Fwd: [NaijaPolitics] THE CHICKENS FROM SOUTH AFRICA

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Sep 4, 2019, 4:25:13 AM9/4/19

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From: "Kennedy Emetulu keme...@yahoo.co.uk [NaijaPolitics]" <NaijaP...@yahoogroups.com>
Date: 3 Sep 2019 3:40 pm
Subject: [NaijaPolitics] THE CHICKENS FROM SOUTH AFRICA
To: "Politics Naija" <naijap...@yahoogroups.com>
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While Nigerians are rightfully feeling angered by the xenophobia going on in South Africa resulting in the killing and harassment of our citizens there and the destruction of their businesses, I’m hoping those at the very top of leadership in Nigeria are by now learning the right lessons from these attacks. Despite the recent meeting between Presidents Muhammadu Buhari and Cyril Ramaphosa in Japan on the sidelines of the TICAD meeting to discuss this, and the South African president’s promise to deal with the matter, we now have more reports of attacks against Nigerians and Nigerian businesses. In the not-too-distant past, we had what we called Citizen Diplomacy, which was a Nigerian foreign policy objective with the welfare, security and wellbeing of the Nigerian citizen abroad placed at the centre of foreign policy. It was initiated by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration in 2007, amplified by the Umaru Yar’Adua government and continued by the Goodluck Jonathan administration; but the Buhari government seems to have effectively killed it off for whatever reason. From what we are witnessing now, the Nigerian citizen abroad is not part of the consideration of any foreign policy objective because if he or she were, we wouldn’t have these killings still going on in South Africa.

Okay, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama is now blowing hot saying enough is enough and promising government will do something about it. Also, a member of the House of Representatives, Mr Kingsley Chinda from Rivers State is already calling on the Speaker, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila to recall the House from recess to discuss this matter immediately. We’ll wait to see what they’ll actually do, if they do. I have a few suggestions, but instead of stating them in detail at this moment, I’d rather we do a little bit of self-reflection as a nation because such honest self-reflection will invariably provide us the best way forward. That self-reflection must start with us looking at what is going on in Nigeria. When we have Fulani herdsmen going around and killing Nigerians in their homes and in their farms without the security services dealing with them or the state prosecuting them, when we have these people killing at random and the Miyetti Allah and the presidency justifying or excusing their actions, how do we expect others in other countries to treat our citizens? A few days ago we started seeing a picture of the governor of a state meeting with bandits and killers in the company of military officers ostensibly to negotiate with these bandits to stop the killings and kidnapping they’ve been engaging in for quite a while now. Some were justifying and defending this meeting on the basis that these bandits may have some hostages and that all the governor was doing was possibly negotiating for the release of these hostages. Of course, this is just conjectural as no facts or any form of evidence were tendered by these defenders to support their speculations as per the reason a governor would be seen in a picture with killers and bandits. Well, whatever the reason, I just know that the optics of a governor smiling on meeting an armed bandit in the company of an unarmed army officer to negotiate anything is the worst case anyone can make for security of citizens in Nigeria.

And it’s obvious the world isn’t impressed with us. The international community as a whole sees what we are doing to ourselves and are not impressed. For instance, no one outside Nigeria and the other nations whose nationals are affected by the South African killings are discussing it anywhere in the international scene. Yet, on Monday, 1st of September 2019, a day after the latest spate of killings started in South Africa, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Killings, Dr Agnes Callamard was calling on Nigerian authorities to take urgent actions to end the killings and violence in Nigeria. She is worried that Nigeria’s inability to tackle this matter will allow the killings to spread throughout the sub-region, due to the nation’s important role on the continent. Yes, our citizens are being killed in South Africa and the world is discussing us killing ourselves and they’re asking us to stop! That is the irony we need to deal with - the irony that our own killing of ourselves makes better international news and raises more concerns in the international space than the killing of our own people in another African country!

Of course, this isn’t to blame the UN or other nations for not intervening on behalf of our citizens in South Africa. After all, in international relations, every country takes care of number one and every country is left to take care of its own interest as it deems fit within the international system. At all material times, every country is on its own. So, all I’m saying really is that others around the world see how our leadership treats the life of the citizen within Nigeria and their governments and citizens would not on the basis of what they see feel that they have an obligation to treat our own citizens in their countries better. So, when we see these things in South Africa, before we begin to fume in righteous indignation, we must first reflect deeply about what we are doing to ourselves at home. If we cannot hold our own government responsible for the many avoidable deaths through citizen-on-citizen killings in Nigeria, how do we hope to hold another government and citizens of another country responsible for the killing of our nationals in their country?

