So This Is Our Reward For Helping South Africa?

After the Soweto massacre in South Africa, black students across South Africa formed the South Africa Students Organization (SASO). The motto of the organization was 'FREE SASO'. As students in Ghana, even though we were not domiciled in apartheid South Africa, we moved in sympathy with our colleagues over there and formed our own branches on many campuses across Ghana.  Those were the days when we used to have debating societies on campuses and we seriously debated different topics on the way the whites were treating black Africans in South Africa.  Critiquing the apartheid regime therefore became a passion for us.

In fact, we exchanged letters with our colleagues in South Africa and joined them in spirit.  The hawks among us wanted to join our brothers and sisters in South Africa and slug it out with the apartheid regime.   We saw Apartheid as evil and abhorred the system to the extent that those of us who were reading literature composed damning poems about apartheid.  Unlike the late president of Ivory Coast, Houphouet Boigny who was calling for a tete-a-tete approach to the South Africa problem, some of us wanted war as a solution to apartheid.

One day, Miriam Makeba visited Ghana and in an interaction with the SASO in Ghana, the beautiful lady who sung Malaika told us how Dr. Kwame Nkrumah ordered the Foreign Ministry of Ghana to issue her with a Diplomatic Passport since she could not acquire a South African passport because she ran into exile when the regime threatened to arrest her.  In fact, it was not only Ghana that provided the stateless Zenzile Miriam Makeba with an international passport.  Guinea and Belgium also did the same to the lady.  At the end of her wonderful and sorrowful speech we joined her in singing the ANC anthem:  “Nkosi sikeleli Africa.  Malu phakanyiso uphondo wayo. Yiya imithandazo yethu.  Nkosi sikelela Nkosi sikelela” (Lord, bless Africa.  May her spirit rise high up.  Hear thou our prayers.  Lord bless us, Lord bless us).  Even though Xhosa is not a language spoken in Ghana, we were able to sing the song in Xhosa so well that tears trickled down the face of Miriam Makeba.

All these while, the late Nelson Mandela was languishing in jail at the Robbins Island and we saw him as an icon in the fight against apartheid. A copy of one of the letters he wrote in prison which was smuggled out reached Ghana and you could imagine how it was photocopied and circulated among members of SASO.  In those days, the most popular and sought for pictures we all wanted to paste on walls in our dormitories were those of Nelson Mandela and Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary.  Even before Rawlings launched his 1979 revolution, we were revolutionizing in support with our brothers and sisters in South Africa.

The whole world, and Africans in particular, could not hide their joy when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. We even became more elated when the ANC led by Mandela won the election which led to Mandela becoming the first black president of South Africa.  Black Africans did not troop to South Africa to steal the nation's wealth.  Since we were brothers in arms during the fight for freedom from apartheid rule, black Africans felt the time had come for them to also contribute their quota in building South Africa.  So doctors, nurses. engineers, artisans, hairdressers and all manner of professionals went to South Africa to work because prior to the death of apartheid, the whites cowed and denied the blacks the needed education for them to be self reliant and employable.  The high unemployment rate in South Africa is not as a result of other black Africans taking over jobs.  It is as a result of the South African blacks' inability to prepare themselves for the job market.  And that was not their fault because under the apartheid regime opportunities for blacks were very limited.

Since other black Africans started going to South Africa, everything was going on well until 2008 when the first xenophobia attacks on fellow black men and women happened. Those attacks led to the death of many innocent black Africans.  The world and African leaders for that matter condemned the attacks and called for the immediate stop to the violence.  Those calls fell on deaf ears because before one could blink, another xenophobic attacks came knocking on our doors in 2015.  That too led to the death of countless black Africans. Those attacks too were condemned by all well meaning Africans but sadly one has happened again.

The black South Africans seem to be riding the wrong horse.  Corruption under Jacob Zuma is very endemic and as a result, investors are not attracted to the country.  Instead of the blacks in South Africa demonstrating against Jacob Zuma and his bunch of corrupt officials, they rather chose to vent their anger on innocent migrants who are contributing their quota in their own small way towards the development of South Africa.  Here in Ghana, we have foreigners competing with Ghanaians in trading, and even 'galamsey' operations but we are not out there displaying xenophobic attitudes.  Why South Africa, with such a vast natural resources and high technology?  The truth is that few things have changed since the end of apartheid in South Africa.  The slum, called SOWETO, overlooking the plush whites only skyscrapers, is still there as it was before apartheid was disbanded. The gap between the whites and blacks as far as riches are concerned is still wide and crime which used to be the problem of the apartheid regime has hit the sky.

AU:  ANOTHER TOOTHLESS BULLDOG?
“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph”  – Emperor Haile Selassie

On 25^th May 1963, the first organization, the Organization of African Unity was formed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  The then president of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah played a key role in the formation of the union which was initially made up of thirty two independent African countries.  A Charter was adopted with high hopes to help other African nations have their independence and also bring about change and freedom to African countries and restore dignity of the African people, particularly those in bondage in South Africa. The OAU tried its best but sadly its best was not good enough for Africa so it was dissolved in 2002 and replaced with the African Union.

Critics of the OAU argued that the Union in particular did little to protect the rights and liberties of African citizens from their own political leaders, and they often dubbed it the “Dictators' Club”.  Just travel down memory lane and read the list of dictators in Africa who were members of the Union, starting from our own Kwame Nkrumah to Iddi Amin and recently a bully and an inane and boorish character called Yahya Jammeh and you will side with the critics.  The dream of a United States of Africa as proposed by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah did not see the like of the day because there were suspicions flying everywhere as each president wanted to rule his or her own nation.

Unlike the OAU, the African Union is a geo-political entity, almost covering the entirety of the African continent, with Morocco being an exception.  Initially when the AU was formed some of us thought at long last the real unity that we have been looking forward to will become a reality.  What is happening in South Africa has forced us to revise our notes because things have rather turned sour and bad. If fellow Africans are clubbing and butchering their fellow Africans with clubs and axes, then I think, we should redefine unity.  So the AU cannot do anything apart from just condemning the acts of these South Africans?  What about sanctions which should be so biting that no African nation will dare tow the line of South Africa?

Anytime there is a xenophobic attack in South Africa, I remember the toils and travails   of our forefathers like Namdi Azikiwe, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Seiku Toure, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Kenneth Kaunda, Julius Nyerere, Haile Selassie , Modibo Keita, Leopold Senghor, Maurice Yamyogo, Nelson Mandela, Sadauna of Sokoto, Jomo Kenyatta and many more.  These were African leaders who risked their lives and put their noses on the grindstone to bring Africa this far only for a few black South Africans to turn the clock back. By now they may be turning in their graves and asking:   Is this the South Africa we fought for?

Eric Bawah