How black can we be in our minds?

The world was and may still be angry. Africa is livid, and as I watched some scenes on the social media and on televisions, the despicable and pungent scenes of a black man against his fellow black man, I could not believe this was happening in Africa which has liberated itself from colonial rule; a system which has dehumanized the black man, a system which created white supremacy and superiority over the black man and exploited the human and the natural resources of the continent, a sordid and regrettable time and period in the history of this world. But it was not a nightmare, it was real.

One may argue, or so have I heard some people arguing about similar mishaps in Europe and elsewhere. Unjustifiable as they all are, no matter where such brutalities against human beings might occur, we in Africa are shocked to the marrow because if blacks would be mistreated and butchered with machetes, clubs, sandcrete blocks and other deadly weapons, it should not have come from equally black people particularly when we are not in a war situation and the victims are unarmed and therefore not in a position to defend themselves.

The media the world over has described what happened in South Africa as xenophobic, fear of foreigners, in a narrow definition. But xenophobia also elicits hatred, prejudice as well as the desire for people to be exclusive in the way they do things without external interference. Africa is particularly angry at the behavior of black South Africans towards other black Africans in that country, particularly because of the sacrifices Africa had to undertake to isolate the apartheid regime of South Africa then. Ghana in particular had to accommodate quite a number of the freedom fighters of other colonial countries at the time, particularly South Africa.

Nkrumah's desire to see a free continent saw the establishment of training camps in Ghana where some leaders in the liberation struggles were trained and equipped in the fight to liberate their countries. My generation and those before me had classmates from South Africa in particular being trained and prepared at the expense of the Ghanaian tax payer in anticipation of a future leadership role in that country.

Africa had to break diplomatic ties with Israel until the collapse of apartheid because the powerful Middle East country had direct relationship with the apartheid regime. We denied ourselves the technical and other support which would have inured to our benefit particularly in the field of agriculture just to isolate the apartheid regime in support of our black siblings in that part of the world. The biggest joy of this continent was when apartheid crumbled, at least politically. The world and Africa in particular celebrated it in grand style; the black people who had lived lives of continued segregation, dehumanization and discrimination are finally free.

Twenty years down the line, the people who suffered physical and mental torture and brutality on the grounds of their colour have turned their anger on another group of people on the grounds of where they come from as well as their colour. And the reason was that those black foreigners were taking away their jobs thus making them jobless in the 'midst of plenty'. The strength and anger with which some South Africans fought and killed black Africans may even be stronger than the strength with which they fought apartheid.

Condemnable as the actions of the perpetrators of the criminal acts were, I felt it was as a result of the failure of the government of that country. Notwithstanding the support that South Africa had from the continent and elsewhere, the frontliners of the struggle to end apartheid were the South Africans themselves.

The fact is that the forefathers of today's South African were hewers of wood and drawers of water under very restricted environment. Reading the 'Mine Boy' by Isaac Abraham for my O' Levels in 1978, it struck me how many black South Africans did not have the opportunity to even educate their children formally or informally.

The shanty towns and the slums where they live were not and may be still not be conducive for proper education and training of kids. The kids of those who fought from the bush and the slums were the adults of today without jobs. The failure of the South African government stems from the fact that after 20 years of having gained black authority in the governance of that country, an affirmative action to educate and train the youth in various fields of human endeavor that are relevant to the labour needs of that country was missing. Take away 20 years from the average ages of those who had engaged in the murderous acts of xenophobia, and it would become clear that had the black governments of South Africa, identified this glaring challenge and made efforts to upgrade the knowledge and skills of these unfortunate uneducated and unskilled children of the freedom fighters, South Africa would have avoided this calamity. The normal greed and thievery of the African in leadership has come to plague the South African leadership with callous disregard for the peculiar circumstances of the black people in South Africa. The world is aware of the US$20 million dollars of the tax payers' monies President Jacob Xuma was alleged to have spent on building a paradise on earth for himself. Can anybody imagine how many young people would have been trained formally or informally in that country with that amount of money?

The nouveau riche in that country among the leadership do not care about those who used their raw strength to help fight apartheid let alone think about their children; that is one of the major problems confronting the country. The unskilled youth see foreigners gainfully employed while they move around without jobs. I do not share the view by some people that the black youth in that country are lazy, they simply are unemployable because of the circumstances of their history. It is the responsibility of their government to empower them so they can be more productive to themselves and their motherland.

Terrible as the actions of the blacks in South Africa were, back in our various countries in Africa outside of South Africa, there is an internal xenophobia when it comes to jobs and even presidency. When some Ga youth backed by NDC gurus attempted to drive ex-President Kufuor out of Accra, what were they doing? In the 1970s and the 1980s, an Oil Company had done some exploration works in the Western Region, in the process they recruited local people who had gained some experiences in the work.

The Company moved subsequently to another part of the country to perform similar activities and went along with the trained staff from the Western Region, however the local people did not allow those fellow Ghanaians from other part of the country to work in their area with the excuse that the Company could as well train people from the area and use them. This happens all over Africa except that they may not kill the people. I personally experienced such xenophobic attacks in present day Abuja in 1981 when the local people charged on us predominantly Ghanaians for having annexed their jobs. We spent a night at a local Police Station in a then village called Wuse. Well Nigerians may also make references to the badly executed Aliens Compliance Order.

Many other people have experienced such xenophobic attacks internally and externally as migrants on this continent and the brutality and the bestiality of the black man towards a black man may better be experienced than described, particularly some of those who take the risk of travelling through the Sahara Desert to Europe. They get raped, robbed and murdered in Africa by Africans. Many others were detained and jailed without trial by their fellow Africans. It is a sad but running event on a daily basis against blacks by blacks on the continent.

Unacceptable as the actions of the South Africans were, our governments must also be blamed for the parlous state of our various nations which necessitate mass migration of Africans in search of greener pastures with the consequent brutalities against them. Half glass (not mast) of mahogany bitters in memory of lost lives in South Africa.

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