Stop Afrophobia

The demon of Afrophobia is rearing its ugly head again in the squatter camp of De Doorns near Cape Town. This is one of the many tragic and embarrassing incidents that have plagued the so called new South Africa for years. This demon is as ugly as racism and Africans must eliminate it amongst themselves.

An intensive decolonization programme is required to exorcize this demon out of the minds of our people. This programme must be led by African governments; in particular the South Africa government must play a leading role for its citizens have been perpetrating these vile acts. This social ill has been with us for more than a decade and by now the SA government must be proactive rather than waking up from slumber and reacting after the fact. The Pan African Parliament (PAP) and the African Union (AU) also have an important role to play.

We must send a strong message of unity. Africans have the right to work, live and trade anywhere on the African continent. We must also stop the reactionary language of referring to Africans who do not hold citizenship of a particular African country as foreigners because that kind of language undermines efforts to build one African nation and furthers the imperialist divide-and-rule agenda amongst our people. Every part of Africa is home to Africans.

At the same time we must point out and educate our people to understand that if employers are violating the minimum wage laws they must be reported to government. It is the responsibility of government to ensure effective compliance with the legislative framework in the country. The buck stops with the SA government and it is government that must take full responsibility in this regard.

The fact that these acts are prevalent within poor communities is confirmation that the trigger is poverty whereas mental colonization is at the heart of Afrophobia. We must change the material conditions of our people as a whole. The notion of rich and poor African countries must be a thing of the past. There is no such a thing. What you have are the rich and poor people in all African countries. There is no African country where poverty does not exist no matter how rich the particular country maybe in terms of mineral resources because such resources and fruits of African labour is looted by neo-colonialists who in turn feed crumbs to the ruling elites as reward for maintaining the status quo, allowing imperialists to do what they started during the times of classical colonialism. The poor African working class masses must realize that they have the common enemy against which they must unite and fight; the capitalist system in all its forms and the state apparatus that supports it!

The resources and wealth of Africa must be shared to meet the economic needs of all our people. Capitalism is not an option for Africa or any society that is serious about solving poverty, hunger, illiteracy, disease and underdevelopment. There will never be enough resources, within the confines of a nation state or at a continental level, to perpetuate enrichment of a few people and at the same time address these challenges. Capitalism is in permanent hostile contradiction with the economic and developmental imperatives of Africa or any society for that matter.

We must all fight capitalism, aphrophobia, ethnic tendencies, tribalism, regionalism, territorial chauvinism and foster unity amongst African people, particularly the poor African working class masses.