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Zuma must admit SA is Afrophobic

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WHEN South Africa got its first black majority Government in 1994, Africa celebrated hoping the continent’s dream of a united entity would now be realised.
Why not, when the rest of Africa had united in assisting that country’s liberation movements in dismantling the last bastion of white minority rule on the continent
None had imagined that although apartheid had been ended, its residual effects would continue to haunt the country and shake the rest of Africa.
The intermittent waves of Afrophobic attacks on fellow Africans that have dogged SA after 1994 are a result of poverty caused by the retention of the vast resources of the country in the hands of the whites.
But it looks like apartheid rule had conditioned black South Africans to accept the superiority of whites and their right to dominate the economy.
With the advent of black majority rule, the anticipated reversal of fortunes has remained a mirage.
The consequences have been disastrous.
Crime, prostitution, drug peddling, poverty and unemployment, among other evils, have continued to stalk blacks.
Instead of being angry with the whites for the racially tilted distribution of wealth, the impoverished blacks have identified a soft target.
And it’s none other than black foreigners.
This has resulted in what can aptly be described as Afrophobia as opposed to xenophobia.
Probably because of decades of apartheid rule, white immigrants are seen as benevolent managers who provide them with jobs.
That should explain why whites and their business enterprises are left intact.
It is unfortunate that it appears black foreigners are accepted as a convenient scapegoat by politicians for all the economic ills dogging the country.
What boggles the mind is that attempts by the powers that be to tackle the anti-foreigner violence is, at best, feeble.
For a start President Jacob Zuma has refused to blame xenophobia or Afrophobia outright.
And it looks like some leaders find it a master stroke to induce cheap emotional support from poor blacks by blaming foreigners for their poverty.
We still remember how King Goodwill Zwelithini and, recently, Democratic Alliance mayor of Johannesburg, Herman Mashaba, have resorted to the same trick.
The orgy of violence and destruction by the impoverished communities that has followed will remain a sad chapter in Africa’s history.
However, this is not what Africa had in mind when the continent joined hands in finding resources to facilitate the prosecution of the armed struggle to rid the country of apartheid rule.
SA’s liberation movements were provided bases in Angola, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, among other countries, to fight the apartheid regime.
This was at a painful price.
Lives were lost and infrastructure destroyed as the apartheid regime did not hesitate to carry out reprisal air raids into the host countries.
These are the very ‘foreigners’ South Africans have so often found delicious to attack when incited to do so.
No wonder nationals from these countries have found it very difficult to restrain themselves from retaliating.
During the latest Afrophobic attacks, Nigeria, one of Africa’s economic giants, had toyed with the idea of closing the South African embassy.
What is most regrettable here is the collateral damage to Kwame Nkrumah’s and, lately, Thabo Mbeki’s dream of pan-Africanism.
How can the continent be united when to some South Africans, Africa begins from north of the Limpopo!
President Zuma must be able to distinguish between Afrophobia and routine crime.
And that the Afrophobic virus shall always be exploited so long as poverty, due to unfair distribution of resources, persists.
It was gratifying, however, to hear President Zuma talking about redistribution of land recently.

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