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By William G. Naggaga
Posted Friday, April 24 2015 at 01:00
South African President Jacob Zuma, in a statement to the national assembly last week, condemned as unacceptable the violence directed at foreign nationals in Kwazulu–Natal and Gauteng and similar incidents that took place in Soweto earlier in January this year. South Africans, he reiterated, were not xenophobic. Many in the opposition, especially Mr Julius Malema, the firebrand politician, were unimpressed.
According to Malema, Mr Zuma’s “body language” didn’t match his words, more so given his failure to reprimand his son for his utterances in support of the Zulu King, Goodwill Zwelithini, who reportedly called on foreigners, in particular Africans, to “pack their bags and go”. Although the king later said he was misquoted, whatever he had said must have been toxic enough to ignite such spontaneous attacks against African immigrants by some hooligans, leading to the death of seven people. In 2008, the same type of hooliganism led to the death of 62 African immigrants.
Mr Zuma is right that a majority of South Africans are not xenophobic but there is a significant minority who vent their frustrations on immigrant Africans, accusing them of taking their jobs and women. This can’t be true. There are only 2 million African immigrants in South Africa’s population of 50 million. They constitute just 4 per cent of the workforce in a country with an unemployment rate of 24 per cent. Even if all African foreigners returned home, South Africa will still be grappling with more than 20 per cent unemployment. Statistics indicate that 22 per cent of the immigrants are self-employed while 11 per cent have created jobs for South Africans. Also, many immigrants are highly qualified and provide invaluable services to South Africa. On the whole, the presence of foreign nationals, be it African or non-African, has made black South Africans experience a more cosmopolitan atmosphere and broadened their view of a world denied to them by the apartheid regime.
South Africans owe a lot of gratitude to African countries for the sacrifices they made in the fight against apartheid. I recall how, in 1974, the Africa Group in New York spearheaded the expulsion of South Africa from the General Assembly of the United Nations, to the anguish and embarrassment of its backers in the West. The President of the General Assembly was Mr Abdelaziz Bouteflika, then Foreign minister of Algeria. My good friend and colleague Ambassador Harold Acemah and I were present on this momentous occasion.
South Africans must realise that the dismantling of apartheid opened great opportunities for trade and economic co-operation with a continent which, until 1994, was forbidden territory. South African companies have worked with gusto, taking control of power supply, telecommunications, banking and financial services, supermarkets, etc, in many countries. South Africa Airlines now flies all over Africa. If African countries were to retaliate against what is happening in South Africa, the latter will count its losses in billions of dollars, far in excess of the few million dollars African immigrants are taking as wages and profits from South Africa.
President Zuma must assume the responsibility of addressing the issues of economic imbalance in South Africa and the failure of the economy to absorb the unemployed. South Africa is the second richest country in Africa after Nigeria but the most industrialised on the continent. The distribution of wealth is, however, still skewed in favour of the white minority and a relatively small number of politically well-connected blacks, leaving the rest discontented.
Mr Naggaga is an economist, administrator and retired ambassador.
