We made a mistake of not explaining to what freedom entails

President Jacob Zuma

President Jacob Zuma

Published Apr 20, 2015

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The xenophobic attacks against foreign nationals was due to the failure to explain how freedom was won and what it entailed, President Jacob Zuma said today.

”We did not explain our struggle, for which we are partly to blame. We did not explain who helped us, we all failed, all of us as individuals, organisations, churches, individuals to explain what freedom means,” Zuma said at a meeting in Johannesburg that was attended by celebrities and sports administrators, condemning xenophobia.

”We did not attend to what we were supposed to attend to. We believed that the Constitution as a document will solve everything. That was a big mistake.”

South Africans were only told about what the Constitution allowed, and what it did not allow.

”We are ripping what we actually did not sow. We need to start afresh…we need to be united and reverse the damage we have done,” Zuma said, insisting to reporters that he was speaking as an African National Congress cadre and not as a statesman.

He called for unity and said South Africans were not killers. ”Those perpetrators do not represent us.South Africans are not killers. Let us have television and radio programmes, let writers write and educate people about South Africa.”

The pictures in the Sunday Times showing Mozambican national Emmanuel Sithole being stabbed was an act of criminals who rob people everyday.

Zuma said he believed Sithole’s killers were thugs on a prowl. Sithole died after he was brutally stabbed in Alexandra, north of Johannesburg over the weekend. Three people have since been arrested.

The attacks on foreign nationals and looting of shops started over two weeks ago in Isipingo, outside of Durban and spread to other areas across the country.

Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba on Sunday told reporters in Pretoria that more than 300 people had been arrested in relation to widespread attacks on foreign nationals and looting.

Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini has called for an imbizo at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on Monday to address the ongoing xenophobia violence.

Zuma cancelled an official trip to Indonesia on Saturday to deal with matters at home.

ANA

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