By Michael Chishala
“Bob Marley said ‘How long shall they kill our prophets,
while we stand aside and look?’ But little did he know that eventually
the enemy will stand aside and look. While we slash and kill our own
brothers knowing that already they are the victims of the situation….
She took me outside to the churchyard, showed me graves on the ground.
And she said ‘There lies a man who fought for equality. There lies a boy
who died in his triumph. Can all these heroes die in vain?'”
These words were written 22 years ago by the greatest
Reggae artist in Africa; Lucky Dube. Being the brilliant social
commentator that he was, Dube captured the essence of the Xenophobic
violence we recently witnessed in South Africa in these few poignant
words. He got to the root of the matter by singing about the black South
African violent culture that sadly resulted in his own life being taken
in 2007, one year before the last major outbreak of Xenophobia in which
more than 60 foreigners were murdered in cold blood.
Dube’s lyrics are a far cry from the shameful public
posturing of South African President Jacob Zuma who was not only slow to
react to the senseless murders of foreigners, but has blamed the legacy
of Apartheid as the root cause of the violent culture in his country.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am of the considered view that the extremely violent
culture of many black South Africans has its roots back in the early
19th Century during the “Mfecane”, a time of violent tribal warfare in
South Africa that was spearheaded by the two powerful chiefs Shaka and
Mzilikazi. These two caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands
(possibly millions according to some estimates) as they went on rampage,
building their empires with ruthless, merciless, violent methods.
The result was carnage of a kind never witnessed before in
Southern Africa as vast tracts of land were left depopulated by tribes
that fled northwards as far as East Africa with some landing in Zambia
such as the Ngoni and Kololo. Many that escaped the direct killings died
of starvation and lack of water during their flight from tyranny.
Shaka and Mzilikazi were extremely cruel leaders who taught
their people to have no mercy and not value human life. I posit that
that after the first generation was taught, the next one learned it and
the violence continues unabated to this day and there seems no
willingness in the South African leadership to stop it through education
and zero tolerance for criminal activity.
By the time Apartheid was established in 1948, the culture
of violence was already deeply entrenched. During apartheid, blacks
continued murdering each other as the racist Boers watched. The vast
majority of the violent deaths during Apartheid were due to
black-on-black violence.
It can be argued that the reason the Boers were so
heavy-handed with the blacks was precisely because they saw how violent
and militant the local tribes already were. The mass murders during
Mfecane were done without any recourse to natural justice but the Boers
on the other hand had systems of law. Black “trouble makers” were
usually put on trial and not not just indiscriminately murdered anyhow.
The biggest mischief maker himself Nelson Mandela was put through a
public trial and sentenced according to the laws back then.
The Apartheid regime certainly had a hand in the
black-on-black violence by often secretly sponsoring divisions but they
were preying on an already established violent culture to divide and
conquer. The African National Congress (ANC) and Inkhata Freedom Party
(IFP) regularly fought many bloody battles during Apartheid. The ANC
were the champions of the infamous “necklacing” of perceived enemies,
with Winnie Mandela going as far as publicly saying that “With our boxes
of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country” in 1986.
During the 2008 Xenophobic attacks, necklacing was used against
foreigners. No surprises there.
According to Max Coleman (former member of the South
African Human Rights Commission) who wrote the most definitive history
of Apartheid repression which was presented to the Desmond Tutu Truth
and Reconciliation Commission, 21,000 people were killed during
apartheid (1948-1994). 92% of these deaths were due to black-on-black
violence. 14,000 out of the 21,000 died during the transition process
from 1990 to 1994 when the iron rule of the Boers was loosening.
Only about 7,000 died in 42 years (1948-1990) when the
racist Boers were fully in charge. The much-vilified Boers killed less
than 2,000 people in 46 years with deaths directly caused by the
apartheid security forces being a mere 518. However, there have been on
average about 20,000 violent killings per year post-apartheid. It took
just one calendar to break the 46-year record of the Boers which
included the violent 4 year transition period in which 3,500 people per
year got killed on average. Imagine that.
After crying and fighting for independence, the blacks in
South Africa have miserably failed to manage themselves while they
continue blaming the white man and foreigners for their
perennial problems. Too many South African blacks are so ungrateful for
the sacrifices we made to liberate them.
The ANC freedom fighters were housed here in Zambia on
government payroll, coordinating their independence struggle while our
nation was becoming bankrupt. My own father was personal friends with
Thabo Mbeki when he lived in Mtendere township in Lusaka. We lived with
the freedom fighters in our neighbourhood and they were famous for
sorting out thieves at night who dared steal from them.
South Africa is a broken nation with too many people messed
up in their heads. This is not going to stop until there is a long term
plan to fix it which begins with zero tolerance to crime. Former
president Mr Mandela did something to try to heal the wounds but Zuma
undid his efforts with passive inaction. The governance systems set up
by the British colonialists and the Boers are breaking down daily and it
is just a matter of time South Africa ends up a basket case like many
African countries, unless urgent interventions are put in place.
South Africa has lost its appeal for many immigrants.
Dube’s words described the tribulations of black people oppressed by
Apartheid on one side and being attacked by their fellow blacks on the
other. There has been a cruel twist of fate as black immigrants who have
fled civil wars, brutal dictatorships and economic turmoil in their
home countries can now also lay claim to these words by Lucky Dube:
“We are the victims everytime. We got double trouble everytime”.
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