The recent approach of our government to foreigners has been quite surprising.  The Minister for Small Business Development, Lindile Zulu, has for example explained that foreigners are here as a “courtesy” and they went on to say that the foreign shop owners, who experienced so much looting, need to share their business secrets with local people.  They may just be Spaza owners, but it sends a tremendously poor signal to any overseas companies that when you want to come into South Africa and open a business, you need to expose all your business secrets to your competitors!  Her comments are also totally inappropriate – in a time when we have looters running around and xenophobia cropping up all the time, her comments seem to imply that foreigners need to be more respectful in South Africa and need to proceed very cautiously with their business.  They are clearly not allowed to try and compete and make a living and let’s be honest, they would not be here if their situation back at home was not very poor.  It is even more sad, as many have noted, because when the ANC was in exile it was the various African countries that actually hosted them, and now we have a government Minister essentially telling people from those countries that they are not particularly excited to have them here.  One then only has to look further at the government policy that we have heard about limiting farm sizes and foreign ownership of land to get a distinctly anti-foreigners approach in South Africa.