By Sama’at Sakuhai

Once again, the atmosphere swells with palpable tension around the false premise that humanity is somehow separate from one another. This story can be told in a thousand different ways to reflect a thousand different flashpoints in the sequential aftermath of events that point to a rather conspicuous origin, particularly in the case of Africa. This unfolding story is no exception.

The conflict at the center of our story has grabbed international headlines and is now approaching a tipping point, with growing attention. The story we are introducing here is not the one that we should be looking at, but only another in the multifarious effects of the malediction that blights our “Beloved Land” and has turned it into the Africa we experience or hear of today.

By now, many would have heard about the public, unabashed aggression that African ‘foreign nationals’ in South Africa have been facing at the hands of certain groups of South Africans. Social media and other news outlets have been covering developments around this issue, presenting reports, video footage, and interviews from the perspectives of those on the ground on both sides. In those reports, there are accounts of ‘foreign nationals’ being confronted, assaulted and even killed. The threat of violence and increasing hostility has led at least four countries to offer flights home to their citizens who wish to evacuate and repatriate to their home countries. Among them are Ghana, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and, as of this writing, Nigeria. Take note of these countries and what those ‘foreigners’ primarily look like phenotypically in comparison to those shown agressing them.