Ladies and gentlemen, unjani? (How are you, in Zulu, a South African language) We have all read the newspapers, seen the online reports and videos of the violent, deadly attacks that have left scores of foreigners in South Africa dead and seriously injured. As an immigrant myself, these attacks touch the very core of who I am. What is the difference between the unfortunate immigrants and myself? Nothing! I consider myself to be very lucky. They were simply at the ‘wrong place’ at the wrong time…
Indigenous black South Africans are attacking other black Africans who just happen to be foreign. The only difference between the attackers and the victims is their birthplace; their country of origin. They are probably in the same station in life, going through similar trials and tribulations and pray to the same God for sustenance and mercy. Therefore, what causes the indigenous South African to take a machete, rock, panga, knife, axe, tire or gun and decide to annihilate another human being, with a soul devoid of feelings? How could South Africa, a country so full of hope, come to this?
Mandela must be turning in his grave. African brother or sister against his or her fellow African brother or sister. I am sure that he could not envisage this even in his darkest hour in solitary confinement at Robben Island. The same Africans who had harbored thousands of South Africans as they fought against apartheid. For example, Zambia had a 25% quota for South African émigrés in its only public university at that time. This meant that many Zambians who had qualified to join the national university in Lusaka could not join, as the spaces had been reserved for South African citizens. (1) Neighboring countries such as Mozambique and Zimbabwe fostered South African citizens and freedom fighters by providing them with free transportation, medical care, accommodation, security and generous emoluments to aid in the struggle. Many other countries, most in Africa and some outside, rendered political, immigration, military, social and economic assistance to indentured black South Africans and other South Africans who were in support of the struggle. There are just too many examples to list here. South Africa is now biting the hand that had fed them in the past.
In 1994, the whole world was all agog to see the ascension of Nelson Mandela to the highest post in the land. This was one of the highlights of the twentieth century! From a convicted felon in Robben Island serving a life sentence, to Mahlamba Ndlopfu, the Official Residence for the President of the Republic of South Africa in Pretoria! After his release from Robben Island, his message of reconciliation, hope and inclusivity and the pursuit of racial equality endeared him to both friend and foe. The concept of a Rainbow Nation was born. The whole world watched as the National anthem ‘Nkosi Sekelel’ iAfrika’ (God Bless Africa) was sung to international acclaim. South Africa had many issues to sort out but under Mandela’s leadership, South Africa thrived and quickly took its place as Africa’s second largest economy. South African companies, previously reined in by economic sanctions against the apartheid government, expanded worldwide. (2) There was the proliferation of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and South Africa became an economic powerhouse under the umbrella of the SADC (Southern African Development Community) There was a new scramble for Africa, this time by Africans. South Africa was the new rich kid on the block! As the strongest sub-continental economy then, South Africa accounted for a quarter of total Sub-Saharan gross domestic product (GDP). It was also the largest investor in Africa. By 2008, South African companies had put US$ 8.5 billion into the sub-continent, more than any other African country. (3)
South Africa became a very wealthy country, even wealthier than before, within a very short period of time. It was flush with cash. A new black African elite, the bourgeoisie called the ‘black diamonds’ was established and there was an exponential growth of the middle class. The new policy of Black Economic Empowerment, (BEE) was set up to bring about a more equitable sharing out of the spoils of economic development. (4) Affirmative action legislation to correct previous imbalances, a policy known as Employment Equity, was passed and all employers were compelled by law to employ previously disenfranchised groups (blacks, Indians, and Coloureds) Affirmative action was also introduced in schools and universities. However, there was not too much attention paid to the proletariat, the poor working class who were not part of the gravy train and did not have their standards improved by the government. The government paid them lip service, only coming to them during election time to mine for votes. Ironically, in some of the gruesome videos circulating on the internet, some of the perpetrators of the xenophobic attacks are people wearing the ruling party African National Congress (ANC) t-shirts, fanatical supporters of a party that has failed them!
So, what happened? Here’s what.
Corruption In South Africa
As I penned in one of my previous blogs (The Garissa, Kenya Massacre. A Synopsis) corruption is the sun that the planets of insecurity, inflation, unemployment, poor healthcare and budget deficits revolve around. It is the gangrene that finishes, engulfs, suffocates and kills otherwise healthy and robust countries off!
