XENOPHOBIC ATTACK IN SOUTH AFRICA

There are about 2.3 million Immigrants living in South africa, this number includes other Africans, chinese, bangladeshi, indians, middle easterners and europeans who are not born in South Africa. out of this number, 

only 1.6 million are Africans. The 1.6 MILLION Africans mostly run small shops, vending and service industries etc. They may lay claim to less than 0.00001% of wealth in South Africa

 Whites in South Africa make up about 8.7% of the population and control over 85% wealth. Though there are increases in black CEOs and managers, these are mere servants and just a optical presentations. There are about 6000 Europeans families who own over 85% of Agricultural lands in South Africa. So when I hear South Africans claiming that other Africans are competing with them on dwindling/scarce resources, I can’t but imagine how that anger and outrage is misplaced. African immigrants don't own lands, don't run companies, don't own mining companies, don't operate trophy hunting companies, do not ship out capital to European banks. 

 Haven seen some gory and shocking viral videos on various social medium, I lament at the misplaced anger, prejudice and xenophobia built up out of inferiority complex created by decades of apartheid and oppression. I still try to understand how fellow Africans see themselves as a competitor instead of a fellow compatriot who is struggling to feed his family and have some comfort in this short life-time.

 If there should be any underserved feeling in wealth distribution, research should be made to know who controls that wealth and it has nothing to do with some NIGERIAN, Zimbabwean or Mozambican working in a restaurant or Ethiopian running a small shop, or a Ghanaian mechanic working hard in the sun.

  

There is zero excuse to hate or despise any African, there are no merits for it and it's baseless at best. When African Immigrants living in South Africa start owning like 20% of wealth and not hiring South African natives, then I guess we can all be on the streets with you to protest. Till then, if you hate fellow African for simply running a simple store, I don’t know what best to call you or say?

What comes to mind in all this is, what is South African government doing about the situation? As some videos shows officials and law enforcement agents seen doing nothing to help the situation.

This takes me back to the words of NLC president wabba December 2016, when he condemned the words of the mayor of Johannesburg Mr. Herman Mashaba, “when he was widely quoted as blaming foreigners for crimes and asking them to leave the city. Comment such as these is careless, uncharitable and combustive. Xenophobes can find comment like this as inspiration, if not for anything but based on the fact that it is coming from their officials.

First question that comes to bare in all this is, What the African Union is doing to caution South Africans and come through for the countries involved? as this is a situation of pushing a country to the wall. And what practical actions is been taken by countries involved whose citizens are been killed and slaughtered like animal outside mere rhetoric’s and press conferences or individual interviews condemning the action?

By Olumese Eromosele and Ono Sefia