Again, let me point out that this is not in any way condoning or underplaying the seriousness of the xenophobia and the resultant killings going on in South Africa. This is not saying the Federal Government should not act tough on the matter. In fact, I believe they should have acted firmly from the very beginning of this crisis this time around because this isn’t actually the first time. Whatever the socio-economic problems in South Africa, Nigerians cannot be used as scapegoats or morbid exhibits of misplaced aggression. Indeed, I was watching a clip of a comment by Mr Bongani Mkongi, the South African Deputy Minister of Police Affairs and I was shocked that a Minister in an ANC-led government can say the rubbish he was saying publicly, which was effectively a defence of the xenophobic attacks. The Minister said: “The question arises and we must investigate also what is the law of South Africa says. How can a city is South Africa be 80 percent foreign nationals? That is dangerous. That in Hillbrow and the surrounding areas, South Africans have surrendered their own city to foreign nationals, the nation should discuss that particular question. You won’t find South Africans in other countries dominating a city into 80 percent because if we do not debate that, that necessarily means the whole South Africa could be 80 percent dominated by foreign nationals and the future president of South Africa could be a foreign national. We are surrendering our land and it is not xenophobia to talk truth. We fought for this land from a white minority, we cannot surrender it to foreign nationals. That is a matter of principles. We fought for this country, not only for us, for the generations of South Africans. The arms that are being used here in Hillbrow are arms of war, which are unlicensed. The hijacking of buildings here in Hillbrow is a sign of taking over power. The question of dominance of foreign nationals in illegal trading and also businesses that are here in Hillbrow is an economic sabotage that is taking place against our people that are supposed to be those running those particular businesses. We are facing here service delivery protests.”

What we can see here is that irresponsible populism that costs lives is alive and well within the South African government. And like all such expressions of populism, it conflates issues, frames lies as facts and uses these to attack legitimate foreign residents they harbour hatred and jealousy against. I mean, what are the facts? First, Hillbrow is only an inner-city neighbourhood of Johannesburg. If we accept his claims that this part of Johannesburg is occupied by foreign nationals, that is not the same as the whole Johannesburg city being occupied by 80 percent foreign nationals. It’s also not a crime or cause for concern in a genuine democracy and in a country or in a cosmopolitan city that claims to welcome all persons from around the world who have legitimate reasons to live and work there. In big cities around the world, we have China towns outside China, but no one in these places complains that China has taken over these cities. South Koreans and South Korean businesses dominate New Malden in London, but you don’t get the English crying that South Koreans or Chinese are dominating their city of London. The basic principle is that anyone who is in the country legally can set up a home or business and with others can set up a community anywhere within the country where the state must guarantee their safety and freedom. If there are criminal elements operating in these areas, whether they are foreigners or South Africans, the job of the state is to protect all others, citizens and foreigners, from these criminal elements. But what this man is doing in the name of the South African government is isolating innocent foreigners for mob actions by South African citizens. This is not governance; it’s state-sponsored xenophobia.

Secondly, the man talks about South Africans fighting for their land against a white minority, but he quickly forgets that the fight against white minority rule in South Africa was an African fight supported by the whole of Africa, especially Nigeria and those frontline states whose citizens they are now killing in South Africa. Is this how you show appreciation for the help you received from others in the days of your struggle? Would South Africa have been free today if not for the sacrifice citizens and governments of those they are murdering today made for South Africa? Of course, nobody is saying criminal elements amongst foreign nationals should not be dealt with by the South African state, but listening to this Minister, this isn’t the case here. He’s complaining about “illegal trading” and “businesses” dominated by foreign nationals and he thinks his people should be running these businesses, but what exactly does that mean? Is he saying only his people are entitled to do illegal trading in South Africa or only his people are entitled to run businesses? Certainly, illegal trading is illegal, no matter who is doing it and the job of the state is to apprehend these persons, be they foreigners or South African nationals, and prosecute them lawfully. You cannot say only your own people must engage in illegal trading because that in itself is antithetical to the purpose of the state. You cannot say only your people must run businesses is South Africa because those foreigners doing so are doing so legally. The state cannot work to hand over legitimate businesses run by foreigners to their citizens simply on the basis of the owners being foreigners. We have many legitimate South African-owned businesses in Nigeria and our people are happy to patronize them and compete with them; we are not killing them and getting our government officials to say we should be running the businesses because we are Nigerians. Thus, what the killer South Africans are engaged in is not a service delivery protest as Mr Bongani Mkongi claims because this isn’t a case of Nigerian businesses not delivering on the services they offer. This is xenophobia and it is a most uncivilized way to handle a matter of public security in any country.

