AFRICA DAY MEssage: stand Up against the Xenophobia in
South Africa By Tajudeen Abdul Raheem

This Sunday, 25 May 2008, is Africa Liberation Day. 
This year’s celebration marks the 50th anniversary of
this day set aside for reflection, celebration and
rededication to the cause of Africa and Africans for
total liberation from social, economic and political
injustices initially by external colonialists but
later neo colonialists and their local agents. Today
the struggle continues against the Local oppressors
and their foreign patrons in a renewed attempt  at
recolonising Africa through the combined forces of
unpatriotic National leaders selling our countries to
anti people globalisation and uncritical adoption of
neo liberal policies that continues to impoverish our
peoples and ensures that the majority of Africans
remain poor even though ours is one of the richest
continent in the whole world.

Central to the agenda of Africa’s liberation is the
notion of ‘Africa for Africans’ and the unification of
Africa ‘from Cape to Cairo’. As symbols go both points
were chosen not because they are the most symbolic
representation of Africa but as extreme geographic
poles of this vast continent and its diversities. But
both cities and the countries they are in have at best
contested Africaness. Cape Town  never fails to
reminds us that it  remains an  European enclave [that
may apply to leave the AU  and join the EU  if
possible!] while  a trip to the vibrant souks of Cairo
by an  African visitor will not be complete without
one Egyptian  trader or the other asking you: are you
from Africa?, completely oblivious  to the fact that
Egypt is in Africa and the proud civilisation that
make them feel superior to others including other
Arabs was very much an African civilisation.

However ambiguities about being African are not
limited to the two cities or both countries. 45 years
after the OAU was headquartered in Addis many
Ethiopians still talk of  or see Africans as others.
In Egypt and South Africa the anti Africa feeling 
extend to  areas that are supposedly more African than
both cities. The tragic events unfolding in South
Africa around townships close to Johannesburg may have
come as a surprise to those not familiar with the
‘rainbow’ nation since the end of apartheid in 1994
but not to those Africans living there. We were all on
the high about the end of apartheid and swallowed the
triumphalism and claims of exceptionalism as the
legitimating ideology of the new post apartheid state.
If ever there was an inappropriate slogan ‘rainbow
nation’ (later discovered not to include the color
Black in it), was one. It invited everybody else but
the majority of black people whether internally or
externally.

I have been a regular visitor to South Africa since
the inauguration of Mandela and have seen the rise in
anti African xenophobia, bigotry and discrimination
against other Africans. This is from day one in the
form of  anti African racist immigration and visa
regime.
 Unfortunately as with everything else the ANC
leadership particularly Thabo Mbeki, tried to
intellectualise the problem instead of addressing it.
Remember this is a President who claimed he had never
known any body who died of AIDS. The same man retorted
when confronted by grimly rise in crime whether indeed
crime was rising or it was more regularly reported.
Government propagandists even suggested that there was
some conspiracy by enemies of the new government to
discourage investment and undermine the new
dispensation. While there may be some truth in this
given the skewed media ownership and control in the
country  it is begging the issue. Media dos not create
the crime wave.

The denial default of the Thabo leadership meant that
problems are not nipped in the board rather debated
endlessly, subjected to all kinds of panels, probes
and investigations without end.

The anti African Xenophobia went through these
motions. Initially it was thought that xenophobia was
limited to some illiterate citizens (ignoring their
ugly heads  on university campuses, public
parastatals, NGOs and board rooms ) who will soon be
rid of their ignorance as prosperity  spreads ala neo
liberal economic policies predicated on perpetual
growth with enough economic crumbs dropping off the
tables of the new black bourgeois elite for their
masses. Of course this is not how it is turning out.
The new elite have proven to be more rapacious and the
economic model they chose is not delivering to the
masses as envisaged.  But instead of the excluded
masses turning on their elite they find convenient
vent for their anger and frustration in refugees,
migrants from Africa whom they blame for their
inadequate housing or stealing their jobs.

It is instructive that these violence is directed
predominantly at other Black Africans principally
Zimbabweans, Nigerians, Somalis, Mozambicans, other
southern Africans. They are the majority of other
Africans in the country. 
How come this ‘anger’ has not extended to white
immigrants from Europe and former Soviet Union? Why it
is not directed at new immigrants from Asia including
Chinese and Indians?

It is encouraging that after initial shock sections of
the South African establishment (the Human Rights
Commission for example ) but more importantly  parts
of the Civil Society especially the  church led by the
Methodist Church (that has been providing refuge to
African refugees and asylum seekers before this
crisis) are beginning to speak out openly. There are
also attempts by Local communities to reclaim the
streets from the criminal bigots.
President Thabo Mbeki’s reaction remains professorial:
What is behind this? Who is behind it? I heard him
asking on SABC Africa. Why can  he not get it that we
do not expect questions from our leaders. We expect
answers and actions, concrete actions.
 If  the South African political leadership is failing
us why are African leaders whose citizens are being
killed not saying anything? Can you imagine if one
European, Canadian or American citizen had been
attacked what the noise will be like?
If our leaders are failing us what about our busy body
civil society? Why are there no demonstrations in
front of South African embassies and High Commissions
across this continent and even in the Diaspora?  Are
they waiting for Donors? Did we need  Donors to
demonstrate against White apartheid? Why are we silent
in the face of this creeping Black apartheid?
There is no point in making moral claims by reminding
South Africans how the rest of Africa sacrificed in
cash and kind for their liberation. Their memory has
proven too short for that. There is no point reminding
them that many of them were refugees in the rest of
Africa and there was no similar incident of mass
xenophobia against them. 

What we need to demystify is the widely held believe
that every African wants to emigrate there and that
Africans in South Africa are t\king jobs away from
South Africans. The  University faculties are full of
other Africans especially SADC countries, West
Africans, . Would South Africa be able to sustain the 
entire educational system without the skills  of these
academics. The Somali stores that are being burnt  are
growing because of the niche in the market which were
not being met.
South Africans also need to be made aware that the
prosperity of their country which they think the rest
of Africa is coveting is not wholly generated from
within. That prosperity , internal and external jobs
are increasingly dependent on the rest of Africa.
DSTV, MTN, South African Airways, Shoprite, Water and
management corporations, farmers, Banks and other 
South African businesses are rapidly expanding and
minting money across Africa. If they can be making
fantastic profits in other countries definitely others
will also go to South Africa . If care is not taken to
take decisive action to stop the  violence  against
other Africans and challenge the widespread xenophobia
south African businesses and other interests across
Africa will soon become legitimate targets not just
for demonstrations but campaigns of boycott and who
knows , even targets for sabotage and revenge attacks
across this continent.. A country that sees itself as
the beacon of African renaissance, originator of NEPAD
and Chief lecturer on human rights, democracy,
constitutionalism many of whose leaders were
themselves refugees  or migrants in other African
countries for several years should be ashamed of
itself for treating other Africans so appallingly. The
bigger shame should be for other Africans to remain
silent in the face of this brutalities and gross abuse
of the rights of other Africans by fellow Africans. 
On this Africa day say No to an attack on any African
from Cape Town to Cairo wherever you may be. You can
do something. Do so now.
ITS A BIG SHAME TO SOUTH AFRICA BUT THE BIGGEST CRY OF
SHAME WILL BE LOUDER AT US IF WE REMAIN SILENT  IN THE
FACE OF THIS NEGROPHOBIA. 



"Forward ever , backward never".....Kwame Nkrumah (1909 - 1972)


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