It's giving anti Pan-Africanism...

 

A Zimbabwean girl holds a banner during a demonstration against xenophobia in Johannesburg, on March 26, 2022 organised by the activist movement against xenophobic attacks Kopanang Africa. (Photo by LUCA SOLA / AFP)

Hey.

 

It's been a while.

 

I hope you've been keeping well and warm.

 

Since about three years ago, the world has become absolute cinema. Every day feels like a new episode written by people who have completely run out of ideas. Maybe that's because creativity in cinema is declining. Or maybe reality has simply become stranger than fiction.

 

Not much has changed about me though. I still stand for the same things. I still believe in challenging thinking.

 

I still believe in making everyday readers uncomfortable enough to question the world around them.

 

Disclaimer: This article will not be sugar coated for anyone's comfort.

"life begins at the end of  your comfort zone" - Neale Donald Walsch

Now, let me set the scene in case you've been occupied by work , assignments, exams. 

South Africa is currently experiencing another wave of anti foreigner sentiment. Black South Africans are chasing other Black Africans out of South Africa.

Yes.

Read that again.

Black South Africans are chasing other Black Africans out of South Africa. If you're looking for a simple explanation, I don't have one. It doesn't make sense to me either. What makes even less sense is that this goes far beyond what most people understand as xenophobia.

This is not simply South Africans versus foreigners. This has become South Africans versus anyone who sounds different, looks different, speaks a different language, or belongs to a different ethnic group.

Somewhere along the line, we've become so disconnected from our own Blackness that we've started treating our reflections as enemies. And that should concern all of us.

Now lets talk about What Is Actually Going On?

Before we can talk about culture, identity, or the uncomfortable questions surrounding Blackness in South Africa, we need to talk about what is happening right now.

Across various parts of South Africa, another wave of anti-foreigner demonstrations and tensions have once again entered public conversation. Videos circulate daily showing confrontations between locals and foreign owned businesses. Social media timelines have become battlefields filled with accusations, misinformation, outrage, and people choosing sides before understanding the full picture.

At the centre of many of these disputes are frustrations surrounding unemployment, crime, economic hardship, and access to opportunities. Many South Africans feel abandoned by a government that continuously promises change while delivering very little. Service delivery remains poor in many communities. Youth unemployment continues to rise. Basic opportunities that should be available to everyone have become increasingly scarce.

The danger is when people become desperate, they start looking for someone to blame.

Unfortunately, blame is rarely directed at the institutions responsible for creating these conditions. It is often directed at the nearest visible target. In this case, foreign nationals.

Supporters of the protests argue that undocumented immigration places pressure on already limited resources, creates challenges for law enforcement, and contributes to unfair competition within informal business sectors.

These concerns should not be dismissed outright.

Every country has immigration laws and every government has a responsibility to manage its borders effectively. However, what begins as a conversation about immigration often turns into something much uglier. 

The distinction between documented and undocumented migrants disappears.

The distinction between legal and illegal activity disappears.

The distinction between nationality and ethnicity disappears.

Suddenly anyone with an accent, a different surname, a different language, or a different cultural background becomes a target.

What starts as frustration transforms into suspicion.

What starts as suspicion transforms into hostility.

And what starts as hostility can transform into violence.

This is where the conversation stops being about immigration and starts becoming something much deeper. Because if we are unable to recognise the humanity of people who look like us, share similar histories to us, and often face many of the same struggles as us, then the problem extends far beyond borders.

The problem becomes how we see one another. Or perhaps more accurately, how we have forgotten how to see one another at all. 

This Is  Bigger Than Xenophobia. The easiest way to describe what is happening is to call it xenophobia. The problem is that xenophobia alone does not fully explain what we are seeing. 

What happens when people begin targeting others who are not even foreign? (Which alone isn’t right)

What happens when language becomes a reason for suspicion?

What happens when ethnicity becomes a reason for exclusion?

What happens when people who share the same skin colour, similar histories, and similar struggles begin treating each other as enemies? Then we are dealing with something much bigger.

An incident reported in the Western Cape highlighted this reality. MSN news reports that "Tsonga-speaking boy  Nhlamulo Sambo from Giyani was murdered because he was mistaken for a foreigner. Police have put forward a completely different version of events." At that point, we are no longer talking about nationality. We are talking about identity. Somewhere along the line, many of us have lost the ability, or perhaps the willingness, to see ourselves in one another. We have become experts at identifying differences while forgetting what connects us as Africans. And that should concern every South African.

Because if you cannot tolerate people who look like u, how will you ever build a society capable of tolerating anyone else? Except for the white folks you’ve made that bias clear. 

This raises more deeper and introspective questions…

How Comfortable Are We With Being Black?

This is the question nobody wants to ask.  

Or perhaps more importantly, how uncomfortable have we become with it?

