All these "Africans" coming here ....

I was chatting to some black south african friends in Durban as we cruised the beach strip at night .... passing some guys dealing drugs and pimping girls ....

Ag those Nigerians .... said Themba ...
Always causing crime here .... agreed Zanele .... they're just a huge nuisance and we should send them all back ....

I protested .... the Nigerians at home in England are often the most educated Africans I meet .... wonderful people .... the crime here can't be all due to Nigerians ....

Themba nodded .... They are educated .... its why they do all the white collar crimes like email frauds, counterfeiting, drugs etc ..... they don't bother with petty things ....

Now given that SA seems to be setting world records for crime stats .... I pushed on ...... So who commits all the other crimes - the rapes, the muggings, the aggravated burglaries, the murders? .... trying to get them to admit that black SA has a real problem here ....

Quick as a flash Zanele replied ..... Yebo sis - that's not due to the Nigerians - that's all the fault of those bloody Mozambiquans and Zimbabweans .....

One of things I still fail to get my head around is the fact that despite being physically present at the tip of this great land mass .... South Africa is having to be led kicking and screaming to the table of the African continent (although i see that the table probably isn't piled high with tasty goodies and just sure-fire disasters) ..... President Mbeki has tried hard through agencies such as NEPAD and sending troops to conflict areas like Darfur .... and has been a strong advocate of the AU/OAU etc etc (probably angling for his next job) ..... but its often made him more unpopular at home .... and the bottom line remains that most black south africans aren't very interested in their neighbours to the north ...... and actually prefer to have nothing to do with them at all ....

The whites interestingly maintain a much more enterprising relationship with the rest of the continent ... with white-owned south african malls, cinemas, shops etc sprouting up all over africa .... yet still many look first to Europe - esp Holland or the UK - as their closest relatives .... the Indians here ... despite being several generations removed from the motherland ... still keep that identity strong (and many other global-indian foibles ... for instance all the indians here also concrete over their gardens and fail to remove the plastic from the remote control and worry about marrying a tamil girl marrying a telegu girl .... even though none of them can speak even a smidgeon of either language) and are now gingerly venturing back to sub-continental villages long-forgotten and relatives long-lost as part tourists part culture seekers (although none thankfully do that african-american thing of kissing the ground as soon as they arrive in the land of their ancestors ....) ... more on this another post ....

You'd think that after apartheid - the blacks in SA would be overjoyed to welcome other Africans into their country .... many of these nations stood in protest against the apartheid regime ... boycotting the Olympics when white countries that had toured the pariah state were participating .... penning protest songs .... and harbouring ANC exiles and training cells .... but in fact .... its been quite the opposite - the resentment at the influx of Africans from other countries into SA is quite extreme ....

One of my Nigerian friends here told me that he thought under apartheid the whites had told blacks that they were lucky to be allowed to live in houses and have education because the rest of Africa was still out hunting in the bush and sleeping in trees .... and so when they found out that actually the rest of black Africa had been governing itself (albeit in the loosest possible sense) - they felt in some way hard done by and resentful of the other blacks for having a sort of head start on them .... now bear in mind ... this is a Nigerian speaking .... not known for being the best loved africans anyhow anywhere in the continent (Peter the GBF was in Burkina Faso on a project .... and was discussing perhaps doing some work in Nigeria .... when the Burkinabe crinkled his face in disgust ..... "You could never pay me enough to work in that place" he stated emphatically ..... a pretty big statement given that Burkina Faso is one of the world's poorest and mosr under developed nations ....)

But papers in SA are filled with stories of hate crimes against refugee Somalis (again admittedly not everyone's favourite africans) who come to the townships, set up shop, make their family members work all hours god sends and do so remarkably well (for which they get stoned, burned or harrassed out) ..... in Cape Town - Congolese (once more - perhaps not the best national reputation for honesty) refugees stay 10 to a room in nicer parts of town rather than stay in the black townships for safety reasons and also because the residents have a nasty habit of torching their homes and businesses ..... the refugees think its because black south africans feel only they deserve the all the breaks associated with being black .... and that other black people doing well just highlights the fact that south africans are lazy, content to work little and blame apartheid for their woes and foster a culture of entitlement .... not much love lost between any of them .... African xenophobia is alive and kicking bewilderingly hard ....