Why Africa needs to speak up against murder in South Africa

The blood-curdling images of cornered men, women (and even children) bludgeoned to death, stabbed with knives or set ablaze have horrified the world. The world is convulsed in rage, indignation and fear. Rage and indignation at the senseless butchering taking place on the streets of South Africa. Fear of the worst if nothing is done urgently. No one, least of all Africans of black descent, ever expected this would happen in independent South Africa.

Many in Africa looked up to South Africa. For a long time the continent's powerhouse, it encompassed the ideals of peace icon and former President Nelson Mandela. It was indeed the Rainbow Nation where brotherhood trumped all else.

Yet over the last few weeks, tension has been building up in South Africa, culminating in attacks on immigrant workers in Durban and now Johannesburg. So far, the violence has claimed at least six lives and the toll could rise given the horrific injuries suffered by some of those injured.

Meanwhile, the violence has forced as many as 5,000 foreign workers, mainly from Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Malawi, to take refuge in police stations. Businesses belonging to immigrant workers have not only been looted, many have been burnt down.

The violence is symptomatic of the depressed economic times experienced in the post-Mandela years. At the end of apartheid in 1994, many black South Africans expected the now black majority rulers to make things work for them. Evidently, not enough of the national cake has been baked to go round.

A World Bank report says the economy has not been growing as fast as predicted, managing just 3 per cent in 2014. One in 4 of its 52 million citizens is unemployed. The disillusioned jobless now blame their poverty and rampant corruption on immigrant workers who, while totalling two million of the country's workforce, form 4 per cent of the country's total population.

President Jacob Zuma has condemned the violence. And while Zulu King Goodwill Zwelethini is accused of sparking off the riots by blaming insecurity on foreigners, consequently asking them to pack their bags and leave, it remains to be seen what else Mr Zuma will do to rein in the bigotry exhibited by those in the king's court, like his son.

The killings have brought back memories of the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960, when white policemen killed 69 black people and the world stood by the oppressed black South Africans. In 1976, a protest by black students against the introduction of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools, popularly known as the Soweto Uprising, resulted in the police killing over 176 students. Africans condemned the unnecessary killings and stood solidly behind their South African brothers.

Yet despite all this magnanimity, some South Africans have turned their weapons on their own brothers and sisters who helped them in the bloody and long struggle against apartheid. While the denigration that the segregation policy of apartheid wrought on South Africa should have instilled the values of brotherliness, it is apparent that it did not leave a lasting impression.

There might be a compelling need to bar foreigners from certain jobs, but the best way to do this is through legislation, not violence. It is now left to President Zuma's government to spruce up the image of South Africa, the way the rest of the world knew it. Short of which Africa needs need to step out and speak in one voice against the mindless violence.