Thirdly, the claim that the supposed dominance of foreign nationals in one part of a South African city portends the possibility of a foreign national becoming president of South Africa in the future is an idiotic claim with no basis in fact and in law. I mean, by the very wording and operation of the South African Constitution, a foreign national cannot be elected into the National Assembly from where a president of the republic is chosen. Section 21(2) of the South African Constitution accords only citizens of South Africa the right to vote and be voted for, so what exactly is this Minister talking about? Where in the Constitution he’s presumably sworn to uphold is it stated that a foreign national can be president? That same Constitution in section 19 grants every person, foreigner or citizen, the right freely to choose his or her place of residence anywhere in the national territory of South Africa and that same Constitution under section 28 grants every person, foreigner or citizen, the right to acquire and hold rights in property. So, what is this Minister afraid of? What debate is he looking to have over the corpses of foreigners when the law of his country is clear about their rights in South Africa as residents, workers and business owners?

Here’s the truth, what is happening to the psyche of some South Africans, including some of them in government like this Bongani Mkongi fellow, is comparable to an extent with what’s happening with the psyche of some of us who are Nigerians today due to the effects of previous bad governance and bad political culture. This is the equivalence of an untreated national trauma. In the case of South Africa, this is the effect of Apartheid on the psyche of citizens. I mean, is the Minister proposing for foreigners to be put in Bantustans, away from the cities, just as blacks were segregated under Apartheid? Or is he proposing that foreigners should leave South Africa entirely? The South Africans doing what they are doing now in and out of government are doing so in the tradition of white minorities in and out of government in Apartheid South Africa who saw the black population as a threat, just as these South Africans today see African foreign nationals in South Africa as a threat. They have imbibed the cruel, ignoble and negative culture of Apartheid and are not ashamed to be exhibiting it today because they think it’s a continuation of their fight for survival as a people. In Nigeria, though I’ve stated this is only comparable to an extent, it is what we also exhibit in governance when we operate our democracy like a military regime. The many cases of government impunity and attacks on the rule of law and the lack of regard for citizens’ lives are carryovers from military rule. We have been exposed to a bad political culture that we think is normal. Even when the new political culture clearly states in law that we should not follow that past culture, in practice we interpret the law with a military mentality and in practice act as though we are still under military rule. Yes, military rule and apartheid cannot be compared fully, but their effects on the psyche of citizens can be the same, just as we see with the cases of South Africa and Nigeria. The basis of that negative response to national responsibility is a total neglect of history. If South Africans remember that without the efforts of those they are killing, they wouldn’t have the freedom they claim to be protecting today and if Nigerians in government realize that without the sacrifice of the citizens they’re oppressing today, they wouldn’t be in elective and appointive positions to rule over them, good governance would have ensured that in both places these injustices and uncivilized conducts are immediately done away with.

But, having said the above, I return to my core argument in this piece, which is the need for our own self-reflection as Nigerians and as a nation. Sure, our government must now act firmly and we must all support them in doing this, as far as whatever they do protects the lives of Nigerians in South Africa and sends a clear message to the South African authorities that Nigeria will stop at nothing to protect her citizens in their country. We don’t have the details of the discussion between Presidents Buhari and Ramaphosa in Japan, but we clearly heard the South African president taking responsibility and promising to act firmly to stop the killings and harassment. That’s what Nigerians must hold President Ramaphosa to. However, on our side, we must acknowledge that foreign policy is the other side of the coin with regard to governments and their overall policies. Foreign policy is and should be a reflection of domestic policy abroad. If we are not dealing appropriately with the question of law and order at home, we have no moral right to expect the government of another country to do so in their own country. Mr Ramaphosa can as well begin to regurgitate Buhari’s excuses with regard to the Fulani herdsmen killings in Nigeria. He can tell us that those doing the killings in his country are not South Africans, that they are foreigners who are streaming in from other parts of Southern, Central and Eastern Africa in search of the good life in South Africa because droughts have taken over their own countries. He can continue promising to bring these people to justice without lifting a finger. South Africans committing the offence can look at our country and say if we can do that to ourselves, they too can do the same to our hapless citizens in their country.

