Golekane🇿🇦

I don’t agree with your assertion that South Africans hate Africans, that is simply not true. South Africa is home to the largest number of migrants from other African countries. Estimates suggest there are around 4 million African immigrants in South Africa, with a significant portion coming from neighbouring Zimbabwe and Mozambique. How can a country where Africa’s largest immigrant population resides hate them, yet still live with them? Such reckless statements invite unsavoury characters within any society to surface and gain relevance. From my experience, the average South African simply wants immigrants to enter legally and not engage in crimes like drug peddling or carjackings. That isn’t hatred, it is common sense, and any citizen of any country would expect that too. South Africa has borne the consequences of failed leadership across the continent, providing jobs, business opportunities, and growth for millions of Africans. I have been visiting South Africa since August 1998, and I have never encountered a single act of abuse from any South African on account of being a foreigner or Zimbabwean. When I and many others were jailed in Zimbabwe for exposing Emmerson Mnangagwa’s looting of the Covid-19 fund with his family, it was South African media that highlighted our plight daily. It was South Africans, including @akaworldwide and @PearlThusi, who helped make the #ZimbabweanLivesMatter movement go global. As an African, I understand that we need to fix the mess our countries have become and return home to live there where possible. That should be our focus, as it would resolve many of the continent’s problems, including the issue you raised. Seventy percent of the women giving birth at Musina Hospital in South Africa’s Limpopo province are Zimbabwean. How can the same people who allow us to give birth in their hospitals be considered hateful? Could Zimbabwe, as we know it, allow foreign nationals to use its hospitals if they worked without paying for the service, as South Africans do for Africans living there? We should be grateful for what South Africa has done for Africa and Africans, particularly in such a short time since their own independence. You wouldn’t be making this argument if African countries hadn’t destroyed the economies they inherited from colonialists while expecting one African nation to be Mother Teresa to the entire continent. African unity will only happen when more than one country is expected to unite with the rest of Africa, and when we all have something to contribute. Let us be honest, we all grew up in villages where the troublesome relative was no longer welcome. That is not hatred, it is about knowing your worth and refusing to be abused by an ungrateful relative. When you attend a bring-and-share party, you don’t turn up empty-handed every time, you contribute something. Immigration is often tied to broader socio-economic challenges and the need for effective governance in the countries where immigrants originate. Asking South Africa to ignore the large flow of immigration in the name of African Unity is absurd. You know that in Zimbabwe, illegal African immigrants are jailed, and those given political asylum are placed in the Tongogara Refugee Camp in Chipinge. Has South Africa placed Zimbabweans in refugee camps, or jailed those without documentation indefinitely? It is important to recognise that South Africa’s diverse society encompasses a wide range of attitudes and opinions towards immigrants, and painting the entire nation with a broad brush is unfair and inaccurate. Let us do better! Yes, there are some South Africans who don’t like immigrants, but that is true of any country, including Zimbabwe. Africa will unite through good governance and thriving economies that trade with each other without huge trade deficits. Wouldn’t it be nice to also have South Africans coming to live in Zimbabwe? Let us fix our country and stop obsessing over being loved by South Africans.