Cry, the beloved country: Why many in Africa refuse to let go of S. Africa

What you need to know:

  • Well, aren’t we struggling with similar brutalities now, only coming to terms with the fact that the violence is still targeted at foreign Africans?
  • We have even accepted or coined names for it that convey the fondness we have for the country. The Rainbow Nation was easily accepted because South Africa is perceived as a place of survival, where people survived the world’s most heinous bigotry.
  • But we have a stake in the future of South Africa. As a Mozambican writer, Mia Couto, wrote this week, the brutalities are not simply attacks against foreigners, they are attacks against South Africa itself; they have desecrated the nation, its soil, and its promise.

All across Africa, people are hurting about South Africa, in essence still crying for the beloved country.

They are also extremely tired, not because they hate that country but because they cannot just let go of South Africa. They love the country too much. They cannot believe the horrors unleashed on foreign Africans recently.

They refuse to believe it in spite of the evidence from 2008 to date. Those were acts of genocide, but we downgraded them to xenophobia.

Many Africans rationalised away the heinous acts in 2008, blamed it on anything but official policy and repressed tendencies internal to the country.

Well, aren’t we struggling with similar brutalities now, only coming to terms with the fact that the violence is still targeted at foreign Africans?

The violence has been baptised Afrophobia. Many Africans cannot believe it because of all the foreigners who visit, work, or simply laze around that country. South Africans elected to murder fellow Africans, the same people with a demonstrable commitment to South Africa.

Africans have sacrificed the most for that beloved country, including simply crying for it in the privacy of their homes. When the US and many European countries supported apartheid, most of Africa vehemently opposed it.

They hosted uMkhonto we Sizwe. We can distinguish between frontline states and others but apart from Kenya, Malawi and Cote d’Ivoire, most African countries effectively supported the birth of South Africa as an independent country.

This is why it is absolutely unbelievable that South Africa hates Africa that much. There are many countries in Africa or the world that are easily forgettable. South Africa is firmly etched in the minds of many Africans.

PLACE OF SURVIVAL

We have even accepted or coined names for it that convey the fondness we have for the country. The Rainbow Nation was easily accepted because South Africa is perceived as a place of survival, where people survived the world’s most heinous bigotry.

Africa embraced South Africans without reservations. Sit with any ANC comrade and they will speak about countries like Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania or Nigeria with familiarity and fondness.

Last month, former President Thabo Mbeki spoke fondly of Nigeria when he accepted the Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership. If Jacob Zuma was to write, he would speak of Maputo with such familiarity.

Even Nelson Mandela would speak highly of many countries including Tanzania. Mozambique paid a huge price, Samora Machel paid with his life when his presidential plane was brought down in 1986.

We do not remember these things because we all want to migrate to South Africa. South African elite must begin to underestimate their importance to the rest of Africa. South African embassies in Africa can begin by treating us humanely.

When the US embassy treats us with more dignity than the South African embassy, we wonder what it is South Africa has that we might steal. Many of us choose where to travel. I, for one, don’t travel to Egypt after a shabby treatment at their embassy in 2006.

And quite frankly, Kenya is too interesting a place for me to easily go waste away. In fact, the options for many professional Kenyans are too many; we are spoilt for choice.

But we have a stake in the future of South Africa. As a Mozambican writer, Mia Couto, wrote this week, the brutalities are not simply attacks against foreigners, they are attacks against South Africa itself; they have desecrated the nation, its soil, and its promise.

We remember these things because South African exceptionalism is a myth that Africa refuses to countenance. Yet, we worry that the myth is exploding to greater prominence with ANC comrades in power.

In that geographic contraption called Africa North of Limpopo, we find these brutalities to be the cruelest irony of modern times.

Godwin Murunga is senior research fellow, Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi.