Around 2008, what is called Xenophobia, broke out. This has been repeated from time to time and to state it simply, the South African blacks kill everyone that they can get their hands on, that hail from anywhere in the rest of Africa. We now have the African Continental Free Trade Agreement and the South Africans seem to be sensitive to truck drivers and other workers from elsewhere in Africa. They are so ‘sensitive’ that they kill them in brutal zenophobic attacks. We don’t call this racism which is a word reserved for dividing blacks and whites. No, of course these crimes are called by the correct word which is fear or hatred of that which is perceived to be foreign. I don’t really see the difference and this is clearly racism but only using the fancy word.
During August/September a brutal wave of xenophobia broke out again. Instead of dwelling on the history of this issue, I’ll just post a few of the milder photos and leave links at the end of this sitrep to an in-depth discussion on xenophobia. It truly is an interesting story. What I will not post, are the videos of people being doused with petrol/gasoline and set alight in the middle of Johannesburg and if that person is not burning fast or effectively enough, the chanting and screaming mob tosses cardboard and other flammables onto the burning person, to make sure he burns well and good! Be aware, to click here will be very disturbing from the May 2018 xenophobic violence, and it is better not seen. The following images convey the situation sufficiently.
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Having seen these photos, some of the milder ones, we have the Defense Minister, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, declaring that nothing can be done to stop these waves of xenophobic attacks: “The attacks against foreigners in South Africa were planned by criminals and the government can’t prevent it” and “The reality is that we have an angry nation. What’s happening can never be prevented by any government.”
Now if that is not a clear and formalized declaration of governmental incompetence, I do not know what is. I use the word ‘incompetence’ in its formal definition, i.e., not able to carry out the duties.
On street level, one hears this:
The Mozabiquens are taking our jobs
The Nigerians have claimed the drug trade and claimed Johannesburg for boko haram and human trafficking
Small Chinese stores in the malls are closing because of danger of xenophobic attacks
The Zimbabweans, mostly the truck drivers, are responsible for most of the farm murders
The Malawian truck drivers are taking our jobs
The Tanzanians are the ones hijacking trucks and cars
On street level, South Africa is turning into a gang run social sphere with schools calling parents at times warning them to collect their kids themselves and not to allow the kids to take buses or arrange small taxis because of kidnapping dangers.
Here under the heading of What can we say about the future? I expressed the expectation that we will see a type of Mogadishu developing with car bombs, running gang battles, attacks on hotels, death and killing run amuck. Just take a quick scroll through the headlines to see what this looks like.
In this very same previous writing, I explained how the state and the government are falling apart to the extent that there are very few government or municipal services left. Oh, they are there. They have offices, people come to work, visiting dignitaries can escorted and shown offices that look the part, but nothing actually works. It is not strange to make a request at any governmental or municipal office, and receive the answer that the employee is only there to collect a wage and it is too much like work to search for a document, or actually do the work of governmental or municipal affairs. It is easier to simply buy a driver’s license renewal, rather than go to the office and apply for a new one. This applies to all documentation. We needed a formal marriage certificate copy, and the answer was to come to the office and go search the boxes in the basement for the document that we needed.
A country can withstand this to a level, if there is a strong private sector. Unfortunately with the South African Black Empowerment legislation that denuded the private sector of experienced management and workers, the private sector is now falling into an equally miserable status. The biggest sugar manufacturer and one of the largest employers in the country is laying off more than 5,000 workers, with no safety net. Remember the jobless percentage is anything between 29 and 50%. Most of these workers live on the sugar farms in company provided housing and many of them have never worked, or lived anywhere else so, their skills are in sugar production alone. See this.
The CEO took home R16,7 million last year while producing 1.17mt of sugar last year, nearly the same level it was producing in 2012.
And this is of course the real problem and it is a governmental problem of subsidies. “ … distorted subsidies that have encouraged other countries to produce too much sugar has seen SA sugar prices fall.”
You see the problem? You see the problem of blaming everyone else? This once proud and beautiful country is imploding because of extreme mismanagement, blatant governmental excess across the spectrum, incompetence, too many hands in the money pots and the Chinese are still giving loans to keep the power and electricity provider functional. There comes a time where one cannot any longer express the situation in terms different than sliding into violent and life-threatening chaos.
A historical note : There are other peoples in South Africa that understood at the time the clear objective of the British overlords during colonization. Here is a letter from an old Pondo Chief, to the Russian Emperor in 1886. As descendants of AbaMbo, they migrated south from the Great Lakes around the 1570s, travelling through Tanganyika to Zambezi where they settled for a long time before moving south to present day South Africa. “Pondo people were originally settled in the Central Africa, in what was known as Nyasaland, but in the 15th Century they moved together with other tribes, south of Central Africa before splitting in Mpumalanga. The Pondos together with the Zulus moved to areas around Durban or Northern Zululand. Due to some differences, Pondos moved south of Umzimkhulu River and settled there with Mthatha River to the west and Umzimvubu River in the east,” says Maraqana.
To the Czar, St Petersburg, Russia,
Esihlonyane Pondoland, 10 Nov. 1886
“Sir, I again write, to you, I wish to explain our present position As a Nation. We are independent Nation subject to no other power up to the present Self Independent. The Pondo Nation now asks to be protected by you. The English Government wants to take away our Country”. The letter provides the details of the matter and adds, «P.S. do not listen the English Govt. what might they say. They might say perhaps the Pondo country belongs to them. They might say this to delude you as you are no aware of the facts, that it is false. The boundary of the Pondo Country Commences from Umtata river Mouth and up along the Umtata river and through Gungululu to Shawbury Mission Station, and go down to Ngxaroli and through Ishungwana and to the Umzimvubu River and Run along the Stream to the junction of the Imvenyane stream and along the Intsuzwa Mountain and to Celintcungu Mountains to Nolangeni Mountains through Engele Mountains. Another thing they have armed their subjects to come and fight us. As we have no friend to assist us we don’t want to be under the protection of the English Govt. We shall await your valuable assistance. The English Govt. is treating us most shamefully. The population of the Pondo Nation is about 200 000. Our country is very rich in Copper, Gold, Coal, etc. and all kinds of Minerals. It is for this reason they want to take away our Country forcibly against our Consent. Should you kindly agree to protect us? We would allow you to open all Mines in the Country. I have the honor to be Sir
Your most obedient Servant
Umhlangaso JS Faku for Paramount Chief Umqikela Chief Councilor and Prime Minister»
How the worm has turned. Chief Umqikela attempted to save his tribal lands from the British. Now the white boers have to save their lands from those that migrated in, same as what they did. Like the Pondo, the initial white Boer Republics were independent, self-governed republics exactly like Chief Umqikela’s tribal lands, in the last half of the nineteenth century. The republics came to an end after the Second Boer War which resulted in the British annexation and later incorporation into the Union of South Africa.
We all, black and white migrated into the lands in the South of Africa and more or less at the same time. The white South Africans have a full right to be there having migrated in, just like the Pondo people migrated in, and asked the Russian Emperor for help against the colonizers.
The only feasible and serious solution for my people in South Africa, is to revert back to a self-governed republic, separate from those who burn people alive. But, we are also the more law-abiding taxpayers, so, the current government will not let us go. The alternative toward a fast Mogadishu is too bitter to contemplate. The other alternative is sell the country to the Chinese. They at least have some concept of human rights, hard work and a functioning country. I do not know any longer how this country can be saved.