So, while we are trying to respond to this problem as a responsible nation concerned about the welfare and security of her citizens abroad, my hope is that we also begin to see how we undermine ourselves at home by not acting firmly on these ethnic-inspired killings going on in Nigeria. You might call it xenophobia when foreigners kill your citizens abroad but it’s no different from your own citizens or even foreigners killing your own citizens at home in their farms, on the roads and in their homes. I know that our cynical public officials may not even see it as I’ve stated here because, after all, those being killed in South Africa aren’t their children, brothers, sisters or relations. That may be true, but only for now because what they really need to know is that the death of any Nigerian abroad in these circumstances is a reflection on them as individuals and as public officials. They are not going to be in office forever. One day, the example they set in public service would be the fate of their own children and descendants. The blood of all innocent Nigerians killed outside would not only be on the heads of those who are doing the direct killing in South Africa, but also on the heads of Nigerian officials who are looking the other way and doing nothing when these killings are going on.

As Nigerian citizens, we need to advise our compatriots in South Africa to do all they can to protect themselves. Self-defence is a natural right every human being can exercise anywhere on earth in the face of danger. They should be careful where they go and how they move around. They must come together in their communities to develop and implement plans to survive while hoping the governments of their country and the South African government resolve this quickly. They should not take the law into their hands, but, as I said, they have a right to protect themselves. Now, while the rest of us leave the governments of both countries to act and find a way to deal with this shameful problem, we all can show our displeasure with Mr Bongani Mkongi by asking President Cyril Ramaphosa to sack him immediately because such a person is not fit to be in government anywhere in Africa. A man who can openly use his public position and faux nationalism to support xenophobia is not fit to sit in any cabinet. Let the hashtag below trend. Let South Africans see what we think of their Deputy Minister of Police Affairs, Mr Bongani Mkongi.

#PresidentRamaphosaSackBonganiMkongi

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Posted by: Kennedy Emetulu <keme...@yahoo.co.uk>

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Kennedy Emetulu

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Sep 4, 2019, 4:25:13 AM9/4/19

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Ashafa Abdullahi

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Sep 4, 2019, 7:36:42 AM9/4/19

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THE KILLINGS IN SOUTH AFRICA:THE NIGERIAN COMPLICITY

THE TRUE STORIES TO SHARE

I tried to keep my peace over this attack on Nigerians by South Africans but the increased calls by Nigerians over here for boycott of this and that and for our ambassador/Nigerian government to act this and act that has spurred me to pen this down here!

I condemn in its totality, the violence meted on Nigerians living in South Africa! I abhor the violent taking of life even one done legally....... BUT IT MUST BE STATED THAT NIGERIANS LIVING IN S.A. HAVE SYSTEMATICALLY DESTROYED THE VERY FABRIC OF THAT COUNTRY..... MORALLY, CULTURALLY, ECONOMICALLY AND SOCIALLY!

Let us take stock:

1. It was Nigerians that immigrated to South Africa and turned it to one of the major capital city of drugs in the world!

The drug cartels began with the Yorubas and increasingly overtaken by the IGBOS in S.A.! In fact, right this moment, the IGBOS in the drug business have effectively run the Yorubas out of S.A. to other southern African countries like Mozambique etc.

2. The Nigerians in S.A. have presently turned the country into a drug-war zone!....killings galore.....Igbos killing Igbos!

Do you know that every day in S.A., a Nigerian.....precisely an Igbo man is killed in a drug-related case?? .....I said every day not once a week!....or once in 3 days!..... EVERYDAY! In fact the Igbo boys running the shows in S. A. have dominated areas they control and all these to the chagrin of the law enforcement agencies!

