Are South Africans blacks Xenophobic or Do African Leaders Share the Blame?

The Xenophobia or more appropriately Afrophobic attacks in South Africa have been widely condemned and rightly so but there has been a superficial outlook at the problem.

The South African blacks have been roundly condemned but my take, as a person who lived in a number of foreign countries including South Africa and has a hands on experience and a helicopter view of the problem is rather a bit more objective. I would like to share my broader view of problem while outlining the root causes of the xenophobic attacks through a holistically approach because the causes are both internal and external.

It is important to point out that African countries leaders and their economic mismanagement is partly to blame.

To start with, my experience and most African people in South Africa is that a substantial number of South African blacks have two major psychological problems that are a direct result of the hundreds of years of apartheid and racial description..

The first problem is that they have an inferiority complex towards whites and an intense hatred for whites to an extent that had it not been for “ Saint” Nelson’s reconciliation policy, they could avenged the hundreds of years of injustice in a negative way thereby destroyed their sophisticated economy. The second psychological problem they have is a misplaced superiority complex towards their African brothers and sisters.

This superiority complex is premised on the fact that South Africa is the most industrialised country in Sub Saharan Africa with first world infrastructure. The blacks feel they are superior than other africans because they effectively live in “ Europe” but they do not recognize the fact that the infrastructure was built by the white man and they should just be “grateful” beneficiaries! You will hear some black South Africans telling fellow Africans viz: “which part of Africa are you from?”.

They somehow do not feel they are part of Africa! They also just do not accept that Black Africans can be better than them because of having been independent much earlier than them and therefore had better and superior education and had been exposed to more advanced western education in Europe and America.

They are in denial of this fact until when the fellow African proves otherwise. When they do, they become jealous. This mindset cuts across all social strata of South African blacks whether educated or uneducated apart from those who have been exposed and have lived abroad before and after independence.

It is when a fellow African proves to be smarter than a South Africanblacks because of his education , experience and exposure that xenophobic mentality sets in. In high density areas with high poverty and unemployment levels, it manifests itself in the violence that we are seeing from time to time.

The level of ignorance by South African blacks about Africa especially and their lack of exposure is part of the problem that is the route cause of Afrophobia. If you went to any high density area in South Africa, you will be lucky to get a person with a passport who has travelled to any of the neighbouring countries.

There are Batswana speaking South Africans in the North West towns like Rustenburg who have never travelled to their tribes mate in Botswana which is just two hours away! You would not say the same about Mozambicans, Zimbabweans ,Botswana , Zimbabwe and Zambia where even semi illitrates have gone across borders! These guys just do not travel outside South Africa and the old proverb of my mother language, Bemba says : Umwana ashenda, atashishe Nyina ukunaya ubwali “ (WHICH MEANS A CHILD WHO NEVER TRAVELS WILL ALWAYS BOAST AND THINK THAT HIS MOTHER IS A BEST COOK UNTIL THEY FIND ANOTHER MOTHER WHO COOKS BETTER).

There is no doubt that the major causes of the Xenophobic attacks is the high level of poverty due to high unemployment but foreigners are not the cause of this.

South Africa’s unemployment rate is above 25% which is very high for an advanced economy like South Africa. The black foreigners, however, cannot dent this unemployment rate even if they were all to be sent home. The impact of foreign blacks on unemployment in South Africa is negligible and exaggerated and impirical evidence support this.

The foreigner are just being used as a scapegoat for the deep seated problems of the South African society and economy which the ANC has not fully addressed. The ANC government shoulders the bulk of the problem that South Africa faces, apartheid not withstanding.

The Government has failed to deliver services and jobs to the black majority and the reasons are various but corruption is one of the major reasons.

The Government has failed to deliver services like water, electricity, sanitation, housing, health to the most disadvantaged communities. The areas where Xenophobic attacks are happening are the most affected by lack of services and the affected foreigners live in those communities.

There is no Xenophobia in suburbs and that is why Zambians , Batswana, Namibians, Tanzanians, Kenyans and others are not caught up there because the bulk of the immigrants from these countries are skilled and they live in the leafy and green suburbs of Durban, CapeTown, Johannesburg etc which are metropolitan in nature.

The lack of services is largely due to the ANC’s deploying incompetent cadres in Councils at the expense of skilled whites and giving contracts to cadres who are not able to deliver. The frustration of non delivery of services and unemployment has been passed on to the unfortunate foreigners who are living within those communities and are viewed as having been the beneficiaries of the freedom struggle.

It very important to also note that one of the major causes of the xenophobic attacks is the liberal immigration policy towards refugees by the South African Government.

The South African Government unlike many others in the world, naively adopted a policy of letting refugees to integrate in the various communities rather than being confined to camps like Zambia and many other countries did.

It is not surprising that the foreigners who went into the high density areas found a way of survival and saw opportunities for setting up small businesses. They did not necessary get jobs from South Africans but created their own jobs through setting up small businesses .The foreigners went on and out competed the locals in small businesses as well jobs and accepted lower wages.

The fact is that the businesses that these foreigners are running can be done by South Africans and this where Government policy could be found wanting. The question is that does South Africa need an Ethiopian, Pakistan, Somali, to run a grocery store in Soweto, Guguletu or sell Bananas and apples on the street of the Central Business district of Cape town, Johannesburg or Durban? TheAnswer is no! It is any government’s duty to take care of its citizens.

It is in this respect that the reservation policy where foreigners cannot engage in some of this simple and mundane activities that citizens can do should seriously be looked at. The reservation policy is one way that South African Government can reduce the influx of unskilled foreigners setting up small businesses that South Africans can do.

The other African Countries including Zambia should consider the same. The reality is foreigners will always do better than locals in most economic activities the World over but locals will not complain if the activities that foreigners engage in are those they have no competence in.

There is an issue that all Africans citizens and their Governments are not talking about and taking responsibility for! We should be honest that we have swamped South Africa with illegal immigrants especially like late British Prime Minister, Baroness Margaret Thatcher complained about Britain in the 1980s.

The numbers of African immigrants in South Africa especially the unskilled ones is unacceptably high for any country! It is my view that it is the high numbers of immigrants- legal and illegal – who have settled in high density areas that are the major cause of the problem of xenophobia today. Why should a Zambian or Zimbabwean, Somali go and settle in a shanty compound in South Africa? What value are they adding to the Country.

The cause of all this is the failure of leadership and a classic case is Zimbabwe with one of the largest immigrant population in South Africa. Zimbabweans started to go to South Africa after the meltdown of the economy after the grabbing of white farms.

It is not rocket science to discern that the failure of leadership in terms of economic management is the route cause of the uncontrolled immigration into South Africa! Let us bite the bullet and admit that our African leaders have failed us in the management of our economies and we better address this before blaming South Africa entirely.

The only problem with the South Africans involved in xenophobic attacks is the violent methodology of their protest about being swamped! You do not have to kill in order to put your grievances across.

Source:Lusaka Times