The Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA) condemns the unprovoked attack on Africans from other parts of the Continent by black South Africans; calls on the ANC leadership as well as the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa to take a definitive stance against the current spate of violence being perpetrated against foreign black Africans, especially Nigerians.
MOJA says it is too painful for black South Africans to forget, so soon about the sacrifices made by other Africans for the liberation of the black people of South Africa from Apartheid.
A MOJA press release yesterday says the frontline states, where militants of the Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the armed wing of the African National Congress were based, faced military attacks from the racist South African regime on a daily basis for decades, and added that Nigeria led members of the then Organization of African Unity to endorse the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) as the official representatives of the people of South Africa.
Additionally, MOJA recalled that Nigeria spent millions of dollars to support the liberation struggle in South African and other parts of southern Africa, such as Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe that were under white supremacist regimes.
“Apart from South Africa, there has been no reported incident of violence against other Africans in the other countries that were supported by the rest of Africa in their struggle for liberation. Instead, Africans from other parts of Africa are studying or doing business or just residing in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia and even Angola, peacefully,” the release signed by Cde Throuble Kaffa Suah and attested by MOJA’s Interim National Chairman, Human Rights lawyer Comrade Tiawan Saye Gongloe said.
All formally oppressed people of Southern Africa, except for South Africans, MOJA asserted, have demonstrated a great debt of gratitude to fellow Africans for standing by their side during their struggle for liberation noting that Liberia, like Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Zambia and many other countries hosted hundreds of South Africans who fled oppression from the Apartheid regime of South Africa.
The Pan Africanists Justice group indicated that between the 1960s to the 1980s Liberian high schools and universities accommodated many South African Students. Cuttington University and the University of Liberia, the two tertiary institutions then, were very happy to accommodate black students from South Africa.
“Some of these students were members of MOJA, given the pan-African philosophy of MOJA, and its focus on justice and freedom in all of Africa. The young people of South Africa must be told that Nelson Mandela, visited Liberia in 1962 and was given a Liberian passport to enable him travel to other countries to seek support for the liberation struggle in Southern Africa,” the MOJA release recalled.
According to MOJA, South African Youth must also be told that musical legends like, Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela, as well as Teboho “Tsietsi” MacDonald Mashinini, the venerable student leader who led the Soweto uprising, lived in Liberia, Tsietsi Mashinini even married a Liberian lady, Wilma Campbell.
Additionally, MOJA accentuated that the current National Treasurer of South Africa and ANC member, Comrade Vincent Malepa a current ANC member, who lived and studied in Liberia, became a member of MOJA as well as an adopted son of a Liberian family.
The Pan Africanist and Justice Group reminded South African youths of the pivotal role played by current Liberian President George Weah to have South Africa host the World Cup in 2010, an event which brought pride to all South Africans.
“MOJA notes that the current wave of xenophobic violence directed against other Africans is the result of years of brainwashing and dehumanizing treatment of black South Africans by the Africans-a racist white ruling class whose false values have been internalized,” the release said.
MOJA averred that this explains why such hatred and anger is not being directed at the thousands of foreign Caucasians who live and work in South Africa. It is this internalized hatred of themselves, MOJA said, that is now playing out against fellow black Africans, and calls on the ANC leadership as well as the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa to take a definitive stance against the current spate of violence being perpetrated against foreign black Africans, especially Nigerians.
“Apartheid has long since been dismantled but its legacies of dehumanization and black self-deprecation remains. White privilege remains entrenched and the economic gap between blacks and whites continue to widen.
“South Africans, especially black South Africans need to be reminded that the real enemies of the South African people are the networks of greedy corporate interests whose insatiable appetites for profits are contributing greatly to the ever-growing social divide in South Africa between blacks and whites on the one hand and between the rich and the poo, on the other hand.
“Foreign black Africans are thus being unfairly blamed for the apparent inability of the South African state to respond to the growing demands for equitable distribution of national income and landownership which remains as skewed today as it was yesterday under Apartheid,” the MOJA release said.
“MOJA, therefore, hails Julius Malema for unreservedly condemning the violence against other Africans in Johannesburg and other parts of South Africa as a criminal act. MOJA considers the clarity of the position of the comrade Julius Malema, liberating, reassuring, comforting, that in the absence of comrade Nelson Rolihlahla Madiba Dalibhunga, Tata Mandela, there are still voices somehow in South Africa who see the struggle for economic, social and political freedom of the people of South Africa as an integral part of the struggle of all oppressed people of Africa and the world,” the MOJA release noted.
At the same time, MOJA calls upon the youth of Nigeria, Zambia and other parts of Africa to exercise restraint and stop any form of violence against South African citizens, their businesses and other interests in their countries.
MOJA Finally called on all of Africa to ensure that this is not repeated elsewhere on the continent of Africa and says that violence by other Africans against South Africans is also a criminal act, as two wrongs does not make one right.
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