POETIC LICENCE:
THE disunity of Africa, an active effort by colonisers to divide and conquer beyond their colonial ruling of the African continent, learned from the pages of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, is blooming prominently this October.
Like the Iceberg rose, as South African as mogodu, or boerewors.
With blazing flames at braais we conjure in our backyards, let us never forget we are a burning nation. The ashy remains of Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave, who was beaten, stabbed and set alight in Ramaphosa informal settlement almost thirteen years ago speaks of this fire that we ignite.
The eerie potential of another xenophobic wave looms at the bitter undertone of #Putsouthafricanfirst.
Yes, no one who should apologize for wanting to be prioritised in their country.
But how soon we forget that
South Africa and Zimbabwe severed official diplomatic ties in 1980 when Zimbabwe gained its independence. And that from 1980 to 1994, South Africa maintained unofficial relations with Zimbabwe through its Trade Office in Harare.
How soon we forget that in 1976 - while our ascendants were rising up in Soweto; where we learned how to dodge raindrops by practicing with bullets.
Where we learned that a tear gas canister doesn’t explode; If hauled back, it can sting the eyes of the coloniser too.
Where a dehydrated bullet quenched it’s thirst on the body of Hector Pieterson.
How soon we forget that in 1976 Nigeria set up a Southern African relief fund for victims of the apartheid regime. By June 1977, Nigeria had donated $10.5 million through the fund that was widely known in Nigeria as Mandela Tax.
I am not saying Nigerians are not bringing drugs into the country. Nor am I saying that they are.
There is no probability of a movement such as #Putsouthafricanfirst can sprout from unwanted parts of the garden like weeds. It has a basis. I am questioning this basis and putting on the table related issues that need to be addressed in tandem with the collective amnesia evident in my people.
Excuse my pro-blackness, but I have not heard the rhetoric of #Putsouthafricanfirst lamenting on those of European descent, the colonisers, to go home.
Have they no part in stealing our jobs? Bringing drugs into the country?
Those that settled in Cape Town in 1652. Those of the Dutch East
India Company in Table Bay that was created to supply passing ships with fresh produce. Those Dutch farmers who settled to grow crops, the Jan van Riebeeck brigade, they never left.
They are the same colonisers who eventually segregated us.
Think of Soweto as Africa. Think of how we are separated by our tribes, cultures, languages. Boarders are streets in these townships.
Who is to say that after #Putsouthafricanfirst, our tribalism won’t eat at us from within?
Let us not get to a point of #Putbapedifirst or #Putzulusfirst, for example, since no one who should apologize for wanting to be prioritised in their country.
Dr Steven Gordon from the Human Sciences Research Council wrote that concerning data shows that negative stereotypes about foreign nationals are rife in Gauteng.
To no surprise, #Putsouthafricanfirst is gaining more traction. And under this hashtag, marches have been arranged on Nigeria and Zimbabwe embassies with protesters calling for foreign nationals to go back home.
We understand the burden undocumented foreigners have on our already dwindling health care and equally to the futile service delivery.
Let us not also forget the alleged hiring of foreign teachers over our own, as demonstrated by unemployed teachers in Durban this week. This can easily be translated to other industries. Let us not forget all of this.
But let us remember our fires. How quick we are to scratch a matchstick on a box.
Let us #Putsouthafricanfirst, but be weary of the price to pay for the words we use. The tone we use to incite a fiery violence that we are going to claim was not our intention.