This archive report was first published on 5 September 2019.
On September 5, 2019, South Africans were at it again, unleashing xenophobic violence on sub-Saharan African immigrants. This barbarism has sparked a chain reaction, with Nigerians responding in kind by looting and destroying South African businesses in their country.
The marauding gangs, masquerading as patriotic defenders of a motherland, have mostly targeted inhabitants of poor neighbourhoods, who are no better off than them. However, the mayhem has reverberated across the nation, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
It is imperative that the despicable acts of violence are condemned in the strongest terms possible. The fact that black South Africans, from time to time, rise up against their fellow blacks, ostensibly for taking their jobs or women, is a disturbing trend that must be addressed.
South Africans must remember that African countries stood with them and fought in their corner during the dark days of apartheid. They cannot, therefore, turn against them. The contributions of immigrants to the South African economy and culture cannot be gainsaid.
President Cyril Ramaphosa's government must address the twin problems of massive unemployment and an unconscionable wealth gap, a legacy of the decades of apartheid rule and the successive corrupt black regimes in the “Rainbow Nation”.
Furthermore, the government must prosecute and jail all the perpetrators of the violence and their sponsors.
