upon those behind these shameful and criminal acts to stop! Nothing can justify it."
He has called for an investigation into the violence.