South Africa, Africa’s “rainbow nation” is casting unsightly clouds over Africa, which threaten to trigger in some of its key allies a painful reminder of its difficult past and the sacrifices made to support it.
Horrifying videos and images have broken across the internet of some South Africans harassing, assaulting, and looting the goods of so-called foreigners and bluntly asking them to go back to their country. What is most troubling, though, is that South African authorities have not been known to do anything to prosecute some of those caught on video.
For years, as South Africa toiled under the stygian darkness of apartheid with the legendary Nelson Mandela languishing in jail, Nigeria especially did not hold back in its support for a beleaguered country. Together with many other African countries, Nigeria’s moral, diplomatic, political, and even economic support greatly contributed to finally breaking the hold of apartheid in the country.
Problems persist, though. The wounds of South Africans run deep. Economic inequality persists in a country with some of the widest fault lines in the world, but should the frustrations be filed into a file with which to gouge out the eyes of other Africans?
That these attacks keep happening is testament to the pathological xenophobia of some South Africans. The government of South Africa may argue that only a handful of criminal elements are doing this, but what is it doing about it?
It is not like South Africans do not live and run businesses in other countries. If they were to be paid in their coins, they would predictably soon be short of coins.
If South Africans are resentful of their government and its inability to tackle corruption and crime, they should take out their frustrations on their government using the proper channels.
The world has become a global village where boundaries are blurred for a whole host of purposes.
The disgusting cycle of shameful attacks on Africans from other countries also indicts the government of South Africa, which bears the weighty responsibility to unmistakably remind renegade and xenophobic South Africans of the debt they owe to the rest of Africa. Despite public posturing from the South African government, it is clear that the authorities are simply not doing enough to clamp down on a xenophobic horde.
Despite its ugly facial features and grotesque entrails, the beast now unleashed in South Africa howls a hurtful but hard lesson for the rest of Africa: no country can afford the consequences of insecurity, famine, and underdevelopment.
At a time when many countries in the Western world continue to tighten their border restrictions in a bid to check illegal migration, economic opportunities that were once boundless in other countries for Africans fleeing conflict and famine have shrunk significantly. It is indeed in the interest of Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, which has some of the world’s poorest people, that every country be able to offer security, economic opportunities, and democratic freedoms to its people so they can stay at home.
Nigeria must demand assurances and action from South Africa to check what has become a recurring problem. In the same vein, it must unite with the rest of the world to fight discrimination in any form. The fight for global justice and equality means that no form of discrimination should be tolerated anywhere. Every human being, no matter their circumstances, should be treated with dignity.
Kene Obiezu is a lawyer, writer, and social commentator
