'We built the city of Johannesburg together'

SIKI MOTSHWARI JOHANNES
Corresponent | Tuesday June 10, 2008 00:00

 

We are still where our forefathers left us over a century ago when our sub-continent endured a vicious cycle of poverty. In the last quarter of the 19th century, diamond and gold were discovered and exploited in Kimberley and the Witwatersrand respectively and the city of Johannesburg sprang up, thanks to the toils of our forefathers.

All roads led to South Africa. The profitability of the mines depended on cheap and unskilled labour from Botswana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia and Mozambique. The exploitation of minerals made South Africa the economic giant of the region.  Our forefathers toiled from dawn to dusk in the belly of South African earth to generate wealth for South Africa. Our forefathers built the city of Johannesburg when labour mobility was still permissible.

The influx of African job seekers in South Africa is not a new thing. Together our forefathers from diverse backgrounds laboured and endured the appalling living conditions in the mine compounds. But they lived and worked together in a spirit of mutual respect and peaceful coexistence. What has changed is that the present generation can no longer tolerate one another.

Today South Africa is still a regional powerhouse while many economies of neighbouring countries struggle as they did a century ago. Nothing has changed yet. The descendants of the creators of South African wealth are still trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and all roads still lead to South Africa.  The only thing that is changed is that it is no longer permissible for labour to move freely into South Africa. But it is now a crime for the descendants of the creators of South Africa's wealth to go there and ask for a fair share of the wealth bequeathed by their ancestors. The ancestors who built that wealth must be turning in their graves to see their sons and daughters butchering one another because of intolerance.

Unlike the present generation, our ancestors understood the importance of labour mobility. They understood that labour mobility is always skewed towards strong and healthy economies. As long as economic imbalances in the region continue in favour of South Africa, nothing will change. South Africa will continue to experience an influx of job seekers from weaker economies. This is a reality that South Africans must accept.

 History is simply repeating itself because xenophobia is not a new phenomenon. The recent outbreak in South Africa has a historical parallel. It is not a new thing that a nation that cannot find viable solutions to its own economic problems chooses to use foreign nationals as a scapegoat.

In the face of deep economic crises, the Nazi party in Germany, informed by a strong sense of nationalism, used the Jews as a scapegoat. Hitler made the   Germans believe that the Jews were standing in the way of their prosperity.  Consequently, the Nazi designed a policy aimed at purging them from German society and eliminating them as a race.   The truth of the matter is that the Jews faced persecution because they were a hardworking and industrious nation. Hardwork gave the Jews control of the economy while the Germans remained on the fringes. We hear that Zimbabweans are a very robust and hard-working people. Are they being tortured for giving their competitors a run for their money?

If not nipped in the bud, xenophobic attacks in South Africa might spiral out of control and assume the character of Hitler's anti-Semitic policy. Hitler's xenophobia was caused by a strong sense of nationalism as is the case with South Africa's xenophobia. Nationalism becomes bad when a people seek to advance its cause at the expense of humanity. The sanctity of life should never be traded for anything.