South
Africa’s Incredible Amnesia: Forgetting
Africa’s Contribution to the Liberation Struggle
IDEA
Viewpoint
April 24, 2015
We
at the Institute of Development and Education for
Africa (IDEA) are disturbed by the ongoing
xenophobic violence in South Africa against
African immigrants. Hence we present this
viewpoint and reflection so that our subscribers
have a good flavor and understanding of the mob
action against fellow Africans. We begin with a
brief historical note and proceed in analyzing and
critically examining the South African wave of
anti-immigrant attacks.
Not
too many people know about Massavana, the first
freedom fighter in South Africa. We like to make a
splashy reemergence of this protagonist in an
attempt to reconnect South Africans and other
Africans to what took place in the middle of the
18th century. Massavana, originally
from Madagascar, was captured as a slave captive
along with several fellow Malagasy men and put in
the Meermin Dutch ship that was heading to Cape
Town. In due course of the voyage, Massavana
managed to unchain himself in the lower deck of
the ship; made a surveillance of their captors on
the upper deck and learned that the crew and the
captain of the ship were asleep. He seized the
moment, unchains his comrades and managed to
control the magazine where the rifles were stored,
and effectively wrought a mutiny in which the
Captain and the crew were put under control by his
friends and him. He then ordered the Captain to
sail back the ship to Madagascar and set them free
in their home turf. The Captain agreed but with
deceit he headed toward Cape Town and upon
approaching the beaches of the Cape, some of the
crew hoisted a flag of distress and managed to get
help from the Dutch armed forces on the ground;
soon, a shoot out began between the reinforcing
Dutch and the Massavana group and the latter lost
the battle. Massavana was tried and sentenced to
life in prison at Robben Island in 1766. One
hundred ninety six years later, Nelson Mandela
would end up in the same island.
South
Africans and other Africans may not know or
remember the Massavana story because it took place
so long ago, but that of Mandela and the struggle
of liberation is a recent memory and South
Africans are cognizant of the sympathy and
solidarity extended to them by fellow Africans. At
least the South African leadership knows too well
about Mandela’s training in Ethiopia, the
African National Congress (ANC) base camp in
Tanzania, and the support they have enjoyed from
Zambia, Zimbabwe, other SADC (Southern Africa
Development Community) nations, as well as other
Africans.
Ironically,
South Africans have forgotten the material and
moral support provided to them by their fellow
African brothers and sisters. In fact, it looks
that South Africans have suffered from an
incredible amnesia and soon after they were
liberated from the yokes of Apartheid,
paradoxically they began attacking immigrant
Africans. What
could be the cause for their xenophobic fervor?
We ask this question because we don’t
want to blame the senseless mob groupings or the
sporadic anti-immigrant zealotry that has now
gripped the South African nation, outside the
larger picture in which the main problem lies.
We
want to focus rather on the root cause of the
irrational xenophobia exhibited in all major urban
centers of South Africa. Obviously, the root cause
for the lack thereof of the control of the economy
by indigenous black South Africans has to do with
the status quo ante of the former Apartheid regime
members, who still have the upper hand in the
national economy.
The majority of South African blacks, by
contrast, are either poor or maintain an under
poverty status, save the handful blacks who in
recent years emerged as successful entrepreneurs
and few more privileged government officials, who
may have betrayed the cause of the liberation
struggle.
The
second most important cause for the South African
xenophobia is the increasing diminishing political
consciousness of the present generation of South
Africans. Unlike the combatants of the ANC, the
PAC (Pan-African Congress), and other civic
organizations, who were endowed with political
consciousness, the present youth in South Africa
have considerably lost the track of the liberation
struggle. While the national anthem of the ANC was
Wiki Nikosi
Sikeleli Afrika (Lord Bless Africa in Xhosa,
Mandela’s mother tongue), the rallying cry of
the xenophobic mob is Buyelekhaya
(go back home) geared against African
immigrants.
The
Buyelekhaya movement, though spontaneous for the
most part, is nonetheless a relatively cohesive
force aimed at destroying the life and property of
other Africans and to some extent at other
nationals like Pakistanis, but not whites. The
question that comes to mind, however, is why did
the ANC allow such a gangster culture to evolve
and flourish under its watch? Is the ANC now an
emasculated party vis-à-vis the new political
trend of anti-immigrant psychology or is it simply
giving a tacit acknowledgment to the mob action?
Without even adequately answering the above
questions, the ANC has indisputably failed to
educate and mobilize the South African people and
rally them around pan-African agenda.
