Somalis and Pakistanis, who’re able to tap their close-knit communities for capital to start businesses, dominate convenience stores known as spaza shops in townships and shantytowns on the outskirts of South Africa’s major cities.
Conspicuous by their distinctive languages and Muslim religion in a mainly Christian country, their business acumen has stoked jealousy among many citizens in South Africa, where one-in-four are unemployed.
“There are too many foreigners here, they undercut everyone. Every corner, there is a Somali shop,” Magdalene Thabana, 56, said as she sat on a red plastic stool selling bags of scones across the road from Mohamed’s store. “I don’t have enough money to start a shop.”
“You still find many spaza shops with African names, but when you go in to buy you find your Mohammeds and most of them are not even registered,” she was quoted as saying by the South African Press Association.
A wave of xenophobic violence led to about 60 deaths, including some Somalis, and as many as 50,000 people being forced to flee their homes and shops in 2008. Since then, Somalis have been the hardest hit by outbreaks of xenophobic violence, police spokeswoman Brigadier Marinda Mills said in a phone interview.
While South Africa’s murder rate has dropped by more than half to 31.1 per 100,000 people since 1995, it remains six times higher than that of the U.S.
Mandelas legacy letting the savages out and pacifying them against their true enemy. At least in Zim they know who their enemy is.

