Xenophobia? Save Your Venom For The South Africans! Part-1
PROLOGUE.
This topic is discussed in a three-part series:
Part 1 touches on the telling consequences of sudden dislocation resulting from the violence of xenophobic attacks.
Part 2 discusses the human causes of xenophobia, while,
Part 3 attempts at proferring solutions...
My decision to discuss Consequences before Causes is deliberate.
All the parts must be read in full.
It is my fervent hope and strong recommendation that the points so painstakingly rendered would be abided with. For it is by so doing that a definite halt would be put to these recurring....albeit scientifically predictable....cycles of human greed and violence....
"South Africans Go On Rampage!"
"Stop This Xenophobia!"
...screamed news headlines....in recent weeks as South Africans mass into huge crowds in the streets of major cities....Pretoria. Cape Town. Durban. Jo'Burg....killing "foreigners", maiming them, ejecting them from their homes. TV footages even show one person being roasted in the streets whilst securitymen merely stood askance and watched!
Responses by Nigerians were as varied as they were impulsive:
The Nigerian government seems to be at sixes and sevens as to decide on appropriate diplomatic response....meekly counselling its nationals to stay indoors!
But South Africans simply ask landlords among them to eject such "foreigners"!
You may then wonder: How callous can these South Africans be! Nigeria contributed a lot in seeing them out of apartheid! Yet they seem to have been conditioned to violence by apartheid!
One full-blooded lawyer even went the usual route of the Igboman....accusing the South Africans of "jealousing" its guests! We would thrash the issue of bad english in this lawyer on another day...
LATEST REACTION BY THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT.
"Nigeria to evacuate nationals from South Africa this week..."
You may not appreciate the shock inherent in emergency evacuations of nationals from crisis-ridden zones except you put yourself in the shoes of such evacuees.
The sudden sense of relief felt by victims is almost immediately replaced by thoughts of how to...
1. Transfer their movable assets back home.
2. Dispose of their immovable assets with minimum of losses.
3. Determine whom among friendly locals is trustworthy enough
to be vested with the power of attorney to administer their estates until such times when they may return safely.
4. Find a fit into the economy back home.
5. Locate long-lost friends and relations back home.
6. Resettle back home...in a general sense.
Change of residence in peace time within same cities or nations has been described as one of the most traumatic experiences by humans.
Hurried evacuations across national borders in the peak of crises thus comes with harrowing experiences for the victims.
"Friends" among locals cash in on your desperate moments to seek for persons to buy off your cherished landed assets at rock-bottom prices!
Family members get lost in transit.
Conditions during shipping and in refugee camps back home are often unsanitary.
How about social disconnect arising from returnees who see their host nations as their real homes. They contributed in no small measure to the economy of their host nation. They paid their taxes there. Their friends are there. Their cherished social circles are there. Their kids school there and have their friends there. They have established business and life-long customers there.
How about disappointment by trusted friends and relations who squander monies sent home to build houses and so on! Or those former classmates or siblings you trust to take you in only to deny you access to their homes!
I knew a man who died of stroke just months after a hurried stampede back south during the hey days of the Sharia in northern Nigeria.
He told me he went straight to this northern state immediately on return from the US in the mid-70s to settle there. He was allotted 3 acres of land on which he built a huge hotel complex. His "good" Hausa friends alerted him that Sharia fanatics had marked him for death, took his family into custody for safety then "helped" him to find buyers for his hotel at N3 million....a property worth over N50 million!
Dr Tosin Akindele is a medical practitioner and public affairs analyst.