Solidarity across Africa

Parents from refugee communities and their children have been coming to Ntirhisano Community Centre (NCC), Cape Town.

Our future is stubbornly based on economic stratification, not because you are human and the most intelligent species on earth. Poor migrants and immigrants who migrate from one place to another economically face hostility in the unknown. Immigrants and vulnerable communities are primarily affected by capitalism's economic frustration. Because wherever they find themselves they have to compete for basic human necessities. Reception or treatment reinforces divisions from cradle to grave.

Ntirhisano Community Centre is breaking these colonial divisions. To eliminate colonially and opportunistically induced divisions and replace them with mutual solidarity among impoverished communities, irrespective of ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, or race. 

Recently, in some parts of Limpopo province, Zimbabwean nationals are being chased away. This mayhem started after three Zimbabweans were burned to death by the locals. 

I’m ashamed this brutal killing happened in Chavani, the village I was raised in. They are accused of stealing copper wire cables during the long electricity blackouts that are black outing the whole country. Instead of turning to Eskom and the government for failing to fulfil its obligations. Since then, Zimbabwean nationals have become a scapegoat. Before the uproar against Zimbabwean nationals, the minister of health in Limpopo was recorded chastising a Zimbabwean patient that they are depleting the country’s health services

As a political appointee, one would expect the minister to be politically conscious of the fact that she and Zimbabweans are the same people. The borders were imposed by colonizers. People lived side by side and passed through each other's compounds with ease before then. Limpopo is predominantly Venda, Tsonga, Pedi, and Ndebele people. Their traditions, languages, and cultures are the same as Shona, Tonga, and Ndebele in Zimbabwe. These phenomena cannot be questioned and even the said minister’s accent sounds like she’s from Zimbabwe.

The class system is a direct social product of Capitalism. The capitalist system is centred on making a profit, protected by the states and governments. The colonizers had direct involvement in the colonized countries. As with slavery abolition, decolonization relieved colonizers from the responsibility of responding to human tragedies that they caused. Nevertheless, the masses were sincere about breaking free from feudalism, slavery, and colonialism. But to the ruling class, this was a way to avoid responsibilities.

These forms of economic production were replaced by capitalism and nation-states. In this context, the owners are off the hook, while workers are required to obey their orders once in the owner's factory or firm. The elected government governs in accordance with its laws that serve investors' interests. This means you sell your labour at the boss' price. The government is the manager who makes sure the interests of the owners of the means of production are maintained and advanced at all costs. 

The nation state governments are therefore managers of the wealth accumulated through acts of crime against humanity. The state officials are the manufacturers and detonators of social mayhems in the impoverished communities. Because they are protecting and advancing the interests of the ruling class at the expense of the masses.