We are not a hateful people

Earlier this year, the BBC held a town hall-style broadcast in Johannesburg to look into whether South Africans hated fellow Africans. The loaded title was enough to tell you that the outcome was a forgone conclusion: this was a hateful place where non-South African nationals run the gauntlet of violent xenophobic attacks every day. The visuals that preceded the panel discussion and audience engagement included gory scenes from previous waves of xenophobic violence in the country, coupled with heart-wrenching interviews with victims. The South African perpetrators were