South Africa: When The Rainbow Loses Its Colors

Is Africa a united continent? Are we serious about being each other’s keeper in Africa? Why should we fight amongst ourselves to the extent of killing each other? February 21^st, 2017 will go down in the history of the African continent as one of the saddest days for Mother Africa. This was a day when some black South Africans decided to attack other nationals in their country. Most of those attacked were Nigerians and other African nationals. Their shops and businesses were vandalized and burnt to the ground. Some of these foreign nationals also lost their lives as a result of these attacks.

Whiles the police moved in to protect the lives and properties of these foreign nationals, the attackers fought running street battles with them. They were complaining about not getting jobs as a result of these foreign nationals taking over jobs that were meant for them. But in my humble opinion and from my readings, these same South African citizens are not ready and willing to take up some of these so called menial jobs which the foreigners have taken up. The South African government should condemn these xenophobic attacks and put in place measures to curb future occurrences of this nature. My question is, why is it that most black South Africans are still under economic apartheid? Why have they not been empowered economically? Why do they look down on certain menial jobs but when other nationals take up these jobs, they turn around to attack them? Should the ANC government be blamed for these acts of lawlessness being perpetuated by some black South African citizens? Meanwhile, I have not heard the African Union condemn these xenophobic attacks.

Ghana’s Parliament condemned the xenophobic attacks in South Africa and measures have been put in place to safeguard the lives and properties of Ghanaian citizens living and working in South Africa. When the attacks do not stop, I think we should boycott South African products and businesses in Ghana. This will put pressure on their government to act swiftly and curb the xenophobic attacks. Have they forgotten so soon when almost all the African countries came together to help them fight against the apartheid system? What if we also retaliated as it was reported that some Nigerians wanted to vandalize some MTN offices in Nigeria? One thing we should know is that Africans need each other to survive no matter the situation. I am sure the western world would be looking at South Africa with glee and their sensational media houses will have a field day giving 24 hour updates on the situation in South Africa. They always want to project bad news from Africa to the rest of the world. It’s time we proved them wrong. South Africans should be ready to coexist peacefully with Africans from other countries as they are in their country to do legitimate business and also pay taxes to help develop the country. United we stand, divided we fall. Africa must unite.