South Africa: identifying Identity Crises
Richard Moleofe | Friday April 24, 2015 17:11
It seems a lot of fingers do point to the Zulu king, Goodwill Zwelithini for instigating this insurrection.
As an outsider I may be able to provide a better understanding of the phase that South African society is going through. I am at a better position to provide a perspective that helps to bisect the issues at hand and probably arrive at some answers to the problem.
The xenophobic violence comes the second time in the short history of freedom in South Africa. And what are the drivers of the insurrection if one may ask? From the surface, the people perpetrating this violence are blaming foreign nationals for taking their jobs (and sometimes their wives). That is if there any jobs to take in that country. Of course South Africa is a country grappling with high unemployment figures. Currently the statistics are showing a somewhat grim picture in as far as unemployment is concerned. For every one hundred thousand people there are twenty five thousand who remain outside of the employment brackets. In simpler terms that is 25% of the population.
Idle hands will always remain to be the devil’s workshop and in as far as I am concerned there is nothing that will change this English idiom. It is interesting that most of the people we see on our television sets peddling the crime of xenophobia are mostly young people who were probably born on or around the time of South Africa’s independence. They have no regard for sentiments held by the older generation regarding the different African countries that hosted them during the struggle for freedom. For instance, Lusaka had become a bee hive for South African refuges and there were so many of them such that they were key elements of the Zambian economy. They counted on their GDP contribution. When they returned from exile, Lusaka’s landscape totally changed.
The new generation in the new South Africa has not been through the tough phase of the struggle for freedom. They have been raised in a country so full of freebies. They get anything from free housing to child grants. I want to believe that the gravest mistake that Nelson Mandela did in his ledership role as their president was to adopt the RDP(Reconstruction and Development Programme) scheme. It was imperative that basic human needs (as according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) be met in a new political dispensation. Mandela’s strategy was greatly miscalculated and it is misfiring now in the form of xenophobic violence. The born frees are expecting everything to come their way at no cost.
The concerns raised by these youths are ridiculously ridiculous and this is why they will choose to play the act of violence rather than take the route of dialogue. From here on the nation of South Africa needs to seriously introspect
This is not the first time foreigners have been forced out of South Africa. In 1969 the apartheid government of the day chose to banish many from this land. This action shock the demographic foundations of South Africa because the exercise banished hundreds of thousands foreigners. Deportation of foreign natives by the white ruled South Africa at the time was better organized even though it caused similar social raptures for all those affected.
In the case of one a Botswana national Sabina Betty More, she was forcibly deported to Botswana even though her late husband Joseph More was a bonafide South African born in rural Bethane. It must be acknowledged that for the newly independent state of Botswana, this mass deportation served to boast the economy in several ways. When this mass exodus took place, the foreign nationals closed their bank accounts and repatriated their finances as well. This had a serious boost in the economy of Botswana who at the time was amongst the poorest of the poor in the world poverty ratings. Furthermore, all these people were bringing the much needed skills for the development of their country. They arrived at the time when Botswana was experiencing serious manpower shortages. Most of the civil service was still dominated by European expatriates who by all accounts played a white collar role in the economy while the deportations next door served to pour in a substantial number of artisans.
South Africa has been built by migrant labour and that dates as far back as the 19th century. The youth of South Africa must learn that we all have a stake in physically toiling to build the South African economy. Foreign nationals must be allowed some limited leverage in continuing their participation in that economy.
In the early days of independence, Botswana solely depended on the moneys remitted by those working across our common border. That was before the advent of the diamond industry in this country.
Maybe for many African migrants, it is a time to stop the brain drain and start showing patriotism by serving their countries from home. It is without doubt that their remittances are very much needed back home. But the fact of the matter is; their countries cannot be developed to desirable levels if they remain abroad forever.
In as much as we credit this violence to criminal behaviour, the state has to account for its own actions or miss actions in this case. The government has deliberately allowed the borders of the land to become as porous as possible. So far it has been free for all and the foreigners came in droves. Some have equally been involved in criminal behaviour.
But for the SADC leadership, the chickens might just be coming home to roost. As we may all be aware, attacks on foreign nationals have been selective. The migrant Caucasian communities have not been touched. They had their turn in neighbouring Zimbabwe when the government there allowed and sponsored violence against the white folks. Similar acts of human butcher were allowed and seen by the world via television. The most reluctant neighbour to Zimbabwe in terms of taking a stand against the violence was South Africa. It was at that time that these current young lions shaking the foundations of South Africa were still growing and they absorbed the culture of violence that we taught them. We taught them that the best way to raise grievances was through violence.
The South African government must be commended for taking stern steps against this criminality. President Jacob Zuma cancelled his overseas trip so he can address these crises. His actions are a clear sign of political commitment. Unless political will is exhibited by those in power, there will always be the willing vagabond who wants to try his hand on the properties of others.
The xenophobic killings coincide with the marking of twenty-one years of South Africa’s freedom. For any human being, that’s the attainment of adulthood. But the way South Africans have allowed themselves to behave is totally delinquent and out of order. This is sheer criminality.
Richard Moleofe is a Retired Military
Officer (Distinguished Service Medal)