I grew up seeing Africa as a continent in search of freedom. Across the continent and across the world, Black people were fighting for dignity, independence, justice, and equality. African nations were breaking the chains of colonial rule. African Americans were fighting for civil rights. The Black race was having its historic moment, and the struggle for freedom was raging everywhere.
Nowhere was that struggle more visible, more painful, and more symbolic than in South Africa.
South Africa became the face of Black suffering and Black resistance. It became the place where the conscience of Africa was tested. From Liberia to Ghana, from Nigeria to Tanzania, from Zambia to Mozambique, from Guinea to Angola, Africans stood with South Africa. We saw the struggle against apartheid not as a South African struggle alone, but as an African struggle, a Black struggle, a human struggle.
Liberia played its part. President William V.S. Tubman rallied support for the liberation struggle. African freedom fighters found refuge, encouragement, education, travel documents, and diplomatic support across the continent. Liberia and other African countries stood by South Africa when standing by South Africa carried a political price.
We celebrated the heroes of that long struggle: Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Albertina Sisulu, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Steve Biko, Desmond Tutu, Robert Sobukwe, Chris Hani, Govan Mbeki, Joe Slovo, Ahmed Kathrada, and many others. Across Africa, we also celebrated Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Ahmed Sékou Touré, Patrice Lumumba, Amílcar Cabral, Samora Machel, Agostinho Neto, Eduardo Mondlane, Jomo Kenyatta, Kenneth Kaunda, Thomas Sankara, and the many leaders and ordinary people who gave their voices, their countries, their resources, and sometimes their lives to the freedom of Africa.
Then came Nelson Mandela’s release. For many of us, that moment was not just South African history; it was African history. It was the fulfillment of a dream. Mandela carried a greatness that was larger than politics. He represented forgiveness without weakness, strength without hatred, and power without revenge.
Before he died, Mandela gave Africa another historic moment when South Africa hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup. For once, the world came to Africa not to pity us, not to lecture us, not to exploit us, but to celebrate with us. The whole continent stood with South Africa. The World Cup became an African celebration.
Sadly, that African celebration has now turned into an African tragedy.
The South Africa that Africa helped liberate has become a place where fellow Africans are too often chased, attacked, humiliated, maimed, and killed simply because they are foreigners, simply because they are Nigerians, Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Malawians, Congolese, Ethiopians, Somalis, or other Africans searching for survival. This is not just a political failure. It is a moral failure. It is a betrayal of African history.
The leaders of South Africa have failed to rise to the level of the sacrifice that brought their country freedom. They have failed to protect the dignity of the very Africans whose countries stood with them when apartheid tried to bury their humanity. They have failed to speak with the firmness, urgency, and moral clarity that this moment demands.
What we saw at the World Cup is a warning. When Africans openly wore the colors of Mexico to taunt South Africa and to show their anger, it was not ordinary football rivalry. It was a political statement. It was a rebuke. It was the voice of a continent saying: we are hurt, we are disappointed, and we have not forgotten.
This is a sad story. But the blame must not be placed only on ordinary Africans who are responding in anger. Anger is often the language of people who feel ignored for too long. The real responsibility lies with leadership. South Africa must confront this crisis honestly. Its government must apologize to Africa, protect African migrants, punish those who commit violence, stop the politics of scapegoating, and teach its people the history of how Africa stood with South Africa in its darkest hour.
One can only imagine what Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu would say today. One can only imagine how Oliver Tambo, Steve Biko, Walter Sisulu, Winnie Mandela, Chris Hani, and the others would feel seeing a country they fought to liberate now associated with hatred against fellow Africans. They must be turning in their graves.
This is more than xenophobia. This is a wound in the soul of Africa.
But even in this tragedy, there is a lesson. Africa must become one economic house. We must build regional strength. We must deepen continental unity. We must create economic freedom, not only political independence. We must make it easier for Africans to live, trade, work, study, travel, invest, and prosper across Africa. We must turn the dream of Pan-Africanism into a practical reality.
The future of the Black race cannot be built on division among Africans. We cannot ask the world to respect us while we destroy one another. We cannot speak of African renaissance while Africans are afraid in African countries. We cannot celebrate liberation while practicing exclusion.
South Africa must now choose. It can continue down this road of shame, denial, and hostility, or it can rise again and become the moral leader Africa once believed it could be.
I still believe this African tragedy can be turned into an African celebration. But that will require courage. It will require apology.
It will require action. It will require South Africa to remember who stood with it when it was alone.
What is happening is shameful. It is disgraceful. It is painful. It is shaming Black people before the world.
But above all, it is a tragedy.
An African tragedy.