South Africa has been in a xenophobic eruption since April, in a renewed wave of the assault, which has claimed the lives of many African migrants in that country. In viral footage, foreigners – essentially blacks from other African countries – can be seen being chased by motley crowds with cudgels, with some of them clobbered to stupor, kicked and marched on the ground. This violation and indignity are against all that the African Union (AU) Charter stands for in its guarantees on economic integration and individual and collective rights.
Masterminded by a mélange of political parties and groups, such as Inkatha Freedom Party, MK Party, March and March Movement, and Operation Dudula, the misguided crusaders of this vicious campaign say it is aimed at a “clean-up” of their country of foreign elements, who contribute nothing to the economy except to traffic in crime, drugs and prostitution. They also accused them of taking their jobs and eloping with their women.
Therefore, foreigners have been asked to go back to their countries and fix the rot bedevilling them. From Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, the hurricane has spread to Cape Town, East London, Pretoria and KuGompo. African migrants are scared-stiff of the volcanic proportions of this xenophobia, such that many thousands have volunteered to return home as soon as possible.
The mayhem is mirroring the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, with South African schools and hospitals being invaded to fish out their targets. Two Ghanaians and several Nigerians have been killed by mobs so far. Speaking to these paper when the xenophobic attacks erupted, The Gambia’s ambassador to South Africa, Fatoumata Jahumpa-Ceesay reported that thankfully, no Gambian has been harmed.
The unfortunate insularity being advocated by South Africans misses the essential point of a globalising world in which immigrant flows are from and across every country of the world, in the quest for trade, greater opportunities, and the pursuit of knowledge. It is for this reason that Elon Musk – the world’s richest man and originally South African – equally migrated to the US in 1994.
This disorder cannot continue to be a staple in South Africa’s social relations with other Africans in its territory. President Cyril Ramaphosa has reportedly condemned the attacks. This routine diplomatic gesture means nothing with the frequency of these criminal assaults. The security operatives who acted outside the framework of the law must be identified and prosecuted. The ringleaders of the xenophobic campaign should not be spared either. This should be the starting point of any meaningful mitigation of the situation.
Undoubtedly, the socio-economic disjoints in South Africa, evident in high unemployment, drug trafficking and addiction and vices of armed robbery and gangsterism afflicting thousands of youths, could not be the result of the presence of black immigrants, but the failure of post-apartheid dreams, accentuated by economic mismanagement, corruption and poor leadership.
The bestial cycles that target Africans demand that we now drum our sacrifices in ending apartheid into the ears of the new generation of South Africans, who are bereft of a basic sense of their history. It is nauseating that Ramaphosa, one of the surviving freedom fighters, who knows better, has been negligent here, in invoking it to stem these barbaric convulsions of xenophobia, and absolve his administration from any suspicion of official connivance.
African countries including The Gambia supported black South Africans in their fight against apartheid. They provided them moral and economic support and hosted their leaders. The Gambia Government under Sir Dawda Jawara opened its arms to scores of young people from South Africa and the then so-called “frontline states” by providing housing, educational bursary and social support until the end of apartheid. Nigeria under Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa gave the ANC US$5 million annually and sacrificed US$41 million worth of rejected sales of oil to the apartheid government.
African countries should send South Africa a strong unified message by recalling ambassadors, and boycotting South African businesses. That way, the government will wake up from its slumber and do the needful by clamping down on the marauding vagabonds harming, killing and destroying African migrants and their businesses. It is more than due to remind Ramaphosa to lead his country’s errant folks right!
