Xenophobic attacks: Is re-orientation an option?

Lazarus Sauti

South Africa, the so-called rainbow nation, will never and not be the same again.

The country is rocking in shock after violent xenophobic or Afro-phobic attacks claim the lives of foreign nationals in the last few days.

The barbaric attacks, started after Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini said in a public speech that foreigners in South Africa should return to their countries, triggered some questions.

South Africans claim that they are afraid of foreign nationals who are taking away their jobs.

Is xenophobia – the unreasoned fear of that which is perceived foreign – legitimate or just an excuse?

Another question is what happened to African values, to the culture of ubuntu – the spirit that embraces race, tribe, gender, sexuality and religion?

More importantly, is re-orientation (an act of changing certain attitude and beliefs) an option to end xenophobic attacks in South Africa?

Soneni Gwenzi, a radio personality, believes that the unreasoned fear is not legitimate, but an act of detestation, rage and animosity.

She also likened xenophobic attacks to cold blood massacre.

“Call it Afro-phobia; call it xenophobia. I call it cold blooded murder. I call it hatred, anger or bitterness,” she noted in a poem she wrote after seeing images of xenophobia on social media.

Subscribing to Gwenzi’s notion, whatever the challenges South Africans are facing and whether their fears are rightful or just excuses, no circumstances justify attacks on people, whether foreign nationals or locals.  

The slashing as well as use of tyres to burn fellow Africans to death not only goes against the spirit of ubuntu, but may ostracise South Africa from other nations.

It also dampens the Southern African Development Community’s spirit of trade and integration.

The fact that segregation is cascading to black against blacks, despite South Africa’s attainment of majority rule shows that there is a lack of pan-African integration as well as orientation from leaders and citizens of South Africa. 

Accordingly, South Africans need to be re-oriented in issues to do with ubuntu, regional integration as well as pan-Africanism.

A massive re-orientation programme needs to be rolled out to stop the hatred and prejudice of South African citizens against foreign nations. 

Former South African president and champion of Pan-Africanism Thabo Mbeki once highlighted on the significance of re-orientation.

In his address following one of the worst xenophobia attacks on foreigners in South Africa in May 2008, he clearly said it was critical for Africans to understand that they share a common future, hence the need to work together and not fight each other.

“We have always known that regardless of the boundaries drawn by others to define us as different and separate from our kith and kin, and even despise our occupation of different spaces across the divides occasioned by the existence of the oceans that nature has formed, we share with those of whom we are part, a common destiny,” Mbeki said.

African Union Commission chairperson, Dr Nkosana Dlamini-Zuma, like Mbeki, believes re-orientation programmes are important to ensure that citizens work together in finding solutions in order to build a better future for all Africans.

She, then, appealed for dialogue in communities to address the challenges and find lasting and peaceful solutions.

To fulfil Dlamini-Zuma and Mbeki’s dream, the time is now to educate South Africans and help them understand that their country is not an island, especially in this era of globalisation. They need to be reminded time and again that the reason why there is so much poverty among black South Africans is not their fellow Africans, but the colonial system they inherited from apartheid.

Further, South Africans need to grasp that the challenges of poverty and unemployment are also common to all African countries.

Nevertheless, South Africa also has an obligation under the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action to protect foreigners being attacked because of xenophobia.

“All governments are among other obligations required to take immediate measures to develop strong policies to prevent and combat all forms and manifestations of racism, xenophobia or related intolerance, where necessary by enactment of appropriate legislation, including penal measures, and by the establishment of national institutions to combat such phenomena,” noted the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted at the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993.

Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, a South African jurist who served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014, approved and urged South Africa to come up with policies to protect foreign nationals living in the country.

“They (foreign nationals) did not come in, they were let in by the government, the borders were open, and they were let in. So, there is a need for a national policy when you have an open door migration to ensure that the rights of migrants are protected,” explicated Pillay.

In the spirit of regional integration, leaders in South Africa must educate their citizens on the values of respecting human life in sync with the African Charter which calls for the promotion and protection of understanding among people and cooperation among states.

Emphasising on re-orientation is the only option to end xenophobic attacks; Mbeki summed it up very well.

He figured, “We need to do everything necessary to ensure that as Africans, regardless of our geographic origins, we will once more live together as Africans, at peace with one another, refusing to impose on ourselves a new apartheid order.”