same thing happens the world over.
after the second world war there was a shortage of labour in britain (in the 1940s),,, many brits felt threatened by this,,, you heard exactly the same comments back then (and still to this day), "they are stealing our jobs/ women/ beer".
there was racial tension and race riots throughout the 60 and 70s as white communities felt threatened by the arrival of foreigners.
this caused the rise in popularity of the BNP (british national party), a far right wing, whites only political party who are "committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Partythere's a nice short history of immigration into the UK here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/uk/2002/race/short_history_of_immigration.stmimmigration is still one of the biggest issues in britain today. britain is currently paranoid about polish and other eastern european people so it's not just about skin colour, it's xenophobia.
as much as many people make claims that certain nationalities (or ethnicities) are culturally more tolerant to 'others', my belief has always been that all humans are fundamentally the same - we're all tribal and when our way of life is perceived to be threatened, the first people we turn on are those 'others'.
from an immigration point of view, the price of a successful economy is that more and more people are going to be attracted to come to south africa. as much as we might want to accommodate fellow africans in SA, ma**, unrestricted immigration can cause problems.
naturally there's no simple answers, and as usual, the poorest, most desperate people suffer the most.
