A few of you have e-mailed asking about my safety after the wildfire of xenophobic violence hopped to Cape Town a couple of nights ago. Worry not; scuttling between my house and UCT’s library in the tranquil suburb of Mowbray, I’m far from the squatter camps where most of the looting and attacks have occurred. I’m sure it also helps that I’m white, and clearly not about to take anyone’s job. But it’s a truly awful phenomenon—42 people have been killed and thousands forced from their homes over the last 12 days, hitting the masses of refugees who are barely hanging on to survival already. Government officials say the violence is coming from right-wingers associated with the former white government, the kind of “third force” involvement that everyone remembers from the last days of apartheid.

Maybe that’s true, or maybe they’re just using those memories to divert anger over the police force’s sluggish response. But either way, it creates a halo of fear much larger than the actual danger zone: hanging out at the SHAWCO office yesterday, I overheard coordinators talking to Zimbabwean volunteers who were afraid to go out with the prospect of getting attacked. The Protestant Bookstore on my corner wants us to pray about it. I really, really wish that were the only thing we needed to do to help.