Now that thousands of Africans have left the country, are we happy? What exactly makes us happy? Of course, that is if we are. Did we or are we getting “our” jobs back, “our” women, and “our” space? Is the government delivering houses and other basic services? I haven’t seen any difference but maybe I should wait for another 14 years. Do we continue to be as dignified and respectable as we were before? I doubt it. This is not the picture that we have created for people outside South Africa, including South Africans. What we did may be forgivable but it is certainly not forgettable.

Our fellow Africans continue to live in fear and they don’t know who to trust anymore. I would also feel the same if I was in any other country like Angola, Ghana, etc. They continue to live in those conditions that they escaped in their beloved countries. We keep them in tents, during our cold Cape Town winter. We isolated them from our communities. These are the people we should be thanking. Instead, they are the ones that we have chased away.

They have businesses where they sell most things cheaper than the big supermarkets, they brought goods that you would normally pay transport to acquire. We are short of money to pay their goods but they are kind enough to still give them to us at a lesser price.

So we have chased away people who have the potential to be good capitalists, and we remain with the expensive and selfish individuals and multinational corporations. We are left with ooHlohl’esakhe.

The governments of countries like Kenya, Nigeria and many other countries in Africa, have not only educated their citizens with Mathematics and Geography, but they also provided them with and taught them skills that will help them survive.

When living in poverty Mathematics will never help you, but making shoes, cutting hair and starting a very small business will definitely get you a living. South Africans, unfortunately, lack those basic survival skills. We are all trying to do something that will get us a certificate.

A certificate is a number one priority in South Africa for employment. Without it one is seen as useless or rather unskilled.

Is it a coincidence that the victims and the perpetrators of xenophobia are the working class only?

LINDILE NDLOVU,

Khayelitsha