There are two types of corruption that are decimating South Africa. Business corruption and political corruption. In business corruption, ‘Tenderpreneurs’, individuals, are enriching themselves through corrupting the awarding of government tender contracts, mostly based on personal connections and corrupt relationships – although outright bribery might also take place – and sometimes involving an elected or politically appointed official or his or her family members holding simultaneous business interests. (5) This is often accompanied by overcharging and shoddy workmanship.
In business, BEE-fronting is an abuse of the rules governing Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), where qualifying persons are given a seat on the Board of Directors of a company while having no decision-making power in the company, in order to qualify the company for government contracts in terms of BEE.
Political corruption, on the other hand, is public sector corruption, whereby public funds are being diverted away from the public good towards private interests. Political corruption is firmly entrenched in South Africa. (6) Politicians and public officials divert public funds away from service delivery into their back pockets. For example, In 2011 the former head of the Special Investigation Unit, Willie Hofmeyer, reported before the South African parliament that between R25 billion (US$ 2.1 billion) and R30 billion (US$ 2.5 billion) was lost to the government procurement budget each year due to this type of fraud! (7) Wow! This is money that is being diverted from much needed social, economic and infrastructural programs.
Complacency On the part of the South African Government
The South African government just started arresting a few of the perpetrators of the murderous xenophobic attacks after a lot of national and international pressure. The number of people arrested is very few compared to the number of atrocities committed. The videos are there for everyone to see. The faces of those who have bludgeoned, slit, choked and lit the tires on fire are clearly seen on those videos. Some of them are wearing school uniforms, which means that they could ostensibly be school children. Uniforms that could make their identification even easier as the police would simply narrow down on the particular school that has such uniforms worn by its students. Forget the term xenophobia. These actions constitute murder, both under South African law (premeditated murder) and under the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights under the auspices of the United Nations. Article 3 of the declaration states that ‘everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.’ These killers should have been pointed out by the schools, community, police and general public and brought before the South African justice system.
I am sure many South Africans are against the abhorrent attacks. The whole world is grateful for those who have marched in South African streets to condemn the xenophobic actions of a few. However, you have to remember that it is the actions of a few and the inactions of the majority that cause these genocidal, ethnocidal and xenophobic attacks to escalate. In Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Rwanda, Vietnam and many other places where atrocities against humanity have been carried out, a few people started it all. A few extremists fan the flames and if not doused immediately, a wildfire ensues. You have probably come across and readPastor Martin Niemöller‘s provocative poem about the cowardice of German intellectuals following the Nazis‘ rise to power and the subsequent purging of their chosen targets, group after group.
“First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.”
The South African government has buried its head in the sand and refused to address this serious problem that threatens to tear down the fabric that constitutes South Africa. There have been other xenophobic attacks in South Africa but they did not escalate to such egregious heights or gain such notoriety. Initially, they claimed that the attacks were not ‘xenophobia’, they were ‘Afrophobia’, as if the hatred and killing of Africans made the actions and crimes any less severe and more palatable! Death is death, a killing is a killing. Does it matter who is being killed? Is an ‘African’ life less valuable, it’s death easier to explain away? There are usually many potent factors that are responsible for the current xenophobic attacks on African foreigners but there is the one factor that activated the bomb, the Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini, King of the Zulu, South Africa’s largest community. This dyed in the wool xenophobe allegedly called foreigners ‘lice’ and ‘ants’ and told foreigners to ‘pack their bags and leave’. Do you recall similar sentiments in Rwanda in 1994 or thereabouts, when extremists set up radio stations and newspapers which broadcast hate propaganda, urging people to “weed out the cockroaches”?(8) King Zwelithini is successfully following the same blueprints! Unlike his name, he has no ounce of goodwill in him! Once you refer to human beings as pests, then you give your followers a green light to annihilate them! The King is basically in a show of might and in a desperate mission to survive. He doesn’t want to be a ceremonial monarch despite the writing on the wall. He wants to remain relevant to the South African government. Why? Being a traditional monarch in South Africa can be and is a lucrative affair. A significant number of these rulers are formally recognized by state institutions and as a consequence, many of them receive generous stipends and allowances from the government. He also gets to enjoy other perks like frequent private air travel and keeps an exotic collection of automobiles, all paid for by South Africa’s taxpayers. (9) The South African government gives him (and other Kings) a lot of money in exchange for his loyalty and the delivery of election votes come election time. His lavish outlandish spending is catching up with him. Rumor has it that he is bankrupt. So, since he doesn’t work for his money and is spoon fed millions by the government, he is arm twisting the government, using the tyranny of numbers available to him to lease out during election time to give him more money to finance his harem!
The Hedonism Of South African Kings And Chiefs
South Africa is a republic with several thousand chiefs and headmen, and seventeen Kings, paramount chiefs and queens. (10) The South African Constitution doesn’t specify the renumeration of traditional leaders and Kings. However, South Africa’s 10 kings are each getting a salary of R1m (US$ 82,500) a year as well as many other benefits and subsidies – all courtesy of taxpayers. A government official confirmed that 10 kings, 829 senior traditional leaders and 5,311 chiefs had been paid over R650m (US$ 53.5 million) over the past year. The Eastern Cape’s four Kings each got a brand new Mercedes-Benz of about R703 000 (US$ 58,000) in the past year. (11)The irony is that, the traditional Kings want to be paid the same salary as the South African president, (12) all at the expense of the South African taxpayers! (13)
King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu, the traditional King of the Zulu people, South Africa’s largest ethnic tribe, takes the lion’s share! The South African government gives him about 54 million South African Rand every year, yes, I said every year (£3million or $US 4.4 Million) to keep him, a 67-year-old King, his six wives and 28 children in the style to which they are accustomed. What’s more, his allowance looks set to rise to R63million (£3.5million or $US 5.2 million) a year by 2017. Ironically, he spent £250,000 (US$ 375,000) to marry a 28 year old foreigner from Swaziland, a member of the same group of foreigners he is so vehemently opposed to, in July last year! (14) After marrying the Swazi maiden, Zwelethini swiftly and unashamedly asked for an additional R18m (US$ 1.5 million) to build a palace for her! You can’t make this stuff up! Oh My!
South African Leadership
Jacob Zuma. Where do I even start? Just google his name. When he took a shower after allegedly raping a HIV positive woman, South Africans should have been wary of him. However, ‘JZ’, as he is popularly known in South Africa, was in a Johannesburg state of mind. The swashbuckling, leopard skin wearing Zulu ‘warrior’ took advantage of an euphoric election wave and an ANC Party coup d’état to ascend into presidency and replace the cool-headed Thabo Mbeki. The oft-quoted Joseph De Maistre surmised that every nation gets the government it deserves. Before he even became president, Zuma had been mired in numerous corruption scandals but he used his political influence to deflect the charges. You would think that that would have raised a red flag to the South African electorate, but no… South Africans elected a fox to take care of the henhouse! Each morning, South Africans are finding hens missing from the henhouse, with the foxy Zuma with blood on his snout and they are somehow blind to the fact that the fox is feasting on the hens! He needs to be stopped before all the hens are gone! Since ascending to presidency, Zuma has been embroiled in more corruption scandals. There is the grandiose scandal over state-sponsored construction at his private residence in Nkandla, in KwaZulu-Natal province, whose cost has soared in the intervening years to 215 million rand, (US$ 17.6 million) with a further 31 million rand (US$ 2.5 million) in works outstanding. To put it in perspective, this is in a country where the average black-headed household earns 5,051 rand (£302 or US$431) a month. (15) Do you know why he is renovating his private residence? Zuma has 4 wives and about 20 children, who need to live lavishly! Also, polygamous families come with their own set of problems. Wives must be placed far away from each other to prevent frequent squabbles. In addition, the older women in the marriage don’t seem to take too kindly to new, younger, curvaceous brides being brought into the household every now and then after the payment of lobola, bride price! They feel neglected and as you know, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned! Sometimes, bad things happen, like the alleged poisoning of Zuma by his wife! (16) Well, the Zuma household needs to live lavishly! They need to keep up with their fellow Zulu Joneses, the Zwelithinis! These spendthrifts have learnt this excessive behavior from their Swazi neighbor, King Mwsati III, who uses state resources for his own personal enjoyment. He has the country of Swaziland’s exchequer at his beck and call. As unfair as this is, Swaziland is a sovereign country, a monarchy, different from South Africa and not bound by the same rules as South Africa. South Africa is a democratic nation that elects its leaders on the basis of universal suffrage. Why then, are the South African leaders behaving like South Africa is a conglomeration of kingdoms that are under the whims of their respective kings? We are not in 1810 anymore!
