The Nigerian police have issued a desperate plea: do not attack South Africans in reprisal for the latest round of xenophobic violence in Johannesburg. The UK, ever the eager schoolmaster, has chimed in with its own call for restraint. But one must ask: is this a plea for peace or a desperate attempt to paper over the cracks of a failing state?
The violence in South Africa is not a random outburst of tribal fury. It is the predictable consequence of a society in decay, where economic despair is channelled into hatred of the foreigner. Nigeria, for its part, is no model of civic virtue.
Its own history is a tapestry of ethnic slaughter and religious pogroms. To see these two giants of Africa squabbling like children in a playground is to witness the tragedy of a continent that has squandered its post-colonial promise. The police warning is a bandage on a gangrenous wound.
The real cure would be a dose of national revival, something neither country shows any sign of achieving. As for the UK’s advice, one might remind London that its own house is hardly in order, with its Brexit shambles and its own growing xenophobia. Still, the spectacle is instructive.
It reminds us that the fall of Rome was not a single cataclysm but a long series of small failures. So too with Africa: each act of violence, each plea for restraint, each empty diplomatic gesture is another stone tumbling from the arch. The question is not whether the edifice will collapse but whether anyone will notice when it does.
