SEEING THIS X-RATED SHOW AGAIN
Our ‘political leaders’ have not learnt from history and can offer nothing original to help the country
The tragedy of SA is that so little we have done here, politically, is original. From state capture to xenophobia, from petty corruption to populist personality cults, it’s all been done before on our continent and elsewhere. The political innovation of the early 1990s has all gone up in a puff.
It would be refreshing if the people pushing our country to the brink were doing so with some level of originality, but sadly that is not the case. It is all distressingly familiar.
Our “political leaders” have either not bothered to page through the history books or have chosen to ignore their lessons.
Somehow, in the year 2022 there are still those who believe that kicking out Somali traders or Zimbabwean waiters will create jobs for South Africans. In this day and age so-called political leaders still beat the xenophobia drum even when it is clear that our failures are due to the ANC’s failure to govern rather than the actions of illegal foreigners.
The ANC has, since 1994, failed to modernise immigration law; failed to secure borders; failed to enforce regulations on illegal migrants in the workplace; failed to call out dictators such as Robert Mugabe as he destabilised the region; and failed to show leadership on immigration.
It could not even put up a fence between SA and Zimbabwe without stealing the money.
So, we know why we are in the mess we are in. We also know from history that what is unfolding in townships — raiding poor small businesses and kicking out poor black Africans — has not worked anywhere and will not miraculously lead to improvements in employment figures.
Take Nigeria. In January 1983 Nigerian president Shehu Shagari issued an executive order forcing undocumented immigrants to leave the country or face arrest.
There were 2-million immigrants from neighbouring countries in Nigeria at the time. Many left with just the bags they could carry. Were Nigerians better off after that? Nigeria’s economy continued its inexorable descent into anarchy.
Take Uganda. One fine morning in August 1972 Idi Amin, Uganda’s military leader, told his cabinet he had been visited by God in a dream. The Lord had instructed him, he said, to expel the 60,000 or so “Indians” in Uganda because they allegedly controlled the economy. He gave them 90 days to leave the country.
Some of those families had lived in Uganda for many decades. They had no other home. They were kicked out nonetheless.
Their homes, shops and other businesses were handed over to Amin’s cronies. Within months food shortages were common. The Ugandan economy collapsed. Is Uganda an economic powerhouse today? No.
The point is this: there are no shortcuts to economic growth and job creation. You must put in place the right policies and implement them ruthlessly. That’s where our failure has been. Illegal foreigners are just scapegoats here.
Our silence when “foreigners” are hunted down, asked for their identity papers, and then frog-marched out of shops and their shacks will come back to bite us. Today it is the allegedly illegal Somalian, or Zimbabwean. Then it is the Venda, or the Swati, or the Indian.
We always claim it won’t happen here. Well, it has. Hundreds have died in xenophobic attacks in SA over the past 20 years. In 2008, at least 62 people died in one terrible wave of xenophobic attacks. It can happen here, it has happened here and unless we deal with the problem it will definitely happen again.
Given the way social media is used in organising these attacks, things can get worse very quickly.
Many forget that in Rwanda in 1994 the extremists used radio stations to urge Hutus to murder their Tutsi countrymen. In SA over the past two weeks social media platforms such as Twitter and others have been used to drive crowds to allegedly illegal foreign businesses where the business owners are asked to show identity documents.
In Rwanda they called it “hate radio”. We now have hate spreading via social media.
Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci once wrote: “History teaches, but has no pupils.”
Certainly not here, in our beloved country.
There are no shortcuts to economic growth and job creation.
The right policies must be put in place and implemented