Zuma has been especially silent about the xenophobic utterances of his King. As I have scribed before, the trial of Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England under King Henry VIII, popularized the legal precedent and the maxim “qui tacet consentire videtur” (literally, who (is) silent is seen to consent). When you remain silent, your silence is so great, it speaks. Zuma’s silence has been so great, it speaks! It seems like he cannot go against his King. His King is superior to him and he, Zuma, is subservient to him. In any other situation, a person uttering such hate speech would have been arrested and charged under South African criminal laws. However, this Zulu King is immune to prosecution, courtesy of Zuma. He knows that no one can touch him. Zuma’s own son has joined the fray! He is saying the same thing the King is saying. He wants the foreigners out. You would think that Zuma would publicly and repeatedly distance himself from his son’s comments and even go further and castigate him openly for his xenophobic remarks, especially as leader of the country, but I guess blood is thicker than water! He has been especially silent on that too. His silence continues to speak!
Zuma’s corruption, ineptness and cavalier attitude about South Africa’s governance has trickled down from the top to the bottom. When the top guy is involved in numerous corruption scandals, it becomes a prime example of inmates running the asylum! Rampant corruption scandals involving the ruling party, ANC officials, from the highest level of leadership in government to the very lowest in provincial offices are the order of the day. The assassination of ANC leaders and allegations of ANC leaders hiring hit men to murder their opponents or those threatening to expose corruption is a normal occurrence. (17) South African is currently rocked by more financial and economic scandals than any other time in its history. (18)
Instability In Zimbabwe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe! The nonagenarian! I know that he is a ‘hero’ to some, the only person who ‘stands up to the whites’. Here is a brief history of Uncle Bob that shall change your stance about Mugabe. After wresting Rhodesia from Ian Smith, Mugabe became Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister after forming a government of national unity after reconciling with and reassuring former political rivals and white Zimbabweans. Immediately after independence, Mugabe went back on his word. To stamp one party rule, he orchestrated a genocidal attack against the minority Zimbabwean Ndebeles via an operation known as ‘Gukurahundi’ which left more than 20,000 Zimbabwean citizens mostly of Ndebele ancestry dead, mostly buried in mass graves. When Zimbabwe gained independence, Mugabe assured Great Britain, the former colonial masters that there would be a smooth transition of land ownership from white land owners to black citizens. Britain rolled out grants to Mugabe to facilitate this, grants that would finance the Zimbabwe government to purchase land from the white people and redistribute it to black citizens. This is what the British did in many of its former colonies, including Kenya, where the British gave grants to president Jomo Kenyatta’s government. The Africanization of the ‘White Highlands’ of Kenya, areas previously reserved for European settlement, was carried out through the Million-Acre Scheme funded by the British government and the World Bank, to facilitate the orderly transfer of ownership of farms owned by settlers who wanted to leave after independence. (19).
Mugabe, bowl brimming with cash, misspent the money. As you all know, war is expensive. As an example, The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest. (20) Mugabe used the monies for land redistribution to fund his war against his own citizens! He also used some of it to stash his foreign bank accounts. Mugabe is a clever man. The man with three degrees convinced the British government under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher that the monies were being used appropriately. He pulled the wool over the eyes of the ‘Iron Lady’! He would swig 4pm tea with Thatcher at 10 Downing Street, where he was a regular visitor, so much so that Thatcher’s political party convinced the good old Queen Elizabeth II to knight him! Sir Robert Mugabe continued with his charade until there was a seismic shift of power in the Conservative Party. John Major came in and pledged to reverse the recession experienced then by the U.K economy. So, when Mugabe came with his usual begging bowl asking for the usual land distribution money, PM Major would have none of it. He declined to disburse the funds and requested that Mugabe account for previously disbursed monies. An infuriated Mugabe came to Harare empty handed and hatched up a plan. He had no money and Zimbabwe, which had hitherto enjoyed a surplus, was now in the throes of disaster as they had a large budget deficit which needed an urgent cure; or a smoke-screen. Zimbabweans were antsy. Whenever Mugabe gets into a jam, he starts an ‘operation’. So, just like the buffoon Idi Amin, he would ‘hurt’ the British by chasing away their ‘citizens’, their people, the white farmers. Instead of Mugabe fixing the economy like other progressive leaders do everywhere else, he chose a smoke-screen. He thought that, just like Idi Amin, he would kill two birds with one stone; antagonize the British and endear himself to indigenous Zimbabweans. He would also solve, so he thought, the looming land problem which was hanging above him like the sword of Damocles! Any idea borrowed from Idi Amin is not usually a good one; Mugabe, the Orwellian dictator, cut the nose to spite the face!
