SOUTH Africa never ceases to amaze.
It is ironic that when only last week, we marvelled at the belated reaction to the racist connotation Rhodes’ statue invoked, barely a week later we are stunned by the xenophobic attacks by South African blacks on those they perceive to be foreigners.
What stands out is that the so-called foreigners are exclusively black.
A story doing the rounds is about a white journalist who asked a black South African among a group hunting for ‘foreigners’, what he would do if he saw one.
“I will kill him,” replied the foreign prey hunter on the prowl, staring the foreign white journalist in the face.
And he means it since by now at least six people including a 14-year-old boy have been killed in the wave of attacks in several parts of KwaZulu-Natal.
This in a nutshell explains the ‘Afrophobic’ nature of the disgraceful extent South Africans have developed into racist maniacs.
To them, it would appear, foreign nationals are people from other parts of Africa like Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Burundi, Somalia, Congo and DR Congo.
While a white person from America, Britain, France, Holland and even China, India or Russia is considered indigenous.
And yet this cannot be considered to be accidental.
Just recently those who might have dismissed Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini’s call to chase foreigners out of South Africa as madness must be revising their assessment.
President Jacob Zuma’s eldest son, Edward, added weight to the king’s proclamation by also publicly expressing his anti-foreigners sentiments.
The rude reality is there for all to see.
Looking back, say to 2008 the present wave of carnage is not anything new to South Africa.
The unreserved condemnation by then SA President Thabo Mbeki, of the senseless killings of foreign nationals in May 2008 seems to have had no effect.
Mbeki, like most other South Africans must be feeling very ashamed by the behaviour of his nationals who were assisted by the rest of Africa in their struggle to dismantle Apartheid.
These are the very foreigners South Africans are butchering because of their periodic insane waves of xenophobia.
These champions of ‘Afrophobia’ should be aware of the fact that the artificial boundaries of Africa were created at the imperialist Berlin Conference of 1884.
Otherwise Africans should be one and the same.
It won’t be surprising if one of the Zimbabweans the Zulus might kill in their xenophobic frenzy is a Ndebele who is a descendant of Mzilikazi, a Zulu.
Indeed, most South African blacks are Bantus with their cousins scattered right across Africa.
There is also a credible argument that the South Africans are targeting the wrong enemy in their attack of foreign black nationals.
SA xenophobia could be a result of a reaction to deep rooted problems of deprivation dating back to the days of Apartheid.
As a result of subsequent perpetual poverty, failed education and absence of conducive social environment, aggression is transferred to what is seen as a soft target.
Black foreigners in slums and their businesses are the obvious target while leafy suburbs inhabited by the elite including the whites are left unscathed.
After being freed from the shackles of Apartheid, perhaps South Africans now have a feeling of superiority, hence as they were once bullied now it is their turn to be the bullies.
We may also not discard the role of whites.
The sophisticated intrusion of social media, where gory pictures on internet are quickly removed is a familiar style of this breed.
They probably fear that wide criticism of some these pictures might discourage further acts of violence.
This violence has to end.
The genocidal murder in Rwanda 21 years ago is still fresh in our minds.