Am I Still an African?
Pictures: HALDEN KROG
Pictures speak a thousand words. What does this picture tell you?
Starting in Alexandra township last weekend attacks on African foreigners has spread like a highly infectious disease to other townships and areas around Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.
This madness of the mind and soul has claimed at least 14 lives this past weekend alone. This madness reminds me of the madness that gripped Gauteng during the 1980′s and early part of the 1990′s. This madness looks the same and feels the same; I hope it does not have the same motivations behind it.
In conservations and news reports (here, here and here) I hear lots of theories about why the poor have taken to burying their axes into foreigners instead of grinding them. I hear everything from the slow pace of service delivery to the economic squeeze being felt by the poor due to rising costs to foreigners stealing “our chicks” being blamed for this madness. Does any reason justify this type of inhumanity?
How are we capable of such inhumanity? Are we surprised given our bloody history that we have this inhuman ability deep within our society? Nothing justifies this.
It’s truly appalling to realise that many South Africans don’t want to acknowledge the debt we owe other African countries for the role they played in our liberation. It’s appalling that so many South Africans view this madness as their only route to express their frustrations. It’s also appalling that so many South Africans can take part in this type of frenzy with glee.
The truly frightening consideration is that all this violence may actually be completely random and uncoordinated i.e. there is no group or groups who are behind these attacks. How do you get control of something with no head?
Right now the most important thing is to get calm restored. Are we no longer Africans?
I am an African.
I am born of the peoples of the continent of Africa.
The pain of the violent conflict that the peoples of Liberia, Somalia, the Sudan, Burundi and Algeria is a pain I also bear.
The dismal shame of poverty, suffering and human degradation of my continent is a blight that we share. The blight on our happiness that derives from this and from our drift to the periphery of the ordering of human affairs leaves us in a persistent shadow of despair.
This is a savage road to which nobody should be condemned. This thing that we have done today, in this small corner of a great continent that has contributed so decisively to the evolution of humanity says that Africa reaffirms that she is continuing her rise from the ashes.
Whatever the setbacks of the moment, nothing can stop us now! Whatever the difficulties, Africa shall be at peace!
However improbable it may sound to the sceptics, Africa will prosper!