Zimbabwe fell from Africa’s breadbasket to Africa’s basket case! Ordinary Zimbabweans, who initially fell for his scheme hook, line and sinker, bore the brunt of Mugabe’s miscalculation! The land they had been promised was somewhat redistributed, but to the powerful ruling elite and military leaders. White feudal lords were replaced by black feudal ones, with one major difference; the black feudal lords were not farmers! The farms were underutilized and food production fell by gigantic proportions. Many countries instituted economic sanctions against Zimbabwe. There was massive hyperinflation, which is usually a must-study in leading universities. Like Idi Amin before him, he couldn’t print more money to keep up. The Zimbabwean dollar as an official currency was effectively abandoned on 12 April 2009 due to the skyrocketing inflation. You can buy the 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar note on the website eBay as a collector’s item! Zimbabwe legalized the use of foreign currencies for transactions in January 2009. Zimbabwe was a failed state. Hordes of Zimbabwean citizens fled mostly economic turmoil to neighboring South Africa. Depending on who you ask, there are at least two to three million Zimbabweans in South Africa, if not more. These Zimbabweans have moved from Zimbabwe recently, from the early 2000s. Figures from South Africa’s 2011 Census suggest that 3.3% — or about 1.7-million — of the country’s 51.7-million population are “non-South African” citizens. These are the official ‘sanitized’ figures. Data collated by the World Bank and the United Nations also suggests a migrant population of about 1.86-million people. (21) Let’s do the math. If we extrapolate the figures, 2 to 3 of every 100 people in South Africa is from Zimbabwe. Even if we become ultra conservative and state that 1 in every 500 people in South Africa is from Zimbabwe, these are very worrying numbers! That might not be much mathematically but the xenophobic South Africans are seeing them everyday and blaming them for all the problems bedeviling them. Zimbabwe’s decline into a failed state has swelled up South Africa’s population. Most of the people emigrating to South Africa from Zimbabwe are working class people, poor folks who settle amongst the very poor in South Africa in the townships and ghettos and shanties. This inevitably creates a problem as they are competing for the few services and resources that the inept South African government is providing, or not providing.
South Africa was complacent in addressing the Zimbabwe issue. It’s government turned a blind eye to Zimbabwe’s fall from grace and it has come back to haunt South Africa. Whenever there is a failed state, there are bound to be problems both in the failed state (obviously) and in neighboring states. The failure of South Africa to successfully exercise influence over other African regimes which deliberately act against its core interests, is best represented by the case of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe where Pretoria had substantive economic leverage at its disposal. It is also visible in Swaziland where South African economic dominance is even greater.
Excuses By The Xenophobic South Africans And Why Their Excuses Just Don’t Add Up
Now, you have heard the litany of excuses that the xenophobic murderers espouse to justify their killings. One of the reasons that they are giving is that the foreigners are involved in crime and prostitution. It is incredulous that they are blaming foreigners for their high crime rates! If it is indeed true that foreigners are involved in crimes, arrest them. It’s highly unlikely that foreigners are engaging in crime. Obviously, there are a few foreign bad apples but rest assured, the absolute majority of crimes are committed by South Africans. South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world. Part of the problem is the inequities that the apartheid system created that stripped all resources from the indigenous African population and left them a shell of the successful communities that they had existed as before apartheid and colonization. However, the South African government has not treated the issue of crime with the seriousness it deserves (22) Armed, organized criminals are making a good living out of it. Since there isn’t enough to deter people from crime, the longer people get away with crimes, the more of an incentive it becomes to other people. (23) There is widespread corruption in the South African police service, making the solving of the crime menace even harder.
