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Tendai Chirawu-ZANU PF Youth League
Open letter to the ANC Youth League On the brutal murder of an innocent Zimbabwean national, Mr Elvis Nyathi in Diepsloot, South Africa.
The ZANU PF Youth League registers with utter horror, the unchecked rise of xenophobia, ethnic brutality and Afrophobia being carried out against African non-South African citizens by vigilantes calling themselves “Operation Dudula”, inspired by inflammatory utterances from charlatans like Herman Mashaba, and fronted by Rhodie pawns such as Nhlanhla Lux.
This depravity recently culminated in the brutal and needless lynching of Mr Elvis Nyathi, a Zimbabwean national in Diepsloot, Gauteng province, South Africa.
We are worried about the rise of xenophobia and particularly, Afrophobia, racism and disrespect of black African lives, which has now become a defining feature of South African social conscience and mindset, and which we unequivocally condemn in totality.
These broad daylight cynical Afrophobic attacks and murders are heinous crimes against humanity, made especially more outrageous by the fact that they are being perpetrated against fellow Africans.
As ZANU PF Youth League, we remain forever alive to the fact that black South Africans, including all fellow Africans, are our brothers and sisters with whom we share a bond of history, identity and culture which predates the artificial boundaries and ethnic divisions forced upon us by the racist colonial powers during the 1884-1886 Berlin Conference, which our ancestors were never party to.
We are all Bantus who migrated from one point of origin, and our “Ubuntu” ethos has consistently united us against all forms of adversity.
Africa is the home for all indigenous “brown” people.
The purported “grievance” leading to these cruelties, labour migration, has been a feature of our history since time immemorial, and it makes our African societies unitary.
Zimbabweans, along with many other Africans, participated in the building of South Africa as conscripted labour during the WENELA era and even before.
Our brotherly ties were further made strong during the struggle to liberate ourselves from colonial domination.
Nationalist formations in Zimbabwe housed and fought alongside ANC cadres, and as a consequence, attracted heinous reprisals from the then Apartheid South African regime, which conducted extra-territorial attacks with impunity on our soil.
We lost innocents like Tsitsi Chiliza to bombings, while apartheid mercenaries like Kevin Woods and Philip Conjwayo were captured and brought to book, just to mention a few.
Currently, Zimbabwe stands as one of South Africa’s key trading partners.
By migrating to South Africa, Zimbabweans commit no crime, but are simply following job opportunities, which they get on merit.
We are convinced that it is a result of a lack of appreciation of history, that a black African should wish evil and suffering upon a fellow African.
We are also convinced that this disturbing trend is not entirely South African in the making, but the background work of a racist fifth column, bent on exploiting the “nationality” tag to further divide Africans, picking up from the artificial Berlin Conference borders, in order to open up our rich heritage for further exploitation.
Affirming and reiterating the need for South Africans to regard human life and dignity as sacrosanct, ZANU PF Youth League hereby challenges our ANC Youth League Comrades-in-Arms to speak out strongly against this unwelcome trend, which is a pure travesty of brotherhood and good neighbourliness.
We equally implore our brothers and sisters to call for more decisive action by the South African government to ensure justice is served, and to bring an end to this festering inhumanity.
More than ever, this should be time for us to collectively work together, just as our heroes and elders worked to defeat apartheid.
Afrophobia is but a form of neo-colonialism designed to divide us; the ultimate goal being to reverse the gains realised by our struggles for liberation.
“Operation Dudula” and its backers are not only archaic, but patently retrogressive.
The revolutionary and progressive youth of Zimbabwe are confident that ANC Youth League will play a key role in calling some misguided elements within the great rainbow nation to order.
Together, we can shame the enemies of human progress.
Aluta Continua!
Cadre Tendai Chirau (CC, PB) — ZANU PF Youth League Acting National Deputy Secretary for Youth Affairs
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