The South African blogosphere has been overwhelmingly critical of Brandon Huntley and the Canadian immigration board that granted him refugee status. (See Pierre De Vos, Ray Hartley, Michael Trapido, and Sarah Britten, to name just a few.) However, I think that in the rush to bash Huntley for the sin of bringing the country into disrepute, some interesting aspects of this story have been lost.

I’m basically a Hobbesian, in the sense that I believe the most basic and fundamental duty of state is to protect its citizens safe from physical harm, and that physical security is a necessary precondition for the pursuit of other goods. From my perspective, it seems that Huntley presented two main claims to the Canadian immigration board:

1. That he had been the victim of multiple violent crimes, that the South African government is unable to effectively police criminals, and that if he were to return to South Africa, there is a reasonable chance that he would be the victim of crime again.

2. That white South Africans in particular are targeted by black criminals, making him especially vulnerable to crime.

It is the second claim that has inspired so much criticism. And rightly so! I know lots of white South Africans (in addition to, you know, being one myself), and for the most part we manage to go through our daily lives without fear of imminent racial violence. This is not to say that there are not criminals, black and white, who also happen to be racist - it would be very surprising if this were the case. However, the idea that simply being white creates an omnipresent risk of violence is one that can be safely rejected.

But is claim #2 the really important one? I understand that it’s legally significant, because Huntley had to demonstrate some sort of racial dimension to the attacks in order to qualify for refugee status. However, philosophically, I’m not sure why it should matter. Violence is violence: if you’re stabbed by a mugger, you probably don’t care whether he just wanted to steal your wallet, or whether you wanted to steal your wallet and disliked you because of the colour of your skin. Either way, the end result is the same.

What about claim #1? I’ve heard some suggestion that Huntley might have fabricated or exaggerated his attacks. But this seems unlikely to me: these are claims that are fairly easy to verify, and apparently Huntley was able to present evidence in form of physical scarring and so on which was, at minimum, enough to convince the Canadian board that he had been the victim of violent crime. In which case, a foreign legal body has ruled that the risk of violent crime in South Africa is sufficiently high that, in principle, South African citizens that are particularly risk-prone have the right to seek refugee status. Regardless of whether Huntley himself can and should meet this criteria, this is a serious and damning indictment of the government’s inability protect its citizens.

I understand the emotional instinct to defend South Africa against a perceived slight by a foreign government, but I don’t think that’s the right response in this case. Given the limited extent to which South African citizens can apply pressure on the government to solve specific problems such as crime, anything that gives the government an incentive to do better - including the prospect of international embarrassment - is probably a good thing.