There are other numerous socio-economic reasons for the horrific crime rates in South Africa. Rapid, abnormally high rates of urbanization, leading to urban unemployment, the urbanization of the youth who are extremely conducive to crime. Massive unemployment, with no extended family and social support networks and a subsistence economy to support their basic needs. The difference between rich and poor in the cities is very obvious and stark. During the years of political struggle, many members of the former security forces and liberation armies were trained in guerilla warfare skills, like intelligence gathering, ambush techniques, the handing of firearms and explosives, and so on and so forth. Many of these combatants are now out of work and many of these skills can be used to commit hijackings, house and business robberies, bank robberies and robberies of cash in transit. (24)
South Africans are also complaining that the black African foreigners are taking their jobs. Black foreign Africans have always worked in South Africa. Africans from Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique and other African countries have worked in South African mines, industries and farms since time immemorial, even before and during the harsh Apartheid days, so immigrant workers are not a new phenomenon in South Africa. Yes, while it is true that foreigners are working in South Africa, many of those foreigners are shop and business property owners. If the South Africans chased the black foreigners away, would those South Africans set up shops for trade? Probably not. You cannot stifle an entrepreneurial spirit; case in point. When Idi Amin chased away the Indians from Uganda, most of them only had suitcases and very little money in their possession. Many went to Britain, dusted off their working clothes and got to work. Some of the most successful businessmen and women in the U.K today are of Indian ancestry and many originally came from Uganda. They have large portraits of Idi Amin emblazoned above on their fireplaces and mantelpieces. ‘Idi Amin is my hero. I would not be where I am if it were not for Idi Amin…’ they are apt to say. The immigrants pool resources informally and set up businesses in places the indigenous South Africans did not or could not venture in. That’s the same with immigrants everywhere. Immigrants hunt differently. In the morning in the wild, all animals have to be in the move. The hunted need to move to avoid getting killed/eaten and the hunters have to get up and hunt to avoid starving to death. Immigrants have to move faster than the locals, as they have more obligations so to speak. They have more ‘predators’ than the locals and have little or no social safety net protection. Chasing them away won’t change this spirit.
South Africa is feeling the heat. While the loss of life and destruction of property is bad enough, the damage to trade and investment is growing. The fallout from the xenophobic attacks is spreading to South African businesses. (25) Tourism has been hit by cancelled bookings and official travel warnings from several Western governments. (26) Protests are being held in numerous South African embassies all over the world and South Africa is doing damage control by sending its ministers to foreign countries to defuse the situation. Hopefully it’s not too little too late.
How To Stop The Xenophobic Killings
South Africa has to systematically fix its country and stop using foreigners as an excuse.
– South Africans have to elect visionary patriotic leaders that shall be free from corruption, not subject to the whims of traditional Kings and Chiefs. Moral rot at the top can breed lack of trust in government, disillusionment and chaos in society, but wise leaders with moral stature bring about stability.
– The South African government has to substantially improve the living conditions of its very poor, the people who have not accessed the financial success of South Africa. If the gap between the rich and poor is not reduced, then insecurity flourishes.
– South Africa has to rein in corruption. Corruption diverts much needed funds from development, social and economic projects which are siphoned off to the pockets of a few, usually with disastrous consequences. These funds, when they are used as they should, alleviate poverty, improve health care and reduce the budget deficit.
– The police, with the help of the three arms of the government, has to substantially reduce the crime rate in the country.
– South Africa has to be intensely involved in the affairs of its neighbors and realize that if their neighbors fail, they fail too. It has to force the hand of Robert Mugabe’s government and require the Zimbabwean government to implement a blueprint of getting their citizens back to Zimbabwe. This has to be through the implementation of strict economic and political reforms that shall get Zimbabwe back on the tracks of success.
– The government has to wean off the hedonistic Kings that are bleeding the exchequer dry.
– The South African government needs to streamline its immigration policies. Countries that ignore pressing immigration problems usually end up getting burnt by a few xenophobic riots, as evidenced by the current situation.
– South Africans have to accept that, immigration in this global economy and intertwined world we live in is inevitable. The most successful countries in the world are those that foster immigration and have a thriving immigrant population. South Africa was on this path to success but it is being derailed by rogue antagonists. There are many foreign skilled workers in South Africa, who are there because they are the best at what they do. There are also many skilled South Africans who live and work outside South Africa because they chose to and/or were the best at what they do in the countries they emigrated to, for example the South African oil workers in Mozambique, or the South African executives in Nigeria.
To all those that have lost their lives due to the xenophobic attacks in South Africa, Rest In Peace.
-By Kanyi West. Kanyi West is a founder and blogger at www.kanyiwest.wordpresscom
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