How many of us speak our native languages daily?

How many of us know our histories beyond what was required for an examination?

How many of us feel pressure to change the way we speak, dress, behave, or think in order to be seen as professional, intelligent, or acceptable?

How many of us have been taught, directly or indirectly, that success looks less like ourselves and more like someone else?

Which unfortunately this is the Morden day definition of black excellence no longer lifting other black people up, giving back to our communities or rather known as…ubuntu. Gen Z is often praised for being progressive, connected, and socially aware. Yet many of us are more disconnected from our cultures than any generation before us. We know global trends better than  our local traditions. We know internet slang better than our mother tongues. We know influencers better than our own histories. That is not entirely our fault.

We grew up in a world where culture became something to consume rather than something to preserve. A world where fitting in became more important than belonging. A world where being yourself often comes second to being accepted. This is not simply cultural change. It is cultural erosion.

I'm speaking directly at gen z cause we are the change we hold so much power with us, our ambitions our dreams no matter their size, texture and indifference the society we are apart of and building will be our collective future in 30 years.

 

The Apartheid Shadow We Pretend Is Gone

One of the greatest myths in modern South Africa is that apartheid ended and everything else disappeared with it.

 The laws ended. The systems did not. The inequalities did not. The economic realities did not. The social consequences certainly did not.

The first democratic elections took place 31 years ago…some of your parents where born 31 years ago.  many of the structures that determined who had opportunities, access, wealth, education, and influence continue to shape everyday life.

A person born after apartheid may not have experienced apartheid directly. That does not mean they live outside its consequences. The quality of schools. The quality of infrastructure. Employment opportunities. Generational wealth. Access to networks. Access to safety. All of these things continue to reflect historical inequalities. This is not about victimhood. It is about reality. Ignoring history does not erase its effects. And when people are struggling to survive, it becomes easier to blame the person standing next to them than to confront systems that have existed for decades.

Social Media: The Great Desensitiser

There was a time when media played a significant role in creating awareness. People used media to organise. To educate. To expose injustice. To create meaningful conversations. Today, much of social media operates differently.

Suffering becomes content.

Conflict becomes entertainment.

Outrage becomes engagement.

And engagement becomes profit.

We scroll past violence between advertisements. We watch communities tear themselves apart in thirty second clips. We turn serious issues into memes before fully understanding them. The result is a generation that is constantly informed but rarely engaged. We know everything. We understand very little. Social media has given everyone a voice. Unfortunately, it has also rewarded the loudest voices rather than the most thoughtful ones. 

In a world built on attention, complexity loses to simplicity every time. That is dangerous. Because the issues facing South Africa are not simple. And simple answers often create bigger problems.

 

What About Illegal Immigration?

This is where many conversations become emotional. So let's approach it logically. Every country has immigration laws. Those laws exist for reasons. Border management assists governments with planning resources, maintaining public safety, and ensuring accountability. Immigration through legal channels allows governments to understand who is entering the country, where they are settling, and how resources can be managed effectively. That is reasonable. That is lawful. That is how sovereign nations operate.

At the same time, frustration about illegal immigration does not justify violence. It does not justify intimidation. It does not justify targeting children. It does not justify targeting families. These are people circumstances forced them to illegally immigrate not to mention home affairs hording visas passports and official documentation some of this is pure xenophobia at its core. let's call the enemy out by name.

It does not justify attacking people who are legally documented. And it certainly does not justify targeting people simply because they belong to a different ethnicity, nationality, or cultural group. No individual has the authority to decide who deserves dignity and who does not. Be it their documented or not. Period. No individual has the authority to act as judge, jury, and executioner.

That responsibility belongs to the law. Not to mobs. Not to social media. Not to public anger.

 

Where Does This Leave South Africa?

If we continue down this path, we all lose. Not foreigners. Not locals. Everyone. A country cannot build unity while rewarding division. A country cannot strengthen its economy while destroying community trust. A country cannot celebrate diversity while punishing difference. The Rainbow Nation was never meant to be perfect. It was meant to be a vision. A reminder that people from different backgrounds could coexist despite history. Today that vision feels increasingly distant. Not because diversity failed. But because we stopped investing in it.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable truth is this: The people we are blaming often look more like us than the people benefiting from our division. We fight each other while larger systems remain untouched. We attack each other while the root causes of poverty, inequality, unemployment, and exclusion remain firmly in place. 

That's a colonized mindset, get real.

We become distracted. And distraction is powerful. Because distracted people rarely challenge power. They challenge each other. 

The question is not whether South Africa has a xenophobia problem.

The question is whether South Africa has forgotten what Ubuntu means.

Whether we have forgotten what solidarity means.

Whether we have forgotten that our shared humanity should matter more than our differences.

Perhaps that is the real crisis.

Not immigration.

Not ethnicity.

Not nationality. 

Identity.