Let me tell you a secret that is not so secret.....do you know that every week at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport here in Enugu, corpses of IGBOS.....slain in "drug battles" in different streets of S.A. are flown into the country??

I have personally witnessed the receiving of 7 corpses in 3 weeks in one instance! In fact at one of those occasions.....(normally the corpses arrive on the Thursday cargo flights of Ethiopian Airlines)....I was present when 3 different families were in the manager's office to receive their slain sons......two of those families were represented by the aged biological fathers to the dead boys!....the third family, represented by a younger man in age...an uncle to the third corpse!

They were making small talks between themselves as they waited for the cargo (the coffins) to be disembarked.....(to be "off-loaded")!

One of them asked the other elder which city his son was in? He answered Jo'burg!....on further enquiry as to whether his own son was married, he retorted... No!....to which the first man commented that his own son has a son from a white South African.....and that the lady simply packaged some of the personal documents/items of his son and informed him of the date of the arrival of the son's corpse to Enugu but that she has blatantly refused all entreaties to accompany the corpse home!.....That they are certain that that son of his son (his grandson) would never return home to Nigeria!

The other silent man (the uncle to one of the dead) remarked that "his own family were indeed lucky in that their slain son had been coerced to come home and marry a Nigerian girl and has 2 kids (girls) already". Then told of his own story of seeking greener pastures in S. A. and how he couldn't fit into the street hustling..... According to him.......basically all IGBOS in S.A. are on the streets......from Hillbrow... Jo'burg to Capetown!....from Pretoria....to Durban!

He said he never bargained for such a life and quickly left his host....a maternal cousin and took his return ticket back home! That he has since engaged in his petty trading and is doing well enough and has 4 kids!

As this conversation was going on, I was quietly musing to myself:

How on earth could these gentlemen.....soft-spoken elderly men take all these agony......for surely it must be agony for them to be the ones burying their scions!....how could they sit in those swivel chairs in front of the manager and stoically be discussing the end of their eras??......do they have other sons and daughters probably??.... Maybe they did their best to counsel and chide their sons to desist from the fast lane and have accepted their sons' fates??

I wondered about their wives/mothers to those sons they would never behold again....not because they died from ailment or accident but simply because they sought wealth......this fleeting wealth the wrong way!

I wondered if they would heal or forgive their sons or they would look upon the wealth and groan in satisfaction that all was not lost after all??

I imagined myself in the shoes of their grief and I swore to myself that I would sooner let go such a son from my heart who refused to heed my counsel than be forced to mourn his untimely death in pursuit of meaningless riches!

I watched them file out of the office one after the other and shuddered unconsciously again!!

3. This will shock you...... Are you aware that Nigerians living in S. A. have literally turned little/young South African girls into strings of well-oiled prostitution rings?? .....I am talking of girls between the ages of 10-14 years old! These young South African girls are introduced.....scratch that!....these girls are immersed in drugs and turned to addicts and then they are set on the streets to be prostituted and their lives are effectively and totally wrecked! .....

Now put yourself in the shoes of these South Africans!

Would we all as Nigerians stomach a situation whereby in Lagos State or Anambra State or Bauchi State or Enugu State or Yobe State or a combination of those states, Kenyans or Zimbabweans or South Africans or people from neighboring Ghana would populate our cities....legitly or illegally and begin to sell drugs to our young men...turn our school girls into prostitutes....and litter our streets with dead bodies of their gang wars?

Would Lagosians allow their children to be used as pimps and prostitutes by FOREIGNERS who desecrate daily our value systems??

Would Enugu inhabitants allow Ghanaians to run our streets into crime zones.....such that we can't sleep at night and worry if our kids sent to schools are really at school or in a drug hotel somewhere sniffing white powders....and our girls violated daily sexually??

Wouldn't we someday just scream enough is enough and take up arms to rid our city of such devilish foreigners??

Are you aware that Indians populate a city in S.A. called Durban?? Do you know that Indians at one time recently, carried out systematic killings of Nigerians living in Durban??

What was the cause??....there was some Indian youths that were sold a harsh substance by the drug cartel which would literally liquefy the innards of the person leading to instant death!

These drug pushers know that this substance is adulterated and causes death (not addiction) yet they push it out there to their peddlers!

