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host community — English
A collection of interacting human or non-human individuals who occupy a common area and suddenly or gradually have to cope with the influx of humans or non-humans from an adjoining or nearby area. The new, invading individuals might have fled, been driven to, or happened to end up in the area occupied by the host community. In a non-human, natural ecosystem (see “ecosystem”), the intruders would probably perish or devour some of the local individuals and become a dominant species of the entire ecosystem. If they cannot adapt to the conditions and individuals occupying the ecosystem, they would die out or move away. In human communities, the “invaders” could be people fleeing for their lives, have no identity papers or money and tenuous or no connections to the community they have fled to (see “refugee”). The host community might be hostile to the newcomers and drive them out or even kill them, but that does not happen very often because people would not flee to an area where they know they would be unwelcome. There are also international organisations such as the International Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontièrs, Oxfam and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) who could assist both the refugees and the host community to cope with the situation. But there is no denying that the people of the host community are presented with a problem when they have to assimilate “foreigners”. Even if the foreigners are not refugees in the true sense of the word, problems may occur as the foreigners consume services, need health care and education, occupy jobs, and do never quite become part of the host community. South Africans are currently a host community for many thousands (or even millions) of people from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and many other African states. A number of xenophobic clashes have already taken place and many South Africans are not overly happy with the presence of these foreigners, but thus far South Africans have proven a remarkably tolerant host community.
