THE gruesome murder of Zimbabwean citizen Elvis Nyathi in South Africa last week has once again brought to the fore several issues that need to be tackled as a matter of urgency in both Pretoria and Harare if the dream of a united Africa is still to be kept alive.
Nyathi, who fell victim to Afrophobic violence that rocked Diepsloot, northern Johannesburg, early last week was beaten up and set alight by a vigilante group that has been targeting foreign nationals in South Africa whom they accuse of committing crimes and snatching their jobs.
The brutal murder of Nyathi is confirmation that the simmering rage over the economic imbalances in South Africa are likely to boil over if concerns of that country’s liberation struggle are not addressed.
Zimbabwe has taken that route through the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme of 2000 that fulfilled one of the chief grievances of the liberation struggle.
The historic redistribution of that revered asset has since attracted the ire of Western countries who have responded by imposing illegal economic sanctions on the country.
The devastating effects of those sanctions which the opposition in the country shamelessly endorses are there for all to see. They have destroyed the country’s economy.
That does not, however, mean that other African countries should not give their citizens access to their land and resources.
Beneficiaries of land and other economic empowerment initiatives in Zimbabwe are doing exceptionally well in their respective sectors, keeping afloat an economy that is barely surviving in the face of the adversity that has been wrought by those sanctions.
Let us go back to South Africa and tackle the roots of the problems confronting the black majority in that country.
While that country, like many other countries on the African continent are ‘independent’, the economy remains very much in the hands of our erstwhile colonisers.
A report by the World Bank titled ‘Inequality in Southern Africa’ released last month gives grim statistics of the situation in South Africa in terms of equitable distribution of wealth and resources.
According to the report, South Africa is the most unequal society in the world with just 10 percent of that country’s total population owning more than 80 percent of all the wealth in the country.
“In South Africa, the legacy of colonialism and Apartheid, rooted in racial and spatial segregation, continues to reinforce inequality of outcomes,” reads the report in part which was released on March 9.
“Based on Gini coefficients of consumption (or income) per capita, South Africa, the largest country in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), is the most unequal country in the world, ranking first among 164 countries in the World Bank’s global poverty database.
“The Gini coefficient is the main measure of disparities in income and consumption, with zero being perfect equality and 1 or 100% representing perfect inequality.”
The report goes on:
“When inequality of opportunity is high, economic growth is less likely to help reduce inequality of outcomes.
Instead, unequal outcomes tend to become entrenched; this limits the investment opportunities available to poor people and hampers long-term growth.
“High inequality of opportunity tends to reduce social mobility, which contributes to the persistence of income inequality and slower economic growth.
“As households in disadvantaged groups suffer larger, longer-lasting shocks, they are also more prone to adopting coping mechanisms that lead to a loss of productivity and lower consumption in the longer run. This may increase inequality in the accumulation of human and physical capital, causing social mobility and economic growth to decline and income inequality to worsen over time, unless policies are put in place to mitigate the long-lasting impacts of the crisis.”
While issues raised above are of concern, it is imperative that South Africa comes together with its peers in SADC to come up with lasting solutions to the crisis confronting the region.
We cannot obviously expect anything of that sort from our useless opposition here in Zimbabwe, CCC which has sought to use Nyathi’s devastating death to score cheap points if at all they have any.
Following their masters’ script to the letter and spirit, CCC accuses the ruling ZANU PF of being responsible for the murder of Nyathi.
They claim economic challenges in Zimbabwe made Nyathi to ‘flee’ the country for South Africa. Well, patience is what we have in abundance, as such, we will never tire from bringing up to speed with political consciousness obstinate as they are.
“His murder was avoidable, horrific and Nyathi was a Zimbabwean citizen who was a victim of the forced migration crisis caused by the bad governance of ZANU PF,” said the puppet party in a statement on Thursday last week.
“The death of Elvis Nyathi is a stark reminder that ZANU PF has failed the citizens of Zimbabwe.
Citizens like Elvis Nyathi have been forced out of Zimbabwe because of man-made poverty, injustice and corruption.
No Zimbabwean should lose their life because they have been driven out of the country by failed leadership.
The regime in Harare has failed in its obligation to serve and protect citizens at home and abroad.”
It will be a waste of time reminding them that not every Zimbabwean is an illegal immigrant, which is what is called African unity and solidarity to which the CCC will never be part of due to their sell-out tendencies.
And ZANU PF duly responded to them.
“ZANU PF as a sister party to the ANC governing party of South Africa will always repose its trust and confidence in the brotherly government of South Africa to handle attendant matters so that the blemish that is xenophobia is erased in continental economic and socio-political affairs,” said ZANU PF Secretary for Information and Publicity, Ambassador Christopher Mutsvangwa.
“By the same token, ZANU PF is dismayed and appalled by attempts from the opposition CCC and right-wing racist circles to colour patent xenophobic criminality with extraneous political garbage.
“Specifically, ZANU PF scoffs at and condemns the specious linkage of xenophobic attacks to fallacious economic rationalisation of the blatant attack on the Zimbabwe economy by the post-imperial West since the historic land restitution to the black majority at the turn of the century.
“This only serves to expose condonation if not implicit complicity of the opposition CCC outfit in the divide and rule antics harking back to the imperial debauchery of the 18th Century.
“The murderous criminality hatched by pro-West shadowy and racist white vigilante groups of the post-apartheid era has no place in the new African century.
“These acts of a dying post-imperial order are indelibly etched in our minds of historical torment.
“Racist white vigilantes in South Africa are a desperate take off from the unfolding frustration.
“This spells the stark failure that is now facing the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) and other Western sanctions against Zimbabwe as President EDM and his Second Republic engineer a spectacular revival and rebound in the economy of Zimbabwe.”
Let those with ears listen.