The Indians decided to help themselves and their community and embarked on a killing spree of Nigerians in Durban engaged in the drug business and left their calling cards in their victims!

Ask yourself this:

Did the South Africans begin to hate us all of a sudden or they had always hated us all these while??

How come we all used to migrate to South Africa easily and many of us married their girls (I know some friends who did and are still living happily with their wives) but now they hate us all??

OR

Would you close your eyes to the evil we Nigerians have unleashed in South Africa simply because we saved them from apartheid era?? So because we assisted them that now gives us the gumption to destroy their society like we've persistently done ours??

Some home grown truths will serve us in good stead here than this pontificating all over the place I plead!

Picture those attackers on our people....beating and burning them up as mothers or fathers or brothers or cousins who have lost a son or daughter or sibling to the cold hands of death by drug intake or whose virginity has been brutally lost and who is a human wreck to her society!

Before you cast your stone.....imagine that you lost your own dear child to crime...and not just any crime but one perpetrated by your own visitors!

My take on all these: NIGERIANS SHOULD FIRSTLY DEMAND THE CLEANUP OF SOUTH AFRICA and that includes the incaceration and/or deportation of these miscreants giving us all bad reputation in S.A.!

The drug war raging in that country engineered by our countrymen must be stopped!

Then the two countries should rapport to safeguard the lives and businesses of the many genuine Nigerians living and contributing to the economy of South Africa!

PS: Pls after reading this post, but before you start the deluge of insults upon me, kindly call up your own brother doing legitimate business in S.A. and he will confirm these facts to you as the absolute TRUTH!

Chinedum Agwaramgbo

I found it interesting to share.

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Sep 4, 2019, 8:56:46 AM9/4/19

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Moses Ochonu

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BEYOND THE STREET ATTACKS: THE DEEP, CAPACIOUS LINEAGE OF AFROPHOBIA IN SOUTH AFRICA

Let no one tell you that the Afrophobic violence in South Africa is a recent or isolated phenomenon. It is not.

Makwerekwere, a term of contempt as dehumanizing and racist in its deployment as the use of "cockroach" to mark people out for slaughter during the Rwandan genocide, is not a recent invention. It was a staple of the South African xenophobic lexicon as early as the late 1990s and early 2000s when it was operationalized to demonize, devalue, and mark non-South African Africans for attack.

In 1996, when Mahmood Mamdani was pushed out of the University of Cape Town and accused of trying to Africanize the core African studies curriculum, it wasn't just white faculty members who kicked against Mamdani's curricular reform. Some black South African academics also were uneasy that Mamdani was trying to move the curriculum away from a pedagogy rooted in the Bantu Apartheid education policy, in which the "tribe" was the unit of inquiry and scholarly engagement, and towards an African epistemology defined in continental ontological terms.

In other words, some black South African intellectuals did not like the idea of redefining their country and its higher education African studies curriculum in pan-Africanist terms as part of a broader Africa encompassing both north and south of the Limpopo river. Several black South African faculty did not want their view of "African studies," which defined South Africa as an exceptional sociopolitical and cultural formation outside of Africa, challenged. Nor did they want their students to be taught about, and in the context of, all of Africa. South African exceptionalism, originally posited by the ideologues of Apartheid as a divide-and-conquer strategy, was carried forward by some black South Africans.

Along the same lines, when I was in graduate school at the University of Michigan, South Africa-based Kenyan literary scholar, Professor James Ogude, came to spend an academic year there around 1999/2000 and I remember him saying how his South African graduate students, when they were traveling to other African countries, would say "I'm going to Africa," and he would angrily correct them with the question, "and where the hell are you now'?

I never forgot that anecdote, for it revealed, even in that first decade of South Africa's post-Apartheid history, how black South Africans resented the rest of the continent and wanted to preserve and further the ideological, racist decoupling of South Africa from Africa. They had become the handmaidens of this segregationist ideology.

Earlier this year, when I attended the Africa conference at the University of Texas, I had the opportunity of having drinks with several scholars in the hotel suite of the convener, Professor Toyin Falola. One of the scholars was a South African university administrator. I cannot recall the beginning or trajectory of the conversation but this administrator eloquently and passionately narrated the history of how Apartheid ideologues formulated a policy of ignoring South African academics and professionals to employ black academics from neighboring African countries such as Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, and others. He was compelling. He couched his narrative in the colonial logic of divide-and-rule. It all made sense. I was left with the impression that this was a great explication of yet another instance of how apartheid played African groups against each other.

Then I went back to my hotel room and played back the colleague’s polemic, reflecting on its subtexts and unspoken underpinnings. It then occurred to me that he had launched into that narrative to justify the politics of excluding and resenting academics from other African countries on South African campuses. In other words, this was just a sophisticated academic version of the Afrophobic hate script being violently implemented on the streets of some of South Africa’s major cities and suburbs.

This is a rather longwinded way to say that South Africa's xenophobia/Afrophobia has a long and deep genealogy. It is not just the province of the unlettered, uninformed underclass in poor townships and suburbs. It reaches all the way to the realm of high culture, high politics, and high academe.

The Democratic Alternative (DA) party, claims to be the liberal alternative to the ANC and controls the provincial government in Guateng, where most of the Afrophobic attacks and killings have occurred. A few years ago, it released a hardline immigration policy that legitimized and pandered to the Afrophobic sentiments of poor South Africans in and around Johannesburg, clearly opportunistically and callously exploiting African self-hate for political capital.

As for the ANC, much of the attention has been on Bongani Mkongi, the hateful, inciting Deputy Minister of Police, and on several other ANC officials who have peddled barely disguised Afrophobic rhetoric in various political settings. But the current South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, last year gestured favorably to the Afrophobic street warriors by condemning African immigrants whom he said were invading townships and establishing spazas or small shops, a statement that accorded presidential authority and legitimacy to the hateful declarations percolating and circulating on the streets and on social media.

On Wed, 4 Sep 2019 at 13:45, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:

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A Facebook Post

Njoku Chibueze Njoku is with Hope Raikane and Chi Onyinye.
2 September at 23:33 ·
I have lived in south Africa... In fact i left in 2014. South Africa is called the rainbow nation because u find all the colours in south Africa. Blacks, Whites, Indians, Chinese, name it... And that is why RSA is today the most developed country in Africa not because of South Africans but Because of the foreigners.
South African Youths Especially the boys (itá boys) refused to go to school or have other engagements. They dont play with Alchohol and Weed, i mean Mixed weed, the one the call "Yahupeh" If u come to pretoria Central at night u would be amazed with what u would see. U would see so many people sleeping by road side, with the blankets, lined up in the cold winter because they cant afford house rent, these are south African indigenes.
These itá boys are complaining that Foreigners has taken their jobs from them meanwhile Nigerians and other Foreigners are actually the owners of most firms in south Africa and they Employ few South Africans who are reasonable, likewise other Firms own by South African Citizens even their Government.
How can u employ a drunk and a drug addict?
I know they also accuse Nigerians for so many things, most of which are false... I know what the major problem is, these South Africans (The black ones) Are so Lazy, The White south Africans and Foreigners though many are suffering but atleast can afford to rent a bed space and feed unlike itá boys. So many Nigerians especially those who came earlier are well established, living good, driving cars and south African Women are falling for them and these are driving South African Men crazy snd to worsen it, most of them are 30seconds men, they climb women the same way Cock Climbs the Mother Hen�, So their women are abandoning them to Embrace Nigerians.
How can u satisfy a woman when u have already destroyed ur system with Yahupeh?
Stop killing ur Black brothers.
Stand up and work, reclaim the legacy of Shaka Zulu and Nelson Mandela.
#Stop_Xenophobia_now

Selection from Responses to the Post

Slightly edited for
continuity

One Set of
Responses Consisting of a Debate Between a South African and Nigerians

Owen Ngomane This is no longer South African country. Population foreigners are more than us and they don't bring good things for our country. They destroy South Africa.

They own businesses here in South Africa but you can't find a South African owning a spaza shop in china,Nigeria etc. They want to take over our country and businesses we are like passengers in a bus.

MTN [ South African company in Nigeria] it's a legal company and it helps people. We don't have drugs company you built drug lab here in South Africa that is why you must thrown out in our country. Drugs kills South Africans what do you expect? You want me to be quiet? Ngazohlanya.

