by LUKE ZUNGA
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – THE restaurant business in South Africa is anchored on Zimbabweans, for their willingness to commit to long hours of work and their passion to survive. In my last article on this topic I said, “The heat is on for Zimbabweans”.
The blitz on restaurants will hurt the industry as much as it wished to stem illegal immigration.
But where does illegal immigration start? Is it at the port of entry or expiry of permit? The problem is that if your entry was wrong or illegal from the parameters set out in law, you remain illegal no matter how accepted you could be in the local environment.
At some time South Africa, during the reign of Thabo Mbeki allowed Zimbabweans to enter South Africa willy nilly, to help Robert Mugabe, the revolutionary darling of South Africa, from the pressure cooker effect of activism and avoiding simmering internal conflict from exploding into civil war.
Zimbabweans who were threatened, true or not, were tacitly allowed to trickle into South Africa. One would argue that South Africa is stopped from expelling those who entered South Africa from 2004.
The silence which happened allowed an entrenched assimilation of Zimbabweans, who fled the violence associated with takeover of land, the displacement of people from farms and during Operation cleanup (murambatsvina) and the brutal political climate which ensued.
South Africa allowed over 20 years of tacit acceptance.
Today, the political scene in South Africa has focused on regional low paid workers as foreigners.
The government of national unity (GNU) is influenced by the participation of empty headed suitcase politicians. They direct South Africans, from the suffering of a failure to explore economic solutions, to the antagonism of so-called foreigners.
But South Africa is Khumalo land. From 1816, Southern Africa below the Zambezi River was controlled by Tshaka, Mzilikazi and Soshangana; all three warriors from the Nongoma region of Zululand. These are Khumalos.
A Khumalo is not a foreigner in Khumalo land. There are problems to be solved but not to call Khumalos foreigners.
Will the displacement of Zimbabweans and possibly Malawians in restaurants solve South Africa’s economic decline? The answer is negative.
South Africa is going the same route as other African countries. The solution is not displacement of regional influx but finding regional solutions. The solutions are there if the politicians were to come out of the cocoon of technocrats.
Technocrats are blind folding the politicians.
Zimbabweans have their own weakness. Each acts individually for his or her family. There should be engagement, not in court, but negotiations with the South African government.
In 2007 the late Nora Tapiwa and myself went to the office of President Mbeki, to seek an office to discuss Zimbabwean issues. President Mbeki provided an office in foreign affairs. It is where the Zimbabwe Exemption Permits (ZEP) were hatched. I drafted the proposals.
Therefore, there should have been continued engagement to seek solutions. Further, the Global Zimbabwe Forum was formed in December 2007 to chart an economic plan for those Zimbabweans in the Diaspora, without politicking, so that there are funds to invest in the South African economy and wherever Zimbabweans were in the Diaspora.
The problem with Zimbabweans, although they are Khumalos, is that they want to reap where they did not sow.
Some would say that their fathers who worked in South Africa sowed the seeds, but this was too remote.
If they had put up the fund, which was R2, 000 each over 2 years, the trustees, Dr Noko and Dr Moyo, were ready to guard the money for use only for industrial and other economic participation.
Some Zimbabweans said they only wanted to fundraise for business in Zimbabwe. But they never did so. You invest where you are and go back with money from profits.
If that investment had happened, these restaurant raids would look stupid. Unfortunately, the Zimbabwean emptiness is exposed.
South Africa is attracting skills from other African countries. These skills are trained using meager resources from these countries.
So, South Africa is attracting skills and chasing away the chaff. It does not sound right that the skilled personnel, in Zimbabwe for example, are poached by South Africa, unless there is an express agreement with Zimbabwe that such skills are excess.
Without that agreement, how will Zimbabwe develop when critical skills are taken up by South Africa.
If the Zimbabwe economy is not growing it follows that more migrants will track into South Africa in search of work. And South Africa will refuse them because there is no war in Zimbabwe.
While South Africa is targeting black immigrants, white and Asian immigrants are tacitly welcomed. Again, it is suitcase politicians drumming this approach. Why?
– CAJ News