After a rather brief period of euphoria following the power transition in The Gambia, we are back to familiar gloomy news. Reports coming out of South Africa are not good. After an eighty year sustained struggle to overcome minority domination in the form of Apartheid, the majority black South African citizens have found a new enemy. It has not been easy; it never is when looking for scapegoats. First there was infighting and finger pointing among the liberation heroes; the elite versus the proletariat. When the wheels are coming off the bus, someone has to take the blame. Post 1994 South Africa was a gun powder keg loaded with expectations. The tempering hand of Madiba, the icon of the liberation struggle, held the forces together very briefly until he gave up power. In essence, Thabo Mbeki was the guy left to carry the can. Belonging to the minority of the ANC’s intellectual class, the proletariat struggled to identify with him and his defeat in the race for President of ANC in 2007 at the hands of his onetime deputy president, Jacob Zuma, led to his eventual resignation. And that is how South Africa embarked on what currently looks like a road to perdition. As early as 2008 the schisms were severe enough to lead to the death of 60 foreign nationals. The rainbow nation was hurting economically and it chose to offer the gods of prosperity generous quantities of the blood of those seeking refuge within their borders! Fifteen short years previously, it was not uncommon to bump into Zulu and Xhosa youth in any part of sub-Saharan Africa. In Uganda where I went to school, these youthful Umkhoto we Sizwe (MK) guerillas made quite an impression, particularly on the Rugby fields in the early 1990s. The legacy of MK in Uganda is officially recognised at Kaweweta military training camp which was renamed “Oliver Reginald Tambo School of Leadership”. The crisis of leadership that followed Jacob Zuma’s ascendency to the presidency has seen the economy of South Africa decline steadily from annual growth rates of 3.6% in 2008 to just 0.8% in 2016, but that’s just half the story! The country boasts of a very unenviable kind of record; since the end of apartheid in 1994, South Africa has consistently come on top of the table of nations with the highest GINI co-efficient, a measure of economic inequality among citizens of a given country. Unemployment among the youth continues to linger around 50% year after year. It is with these economic undertones that we must view the now cyclic attacks on foreigners in South Africa. The basic crime of these African immigrants in the eyes of indigenous black South Africans is to be seen to do well in a country that seems to be suffering economic meltdown. Statistics unfortunately never tell the whole story. Stats cannot explain why, for example, the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy ended up enriching a few well connected blacks (Tender Millionaires) at the expense of the majority. Stats will also not explain why a single family (originally from India) can wield so much power over the presidency to the extent of allegedly appointing government ministers! All these challenges notwithstanding, South Africa remains one of the largest economies on the African continent. The apartheid regime, with all its evils, still managed to accomplish something that still makes South Africa an attractive destination for any would-be migrant; a legacy of superior economic infrastructure to any other sub-Saharan country. When the country opened its borders to the rest of Africa in 1994, the indigenous blacks were confronted with the practical realities of “UBUNTU”. The word no longer merely represented an abstract philosophy; it felt more like Shylock collecting his pound of flesh. The same Africans who had readily opened their doors during the harsh days of apartheid were now arriving in droves from all directions to share the spoils of the liberation. Unfortunately, the former freedom fighters are now the new bourgeois class far removed from the daily struggles of the proletariat. The majority of African migrants arriving in South Africa are more likely to interact with black South Africans that have never been outside the country in their entire lives! This is why you hear statements like “they come to open up businesses here, why don’t they open them in their home countries?” these aren’t words from exposed individuals, these are words from closed minds who have come to view foreigners as exploiters and not worthy partners. The leadership at hand is promising no respite. Jacob Zuma, the man at the helm of it all, keeps insisting there is no problem of xenophobia in South Africa but rather criminality. While the rest of the world is just waking up to the rebirth of demagoguery, South Africa is well and truly ahead of the curve. Think Julius Malema and his stunts in parliament and you get the picture. Donald Trump may be hogging all the headlines, but South Africa has its own demagogues to rival him. The latest entrant on the scene is self made cosmetics tycoon Herman Mashaba, the current mayor of Johannesburg. During recent campaigns, he repeatedly alleged that “the illegal foreigners in Johannesburg are all criminals and they are messing up the city!” South Africans may choose to conveniently blame all their problems on the approximately two million African migrants out of the country’s total population of about fifty-five million people, but the real solutions lie squarely with them and their leadership. With all due respect, perhaps a lengthy chat with countries that have successfully built a cohesive post-conflict society would enrich the ANC’s currently rudder-less efforts to restore and maintain normalcy and examples abound. The writer is a Kigali-based consultant and trainer specialising in Finance and Strategy.
