Musings of a wanderer: Holiday in Durban? No, consider Dar or Diani!
What you need to know:
We talked of the African World Cup. When the South African national team lost, South Africa donned Ghanaian jerseys and we nicknamed the Black Stars BaGhana BaGhana.
Before the Ghanaian team left South Africa, the city of Johannesburg hosted them in what was akin to a victory parade.
Little children in Soweto ran on Vilakazi Street and screamed in excitement when they saw their Ghanaian heroes in an open bus.
Asamoah Gyan may have missed that penalty, but they all wanted to be him when they grew up.
In 2008 I cried. I was at a literary festival in one of the wealthier parts of South Africa when I got a phone call from a South African woman.
She needed a safe place to go with her son. Her neighbours were threatening to kill her for being a “prostitute to foreigners”. The woman I am writing about is my aunt.
She is not related to me from my South African side of the family though. Rather, we are related because she was married to one of my Zimbabwean uncles. Uncle Ephraim died in the early 2000s but his wife was still suffering in 2008 for having married him so many years after he died.
During that time, we cursed the idiocy of the Standard Six dropout who stated on the news that he was killing other Africans for taking his job; we gasped at the 60 something year-old who ran laughing while carting her neighbour’s fridge; we were horrified when we saw an audience that uncaringly chatted as a human being was burnt.
Then somehow the attacks stopped. Or they stopped making the news.
We moved on with our lives.
We talked of the African World Cup. When the South African national team lost, South Africa donned Ghanaian jerseys and we nicknamed the Black Stars BaGhana BaGhana.
Before the Ghanaian team left South Africa, the city of Johannesburg hosted them in what was akin to a victory parade.
Little children in Soweto ran on Vilakazi Street and screamed in excitement when they saw their Ghanaian heroes in an open bus. Asamoah Gyan may have missed that penalty, but they all wanted to be him when they grew up.
Last Friday in Elmina as I walked along the shores of the Atlantic, I met a Ghanaian fisherman who had been in South Africa during that World Cup.
He talked favourably of South African hospitality during that time.
Then he asked the question I had been dreading. “Why are you now killing your fellow Africans?” I don’t remember my answer. I mumbled something. Then I excused myself. And cried. I have seen the videos, and just like in 2008, the Afrophobia does not make sense.
When not in an election year, I have noticed that the South African government (like many governments) does not listen to anyone who is not big business.
On Friday April 17, Zambians, Mozambicans and other Africans wore black, picketed and boycotted South African businesses. Here in Ghana, many of my friends stopped shopping at South African owned supermarket, Shoprite. I suggest that Kenyans do the same. Instead of that holiday to Durban, go to Dar, Diani, Seychelles.
There are those who may argue that the violence is not state sanctioned but the violence in Durban started after a speech by King Goodwill Zwelithini (who gets paid by the South African state).
The world suspended South Africa from international bodies and boycotted its goods during apartheid. We all can help now by taking action against South Africa. If South Africa does not need Africa then Africans can surely also show South Africa they do not need it by withholding their monies.