In
order to fully grasp the South African phenomenon,
our inquiry must be reflective of the scope and
range of South African politics. In the
post-Apartheid period, that is beginning 1994,
there is no doubt that South Africa successfully
established a viable political culture with
attendant robust constitution, open political
debate, and an independent judiciary, but as
mentioned above, the post-Apartheid regime(s) did
not economically empower South African citizens,
in particular blacks.
It
is worth bearing in mind that the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (TRC), court-like
proceedings that were held between 1995 and 2002,
were too much of a compromise. While the intent
and spirit of the TRC was positively motivated,
its “religious” overtone was a distraction
from a more pressing national problem (e.g.
unemployment, poverty etc.)
One
of the weaknesses of the charismatic and great
Mandela was his negotiated release from Robben
Island and subsequently his inability to change
the poor condition of his fellow citizens. His
successor Thabo Mbeki, likewise, made great
contribution for ANC’s external relations during
the liberation struggle, but he exhibited weakness
in good governance, had misgivings on the
prevalence of HIV/AIDS, and he was tolerant to the
tyrannical rule of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
Jacob Zuma, the current president is a great
listener and he successfully reconciled the
contradiction between his party and that of
Inkhata Freedom Party of the Zulu. It was handy
for Zuma to make such a compromise, perhaps
because he himself is a Zulu. However, Zuma,
almost always presided over xenophobic South
Africa and must be held accountable for the
violence directed against African immigrants.
During
the course of the xenophobic killings of African
immigrants, Jacob Zuma has only offered a lip
service to the problem, instead of taking a
decisive and concerted action against the hate
mob. There was a rally against xenophobia in South
Africa on April 23, 2015 but such demonstrations
would not be enough unless they are supplemented
by durable and sustainable government actions. Put
otherwise, even the most assiduous measures
against the mob violence and crime would be
meaningless unless South Africa embarks on a
revolutionary socioeconomic restructuring and
enable the majority of South Africans to have a
stake in the national economy, which apparently is
still in the hands of the minority whites. This is
an attempt to provide a suggestive model, but the
South African leadership knows better.
It
is in light of the above analysis that we must now
view the narrative of the violence perpetrated
against Africans as chronologically discussed
below.
In
1998, the Human Rights Watch reported that
immigrants from Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique
living in the Alexandra Township were
“physically assaulted over a period of several
weeks in January 1995”. In the same year one
immigrant from Mozambique and another from Senegal
were thrown out of a moving train.
In
2000, several foreign nationals were killed in the
Cape area, and between 2000 and 2008, 67 people
were killed. In the 2008 series of mob violence
against African immigrants, 62 people (including
South Africans) were killed.
In
May 2009, mob attacks flared up due to a
government policy of “illegal immigrants as a
national threat” and non-South African nationals
from other African countries were attacked in the
Western Cape, more specifically in Gugulethu,
Khayelitsha, and Philippi.
On
May 30, 2013, 25-year old Abdi Nasser Mohammed
Good was stoned to death; three Somali shopkeepers
had been killed in June 2013; on June 7, 2014,
another Somali was stoned to death. On April 19,
2015, a Mozambican, Emmanuel Sithole, was ambushed
and killed (source: Wikipedia).
Adding
insult to injury, the Zulu king Goodwill Zwelthini,
who happen to be the son of President Zuma,
fomented an atmosphere of xenophobia by his
rhetoric against immigrants. While some people
attribute Zwelthini’s attitude to business
rivalry, at close inspection, we believe that the
King and other authorities are trying to gloss
over the underlying economic problem in South
Africa.
On
April 11, 2015, “Ethiopians [were] badly burned
in South Africa anti-foreigners violence.” As
reported by the AFP and put out by the Daily Mail,
“Two Ethiopian
nationals suffered serious burns when their
shop was set alight by a mob, police said
Saturday. The men were in the shop in Umlozi,
South of Durban, when it was petrol bombed on
Friday night. They suffered severe burn wounds and
are being treated in hospital” police spokesman
Thulani Zwane said. (www.DailyMail.com).
The
Institute of Development and Education for Africa
(IDEA) urges President Zuma to take all necessary
action against the mobs that freely and wantonly
attack African immigrants under the watchful eyes
of the police. The African Union should send a
strong signal to the Government of South Africa so
that the latter immediately and effectively stop
violence against immigrants, and the United
Nations and other major powers should also
admonish the South African government without
compromising their diplomatic and national
interests.
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