Mzansi at crossroads
The virulent strain of xenophobia in South Africa has morphed into something more grotesque and nebulous whereby even bonafide indigenes are forcibly ostracised for failing to fit in the profile of a black South African.
Who gets to decide what template is fitting for a black South African, who decides who stays freely within the boundaries of the country?
The Venda and Tsonga, do they get to have a say in the matter or they’re are just as “makwerekwere” as those north of the Limpopo and further?
What about the African migrant armed with a whole sheaf of papers that confirm the right of stay?
When an entire nation begins to hide behind words, words like illegal immigrants, when in reality they are saying all African immigrants papers not withstanding, and South Africans of a darker hue.
When journalists jump in on that bandwagon it’s a sad day. It’s sort of expected of politicians to abuse words in that manner; it’s par for the course. But journalists?
In Rwanda the les miserables were referred to as cockroaches and in xenophobic South Africa they’re makwerekwere
The lackadaisical manner with which the powers that be are treating this whole fiasco is alarming.
The genie may be out of the bottle already but the consequences thereof are too ghastly to contemplate.
Rwanda, as harrowing as it was, could very well be dwarfed by what’s coming to Mzansi if her government continues navel gazing
Why is it that vigilante mobs get to be escorted by the police on their nefarious jaunts and why has government outsourced immigration enforcement and policing to a bunch of clueless and vindictive vagabonds?
Clearly the lessons of Rwanda have not been learned: colonialism divide and conquer tactics, the perpetuation of coded words like “illegal migrants” when in reality it’s all black migrants with or without papers, fullstop, failure to call out those using their public profiles to spread hate speech, and the media that has been co-opted into doing their PR work free of charge
And then the hapless politicians who are tacitly justifying or even outrightly encouraging it.
This is mind boggling. There are powerful external players fully vested in the collapse of the country following the filing of THAT litigation with ICC, powerful forces whose penchant for spreading despondency and pandemonium is well documented
Vigilance should have been the order of the day thereafter
Yes, there have been numerous flare ups in the body politic of South Africa heretofore: your uniquely South African necklacings, your run of the mill stabbings, your common place stonings etc, etc
However, the traction of this latest debacle suggests a hidden hand behind the scenes, pulling the strings
This is black on black violence on steroids. It would not come as a surprise for the hidden hand to orchestrate a highly placed assassination just to stir up the pot
The dildo of consequences rarely arrives lubed.
