Happy Birthday Mama Africa! You’re almost free.
All nations expect the Western Sahara have liberated themselves from colonial powers.
I Cry For You Mama Africa! You’re freedom fighters are unable to govern.
You’re own people have launched wars on each other, I know it causes you extreme pain.
I’m from the south and have noticed our people have a hard time with some of the countries up north. People from countries such as Malawi, Zimababwe, Mozambique, DRC, Nigeria and Burundi. My country hasn’t shown a lot of love to any of them, of late. I know we work well with African businesses and our government has hundreds of cooperation agreements with other African states, but here I’m referring to poor Africans, who set up businesses in small communities across the country. The guys who buy locally owned shops and pay rent, only to remain ostracised from the entire community. It’s important to note that this is not by force, but choice.
I remember when my hometown only had locally owned businesses. Only a handful full of shops, without an ATM or petrol station, in a township called Breitbach, 6 kilometres outside of King William’s Town. About a decade later and the number of local shops as been dwarfed by the new community from Somalia, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
One of the Somali shop owners operates from a wooden shack just down the road from my house. A few months ago he was held at gunpoint and robbed of all his money and some stock. After the traumatic experience, a few residents joked that he was jacked cos he’s from Al-Shabaab. These are the types of perceptions that flow among our people.
This is in such contract to the perceptions of South Africans that exist in the same African countries we’re seemingly oppressing. In Malawi, I was able to navigate freely through 3 provinces and had a soldier deployed to guard our team with Rescue-SA. All the while laughing with my Malawian brothers who’d come along to make sure we’re okay.
The way our people have treated others from Africa and Middle East is downright criminal. Many have concluded that the reason for this violence is actually the prevailing poverty, which requires a struggle to overcome. I submit the existing tension between shop owners from other countries and locals could possibly be resolved through their integration into community forums and structures.
The bent up anger should be transformed. Instead of burning down the shop, ask him to help you get a job, or enough capital to open your own business. One could argue “collective capital” is the main advantage of the shop owners from the afore mentioned countries in our small towns.
I saw it first hand. Once the network of shop owners is established in the community, they invite their friends or relatives from back home to visit and eventually stay. Later the small immigrant community funds capital for a new shop. All of this is controlled by one fund. Managed carefully to ensure the purchase versus sales ratio is favourable.
However, some shop owners are also criminals. Some are suspected of making use of goods from hijacked trucks, then make super profits on illegally acquired products.
At my uncle’s work place in the cash and carry, one shop owner filled his trolley with goods and paid, then bribed the security guard not to sign the slip. He then gave the slip to another shop owner, who selected exactly the same products and walked out with it for free.
These aren’t very flattering examples, but it’s a reality that’s part of what causes the tension.
And so our people should learn to operate with collective capital. But the country’s diversity is perhaps its greatest blessing and curse. We seem to be failing to rise to the occasion when the time comes to put differences aside and work together. Evidence of this can be seen in our churches, among teachers and in parliament. Our people have yet to humble themselves to learn from African brothers and sisters. In many cases their education is superior, but they are still treated and paid as unskilled labourers. It seems we are moving forward to unity, but remain entrenched in a fight to get to the front of the line. Our dependence on each other can be described in the Xhosa proverb “All throats are alike in swallowing,” as well as the Nigerian proverb “You can’t use your hand to force the sun to set.”
Happy Birthday Mama Africa! You’re day will soon come
The tinder box has been lit by a system of conglomerates,the revolution is drugs and violence.
I Cry For You Mama Africa! And fear the worst is to come.
Close you’re eyes for now, maybe next year I’ll write back in a better day.
GRASSROOTS 