One of the popular authentic African reggae tracks I heard while growing up was “Fire in Soweto”, by that great Nigerian artist, Sonny Okosun. (He later became an evangelist and produced a number of gospel tracks before transitioning into eternity.
Fire in Soweto was released in 1978, in memory, first, of the more than 500 South African youth mowed down in June 1976 by apartheid police in Soweto during a three-day youth uprising against racial segregation and minority rule.
Now, the lyrics of that track sum up how Africa took ownership of the anti-apartheid campaign. Often in the track, you hear “Killing of MY people,” “My people are crying,” “My people” this and “My people” that. The great musician that he was, the venerable and passionate Sonny Okosun caps it with “Freedom is Our Goal,” which he echoed repetitively, driving home the message that the fight against white minority rule and racial segregation in South Africa was not only for the native South Africans to fight, but a war the entire continent must fight and win.
The Nigerian musician’s sentiments were reminiscent of that powerful declaration by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah on the eve of Ghana’s independence that “the independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked with the total liberation of the entire African continent.”
And this is how the entire continent joined hands with South Africa to dismantle apartheid. In the 1950s and ’60s, under Kwame. Nkrumah, the Mankrong and Obenemasi camps in Ghana were set up as secret facilities for guerrilla training for South African freedom fighters from the Pan African Congress. Later, Alfred Hutchinson and other ANC members made Ghana their training and learning base. Some had to be trained at the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute to sharpen and shape their intellectual and ideological competencies for the struggle.
During the 1980s, in elementary school, just as Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama said recently, we were usually made to march around town holding placards, and chanting, “Free Mandela now.”
And one cannot forget the contributions by Rev. Father Vincent : Visa” Kunert, the German born Catholic Priest and social activist whose staunch activism also supported the anti-apartheid fight from Ghana.
Indeed, some of the freedom fighters of South Africa were receiving training in other African countries where they had taken refuge from the bloody Pretoria regime under P.W. Botha and later F.W. de Klerk.
Scarce resources of African countries were pooled and channeled toward the freedom fight in South Africa, and finally, in February 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison. To show gratitude for Africa’s support, Mandela quickly visited countries like Ghana, Nigeria, and others as part of his tour of gratitude to appreciate nations that stood by SA in the fight for his release and the fight against apartheid, and the support was not only moral but financial and logistical as well. Nobody is mentioning these things, looking for any payback from South Africa.
And it was not as if any of the African countries had any resources to spare, but as a n Ethiopian proverb says, “”When hands join, they can cross a river.” And so, despite their numerous developmental challenges all African countries teamed up with South Africa, holding hands, to cross that last river of apartheid, even as the South African’s chanted “One more river, river of Apartheid, one more river, just one more river to cross.” Africa fought with the South, and won, as the Yoruba’s say that “it takes multiple hands to create sound,” and the Anti-Apartheid sound was so loud that finally, white minority rule caved in, to rise n more.
So, finally, in 1994, South Africa gained freedom from apartheid, and Mandela became the president.
It is, therefore, very ironic that South African youth would rise up today against Black immigrants from the very countries that stood by them in their time of need when the Western world abandoned them. They were videotaped even molesting a Chinese woman, asking for her papers, really. Have they not been told, or have they forgotten so soon how China contributed both financially and with logistics to the fight against apartheid?
What happened to the African proverb that says “It is with joined hands that we beat the chest”? Should people join you to fight, but stay away when times are relatively good for you?
As stated earlier, nobody wants any payback for the financial and logistical support given South African s during the struggle for freedom. No! Because, as Sonny Okosun put it, “Freedom is our goal.” The fight was ours. It was Africa’s fight, because until the last African country was free from colonialism and discrimination, the entire continent never felt free. That is why we all joined hands to dismantle apartheid.
But today, a young girl could tell a Ghanaian immigrant to “stay in your country and fight your government,” really. Where did we miss it? And another telling a Nigerian to return to his own country. Some are even bold to speak ill of citizens of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, etc., countries referred to as Frontline states during the anti-apartheid fight.
As I stated in an earlier post, I had read so much about SA and learned very early how violent the country is, and so I have never desired to visit that country. A friend who retired from the Information Service Department recently lost his son, who had traveled for vacation in South Africa. The young man was murdered in his hotel room the very night he arrived. So, who wants to visit such a country? But yes, some will dare to tread where even demons fear to tread, and so we have some desperate Africans traveling to that country to scrape the bottom of the South African pot for the little they can get. Does this constitute such a high crime for which their own fellow blacks should persecute them?
It’s a shame the kind of things our fellow Black people are doing to the very people whose countries 30, 40, 50, and 60 years ago were supporting the fight to free South Africa from the claws and jaws of apartheid.
Chinua Achebe said, “A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.”
Just as things were not okay in Any African country, yet they all decided to join the fight to free South Africans from the shackles of Apartheid, so must they be free to travel to that country which we all fought for, s long as they remain law-abiding and contribute to the economic emancipation of their host nation.
It is time the African Union takes a strong position on this matter and calls South Africa to order. AU must speak unequivocally to South Africa to tame its youth , before things get worse than they have gotten now. Africa is seeking to build a strong union, but such shameful developments as exhibited by a section of South African youths are a complete drawback to the desire to build a solid bloc that holds its own in the global community.
