So the rest of Africa cheered Mexico against South Africa in the opening match of football’s World Cup and rejoiced when Bafana Bafana were clobbered 2-0! It is only the deliberately mundane who cannot see why. Anyway, thank you South Africa because your insanity has helped to unify, galvanise and solidify Africa in a manner and degree never for a long time seen.
I have very high regard and respect for South Africa’s former President, Thabo Bheki, who though condemning the madness in his country, tried nevertheless, to dilute it as something that was not happening for the first time in Africa. He tried to draw comparisons between the xenophobia in South Africa with what happened between Ghana and Nigeria in 1969 and 1983 respectively. I beg to differ.
In the first place, I would compare what happened between Ghana and Nigeria as nothing more than ‘sibling rivalry,’ which is present in almost every family on earth. But most importantly, the actions in both Ghana and Nigeria, were at least backed by law and not the hooliganism we see coming out of South Africa.
In 1969, Ghana passed the ‘Aliens Compliance Order,’ which forced hundreds of thousands of undocumented foreigners, mostly Nigerians, to leave the country. Similarly, in 1983, Nigeria issued an executive order that forced over a million immigrants, most of them Ghanaians, to leave the country.
Granted. Ghana and Nigeria have not solved all the contentious issues between them, but have moved, however slowly, towards peaceful co-existence as neighbours and community. As I write, there are over 2.5 million Nigerians living and working in Ghana, the same way as there is an equally large Ghanaian Diaspora in Nigeria.
With due respect, the Nigeria-Ghana experience, offers a blueprint on how two African countries with deep rooted frictions could actually navigate a tricky path towards mutually beneficial relations. Currently, formal trade between Nigeria and Ghana within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), amounts to over dollars 162 million annually in official exports, energy integration and historically complex retail trading.
The South Africans on the other hand, think they are a ‘self-sufficient’ society that needs no fellow Africans. However, history and geography can never be changed. We in Tanzania, for instance, did not only provide refuge and succor to South African refugees and fighters during their struggle against apartheid but also donated our blood so that their injured combatants could get a second chance at life.
The debt that South Africa owes the rest of the continent cannot simply be wished away or arrogantly downplayed as being personal to Nelson Mandela.
Many Tanzanians laid down their lives fighting to liberate Southern Africa, South Africa included. We have never expected or demanded repayment. But now, the ingratitude shown by South Africans, is to say the least, not just heartbreaking but also archaic, rejected, barbaric and excommunicated, to borrow a bit of the Wole Soyinka vocabulary.
Our brothers and sisters in South Africa have made their choice. They want to be left alone. We respect that. But what is starkly unacceptable is the mob justice targeting of foreigners, mostly black Africans, based on the countries of their origin.
Fellow Africans in South Africa, you have sinned against the rest of the continent. Sadly, there is no foreseeable day of atonement, at least not in the future.
