GUY ELESSA “THERE IS NEED TO BUILD A SOUTH AFRICAN RENAISSANCE THROUGH PEOPLE ORIENTED POLICIES”

The cameroonian writer talks on the south africans’ xenophobia
Against other Africans. Diplomat and founder of ARITMA, the author of the book entitled “African Renaissance: South Africa’s Foreign Policy and the Quest for African Development” granted and interview to Afrikinfo.net.

Afrikinfo.net: Mr. Guy ELESSA thank you for accepting the answer our question on the outbreak and perpetration of xenophobic attacks on Africans by South African in South Africa, as observed in 2019.

Guy Elessa: Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I hope to be able to provide your readers with facts that could help them understand the situation being lived today in South Africa. It should be said that this situation has been latent, thus in preparation for decades amongst the masses. I had raised the alarm in my book which was published in 2015. In which I warned of the preparation and possibility of such events happening after the death of Nelson Mandela.

Afrikinfo.net : What are the concerns you raise in your book?

Guy Elessa: First of all, the book is entitled African Renaissance: South Africa’s Foreign Policy and the Quest for African Development It examines the idea of African Renaissance as a policy in South African internal and foreign policy. It looks at those elements that are guiding South Africa’s action out of its borders, notably relating with other African countries and the rest of the world.
South Africa’s action is analysed through its institutions: the President’s Office; the Departments of Defence, Trade and Foreign relations. We also considered the role of Parliament and the National Council of Provinces. Our main focus was to see how the institutions’ work benefited the South African people in terms of poverty reduction gap, and correcting the ills created from the apartheid experience. We emphasised on the new management that started with Nelson Mandela. This is simply because renaissance has to do with renewal, second birth, optimistic change and giving a new positive image than what used to be known. Many attempts were made by the new leaders to reduce the socio-economic gap with the whites through a number of programmes and policies.

Afrikinfo.net : You are talking about socio-economic gaps. What are some of these gaps you are talking about and could you tell us if Mandela and those who took over him did provide responses to the needs of those who suffered the gaps you mentioned.

Guy Elessa : As you may know, the Apartheid system in South Africa excluded the African population, the indigenes of the territory, from every basic right a human being may aspire to have or is entitled to enjoy. You can name it: education, health, food, decent homes, no lights, and no electricity, forbidden to move in some neighbourhoods, no jobs, no access to land and so many other injustices. The Mandela Government followed by the Thabo MBEKI administration set up a number of programmes to catch up and revive the Africans in South Africa.

– The Reconstruction and Development Programme, aimed at addressing the massive socio-economic shortfalls in social services such as housing, water, land reforms, health care, electrification. But this programme did not achieve much.

– Another programme was Growth Employment and Redistribution Plan: It aimed at promoting economic development through investment, but many saw it as an opportunity to create a new class of bosses and make the poor poorer.

– A third act was the Black Economic Empowerment, which was to reduce economic inequalities between the whites and the Africans and the coloured. Critics also feared the creation of new African elite that had nothing to do with South African ghettos.

Afrikinfo.net : Could you help us understand how this has contributed to the xenophobic reactions of South Africans against other Africans; knowing that other African countries fought hard for the end of apartheid?

Guy Elessa : Yes it is true other African countries fought hard for the freedom of South Africa; but that was for another generation I think. And it gives me the opportunity to greet the memory of Robert Mugabe with respect to that struggle for the liberation in Southern Africa and South Africa in particular.
This notwithstanding, the situation, or the crisis lived today in South Africa is as a result of socio-economic shortcomings and failure of South African authorities in addressing the needs of the people and allowing for the full expression and emancipation of its population and people, who are still lagging behind amidst all the other communities and peoples who have settled in the country over the years, to benefit from the economic welfare of the country. These new African settlers, as opposed to the Africans of South Africa, are more educated; more ambitious and capable of undertaking and creating initiatives that will succeed. On the other hand, Africans from South Africa have not been taught to be enterprising; all they have known is violence, defending themselves and surviving from a hostile society.
For many years, a number of signals had been sent, such as the mining strikes and strikes of railway workers and many other corporate bodies requesting for more decent pay; better conditions of work and better training for workers and even for better positions for the Africans of South Africa in companies. With the passing to glory of Nelson Mandela on 5 Dec 2013, things were bound to get bad. Mandela’s presence was a great setback for such violence. Today Africans of South African origin are longing for the re-equilibrium of the share of resources. Not seeing it fast coming, they become violent to those whom they consider to be the easiest to reach and to attack. This is simple expression of frustration.
You might want to ask me why not the whites but the blacks. It would simply be because the whites indeed own the big businesses, so they employ many of the South Africans and they can pay for private security and as well are very well connected with the security officials and the forces of law and order. The whites for now seem a bigger knot to crack.
If nothing is done to stop these barbaric acts, then we can say that today the south Africans are attacking fellow Africans from other countries calling them foreigners because they are accessible and closer to them. Tomorrow, they will turn to attack the whites first to take what they will believe is rightly theirs, in terms of land and resources, but also as a form of revenge or pay-back time from what the African community should have suffered during the Apartheid years.

Afrikinfo.net : In your opinion, what can be done?

Guy Elessa : There is need to build a South African Renaissance through people oriented policies, aiming at educating and alleviating the gap of poverty through concrete policies that will effectively impact on the lives of the masses so as to enhance and promote economic growth, reduce the gaps of knowledge and poverty. Other measures may eventually follow. This may help to reverse the present trend of attacks.