As a continent we should acknowledge the devastating effects of centuries of colonial exploitation. All of us, without exception, seek to ensure sustainable livelihoods.

Last Sunday, April 19, the alliance of the African National Congress, ANC, South African Communist Party, SACP, and the Congress of South African Trace Unions, COSATU, issued an “Alliance Statement to the African Continent and the International Community”. The statement was in response to the tragic outbreak of xenophobic attacks in several areas of South Africa against African immigrants who were wrongly targeted as taking the jobs of South Africans.

Many people have been killed, including the burning alive on the streets of a Zimbabwean immigrant. Anti-foreigner violence has become a major expression of the social tensions underlining contemporary, post-apartheid South Africa.

But the latest killings and rampages had been directly blamed on the Zulu King, Goodwill Zwelithini, who was quoted as having blamed foreigners for the high rate of crimes in South Africa.

King Zwelithini then publicly suggested that foreigners in the country must “take their bags and go”. It was in response to that suggestion (which was later denied and the King protested that he was misquoted), the South African mob, especially in Kwazulu/Natal, hearkened to the call!

By last weekend, reports had emerged that 50 Nigerians had suffered attacks, while our compatriots suffered millions of naira in losses. In different parts of South Africa, foreigners have been uprooted from their homes and businesses and many have sought refuge from the mobs.

Refuge from the mob

Early this week, Nigerians picketed the South African High Commission, while a movement emerged urging the boycott of South African companies such as MTN, SHOPRITE and MULTICHOICE. On Tuesday evening, I was informed that an office of the South African pay TV outfit MULTICHOICE was attacked at a location, leading to a hurried closure of some of their outlets in Abuja.

The outbreak of xenophobic hysteria has only deepened simmering anger against South Africa, especially in Nigeria, where there are many South African businesses making very good profit; however, Nigerians have always resented their business practices which they perceive as being unfair.

Even a well-known human rights group, SERAP, also urged the Nigerian government to take South Africa to the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights to seek effective redress and compensation for Nigerian victims of the xenophobic attacks.

Nigerians have also been angry that South Africans have not sufficiently appreciated the contributions made by Africans in general, and Nigerians in particular, to the struggle for liberation against apartheid. During the 1970s, the Southern African Relief Fund, SARF, helped to raise huge sums of money that went into the education and upkeep of hundreds of victims of apartheid, especially after the Soweto Uprising of 1976. In 2010, I was visiting South Africa, and I went out to a number of nightclubs in Pretoria.

I deliberately interviewed groups of university students to seek how much they knew about the Nigerian role in their struggle. Not a single one knew anything about Nigeria’s place as one of the “Frontline States”; an honorary position which came about as a result of Nigeria’s active support, especially material and financial, for the liberation struggle.

It was a matter of historical fact, that the government of Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa, had been one of the first to give the ANC a million pounds in the 1960s to fight against apartheid! South Africans did not know any of these facts. They recognised the roles of the former Soviet Union and Cuba, as well as the sacrifices of countries like Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia. But Nigeria? No way!

In truth, one of the central strategies of the apartheid system was to separate South African Black peoples from their brothers and sisters on the African continent. They were systematically brainwashed to believe they are not part of the African continent and that background of deliberate ignorance has conditioned the xenophobic hysteria that breaks out in the country regularly in the past few years.

There is also the related fact that while apartheid has been defeated, the economic inequalities have persisted, despite the remarkable strides made by the post-apartheid governments of the ANC. Unemployment, alienation and despair are still very much part of daily existence for millions of African and Black people in South Africa.

This is in spite of the creation of a few African multi-millionaires. And I think the liberation movement and government have not done enough to systematically educate the people about their joint destiny with the African continent. In truth, the neo-liberal capitalist choice made after apartheid has not helped to eliminate the serious inequalities sown under apartheid capitalism.

In fairness, the joint statement, that I mentioned above, addressed these issues to a very reasonable extent. It stated that it was “saddened by the xenophobic attacks directed at African foreign nationals”.


http://ynaija.com/ishaq-kawu-south-africas-xenophobic-hysteria/

ungrateful?

to Hell with South Africa

Doluvincent1:
ungrateful?

Frankly, I hate when we talk xenophobia and we say they are ungrateful.

We helped them out, lets stop hammering on it biko

When they denied our president a speaking slot at mandela's memorial, then I knew we shouldn't have taken them for friends. They are our enemies.



Those ugly bastards are mostly illiterates, hence their inability to read history and understand the contribution of Nigeria to their liberation.

Every nation we helped, turned her back on us.

There is a saying that when the cat is not at home the rat will take over......what is south african besides countries like nigeria egypt libya if not for poor leadership

Mynd44:

Frankly, I hate when we talk xenophobia and we say they are ungrateful.

We helped them out, lets stop hammering on it biko

Do you pay back good with evil? Have you taken your time to know why America and Isreal are the greatest allies on earth? That's respect for the big brother role America played in their pre-1947 travail.


Why can't those thick-haired bastards give us our rightful position in their nation's history?

Caseless:
Do you pay back good with evil? Have you taken your time to know why America and Isreal are the greatest allies on earth? That's respect for the big brother role America played in their pre-1947 travail.


Why can't those thick-haired bastards give us our rightful position in their nation's history?

I can bet that when our past leaders did what they did, they did not do it so that they can repay us with honor but so the people living there can have a better style of living.

Let go of your pride and face issues as they are

Mynd44:

I can bet that when our past leaders did what they did, they did not do it so that they can repay us with honor but so the people living there can have a better style of living.

Let go of your pride and face issues as they are

There is no country on earth that will give you something without expecting some in return. Not even "thank you Nigeria" has come from them to us, instead, they kill our people in the name of xenophobia.

If you read the piece above like I did, you'd realise that the writer himself confirmed that most southafrican don't know about our contributions.