Some weeks back, an aggressive man kicked my car and waved his fist at me after I kept a parking spot for an acquaintance who got to the bay before he could. After I opened my mouth to respond and he heard I was from South Africa, his anger ratcheted up to a new level. “Go back to where you come from, you f—ing monkey. We don’t want you here,” he shouted, as an off-duty policeman stepped in to move him away from my vehicle before things really got ugly. I was literally shaking with fear. That was in the UK, where English nationalism has fuelled anti-Europe, anti-other sentiment and the move to Brexit. I mention this incident to illustrate the point that xenophobia is not uniquely South African, or black-on-black. It happens everywhere, all the time. Unfortunately South Africa’s apartheid legacy and the label it carries for racism mean the country is vulnerable to being singled out for ethnicity-related bad deeds. – Jackie Cameron
By Thulasizwe Sithole
South Africa is, in many ways, synonymous with racism. Whites can’t shrug off the white-on-black cruelty in the apartheid era and now black South Africans have developed a reputation for hatred-fuelled violence against black people from elsewhere on the continent.
The New York Times has pulled together the threads of a week in which South Africa has made the headlines for violence around the country. Missing from the key narrative are the investment opportunities in the resource-rich sub-Saharan country, even though South Africa played host to the World Economic Forum in Cape Town.
The US-based media outlet highlights the following developments:
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- Nigerian pop stars have announced a boycott of South Africa;
- Air Tanzania has suspended flights to Johannesburg;
- Madagascar and Zambia are refusing to send their soccer teams to South Africa;
- Nigeria has recalled its ambassador and pulled out of a major economic forum;
- More than 400 arrests in connection with xenophobic attacks;
- At least 10 riot-related deaths.
Africans across the continent once rallied behind South Africans in their struggle to defeat the apartheid government, which was finally replaced in elections held 25 years ago, says The New York Times.
“Now, some Africans find themselves in the unfamiliar position of protesting the actions of the same communities in South Africa that they once stood with in solidarity,” it points out.
“The only time we’ve seen this type of cooperation of African countries in terms of backlash,” it quotes Tunde Leye, a partner at the Nigerian political research firm SBM Intelligence, as saying, “was in terms of support of the anti-apartheid movement.”
The current level of political solidarity on the continent, he said, was “almost unprecedented.”
The riots, and the retaliatory measures, could not come at a more inopportune time for regional cooperation, says The New York Times.
“This week, African leaders are meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, to discuss the African Continental Free Trade Area, an agreement made this year that sets the stage for the creation of the largest free-trade area in the world. It would join Africa’s more than one billion consumers into a single market.
“The conflict, while not likely to imperil the free trade agreement, could at least slow its implementation, which is expected to take years,” African analysts said.