Emeka Jude Obiora Owen Ngomane you're just one of the junkies we're talking about. Who destroyed your country. What if we say SA companies like mtn, shoprite and dstv have destroyed our indigenous companies??? What if we retaliate?? Fu..king prick

Ogubie Ben Chinotex Owen Ngomane is there any law that forbid a South African to own a company or business firm in Nigeria and any part of the world? Sit up bro, you can own anything in any country if you have the cash or brain so tell your SA brother to sit up and create jobs and be productive and stop hating on Nigerians because we are just born hustlers not just in your country but everywhere in the world.

Some firms in Nigeria are owned by SA Stambic IBTC bank, ShopRite,MTN Nigeria and hosts of others..we don't attach them rather we patronize them and also create our own too,SA guys should stop behaving myopically and lean from average Nigerian guys on the street.

Are Nigerians forcing SA indigenous people to do drugs? They're patronizing it because they love it,if they refuse to take it Nigerians will still locate other businesses around you which you guys are blind to see, they are not doing only drug business in SA they have thousands of legal businesses in SA, people doing drug business are doing so because SA indigens are buying it big time...stop the hate and focus your energy on how to better your life and that of your countrymen.

Emeka Jude Obiora Owen Ngomane when there's a demand for the drugs what do u do as a business man selling drugs? You supply. If there is no demand, there would be no supply. And nobody will buy your drugs. You people are a pack of lazy junkies. Instead of you people to mandate companies like mtn to give back to the society, you're busy attacking us??? Do you know mtn can provide accommodation for every single south African with a pinch of the money there's making from us here.

Emeka Jude Obiora Ogubie Ben Chinotex he doesn't have an idea, do you know how much mtn moves out of this country??? Billions of dollars without paying appropriate taxes. The funny thing is that the company does not even invest in Nigeria. They don't have a single building in Nigeria, all is rent.

Stanley Emeka Ndukaku Owen Ngomane after killing the foreigners... You gonna turn against the Xhosa, after dealing with them you turn to the Ndebele and after that you turn to the Zulu... Maybe after that the Africaans. The chain continues until you all are done.

Eish wena... Too much of that pap and beef has really messed up your brains wena!

Another Set of
Responses Consisting of a Debate Between Another  South African and Nigerians

Marylee Lala Moagi Njoku Chibueze Njoku firstly i personally hate the idea of my fellow brothers and sisters from here in South Africa attacking any foreign nationals after all we are one nation.

"Not all of us South Africans are hating foreigners" I hoped that instead of throwing a live snake at each other and calling South Africans all sorts of names (have been reading comments) you guys that site will be helping us to transport and save lives of the innocent.

In ur statement u mention that " I know they also accuse Nigerians for so many things, most of which are false" meaning that u also know they are those that are true. Ooh!! By the way currently the reason for the Xenophobic attacks is not on job's. The reason for the attacks now is that a taxi driver was shot by a guy known to be a drug Lord around Pretoria(Nigerian guy)

Why can't we find ways of bringing those people who sell drugs both South Africans and Nigerians down in both countries rather than having them dividing nations that have had a stable relationship during the 90s

Njoku Chibueze Njoku Marylee Lala Moagi u know i respect u so much, but come to think of it... With what u just wrote now, how did it concern innocent shop owners?

Marylee Lala Moagi You personally know from ur stay this site how taxi drivers go about on strikes ,image like now when one of them is being killed. The killing of the guy by a Nigeria made them say don't want "Any" foreigners anymore in the country.

I don't know how can I send you a record of the suspect talking on how he will continue to destroy the country and use all the ladies. (Currently the record is going viral in my country and it's causing more havoc)

Sonia Wachijem Marylee Lala Moagi I don’t know if you guys are actually watching the videos of how they born people alive because a taxi driver was killed please my dear that’s not the reason

  Marylee Lala Moagi Guys I have been disturbed the whole night because of such videos. .they even burnt a child in a shack house (Zimbabwean)

This xenophobic attacks are not happening in the province(State) i stay in. .if u guys know people around Pretoria/Johannesburg/KwaZulu-Natal please tell them to come in Limpopo for their safety...

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Sep 4, 2019, 8:56:53 AM9/4/19

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Sep 4, 2019, 8:56:55 AM9/4/19

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