Letter to New African magazine

By Madibeng Kgwete: posted on 22 August 2008

I picked up a copy of New African for the first time in August 2004 at the Johannesburg International Airport (now OR Tambo International) in South Africa on my way to the United States to attend the 2004 National Republican Convention in New York City as part of a group of Southern African university students. Since then, I never missed a copy. And, every single month, New African never disappoints.

I therefore consider myself a member of the New African family and, as a result, I take it as my responsibility to join New African in its search for the truth. I am particularly pressed to respond to two recent (and much related) issues as covered in New African’s June/July and July/August issues: one about Western media bias and another about the outbreak of xenophobic attacks in South Africa .

For a very long time now, the media in South Africa has been engaged in a campaign to degrade immigrants of African decent and Africans in general, including Africans from the diasbora and black South Africans themselves. In particular, Nigerians, Zimbabweans and Mozambicans have (and continue) to be the biggest targets.

Like other nationals, Nigerians are not saints, but their indiscriminate portrayal as drug lords is extremely unfair. There is no evidence that Nigerians are solely responsible for drug trafficking. In fact, some of the biggest drug busts at the OR Tambo International and other points of entry into South Africa did not involve Nigerians. It is only when an African is involved in an alleged criminal offence that the nationality of suspects becomes an issue.

Very recently, in mid-August, a popular (and apparently ‘black’) South African daily newspaper carried the story of a black female suspected of having orchestrated the murder of her husband. The article ridiculed the “cheap” and “fake Nigerian” clothes that the woman wears on her court appearances.

We also have people wearing cheap Chinese, Indian and even second-hand European clothes, but don’t expect the newspaper to pour the same scorn on non-Africans. It’s seemingly not on their agenda.

It is extremely unfortunate that black newspaper editors are contributing to what Dr. Edward Rhymes called “the continuing miseducation of the Negro”. Dr. Rhymes decries “our disturbing tendency to demonize ourselves” and our willingness as a race to accept derogatory titles; yet, today, in 2008, we are still promoting negative perceptions about Africans and their products and, in the process, fuelling xenophobia/Afro-phobia.

We have no shoulder to lean on because some of the people who are supposed to promote peace, reconciliation and African brotherhood – our fellow black newspapers editors – seem to be on the other side of the battle line, throwing missiles at their own people. How are we going to do away with xenophobia when people are taught, through the media, on a daily basis, that we must not wear clothes made by Nigerians because they are fake and cheap?

Some Africans amongst us are doing exactly what Franz Fanon warned against some decades ago, in 1961. Fanon cautioned in his seminal book, The Wretched of the Earth: “It so happens that the unpreparedness of the educated classes, the lack of practical links between them and the mass of the people, their laziness, and, let it be said, their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle, will give rise to tragic mishaps.” Today, in South Africa , we are witnessing one of those “tragic mishaps” (the alarming rate of xenophobia/Afro-phobia). The educated and the powerful amongst us are playing a very destructive role.