The great South African experiment in 'how much nonsense can we pack into a Tuesday' has reached a glorious new crescendo. As anti-immigrant riots sweep the rainbow nation with all the grace of a hungover wildebeest, Nigeria has launched a full-scale evacuation of its citizens. Ships are being chartered, planes are being booked, and I imagine a lot of very stressed officials are staring down the barrel of a very long, very awkward phone call with their South African counterparts.
Let's be clear: this is not a drill. The Nigerian government, in a move that must have involved at least three emergency meetings and a bafflingly large quantity of bitter leaf tea, has declared it will remove its people from the path of a baying mob. The mob, of course, has decided that the solution to South Africa's astronomical unemployment rate (currently hovering around the 'absolutely buggered' mark) is to blame the nearest dark-skinned foreigner. Never mind the complex interplay of global capital, historical inequality, and a government that couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery if you gave them a map and a crate of Castle Lager. No, the answer is clearly 'burn the shops of Zimbabweans and Nigerians'. Hooray.
The UK, meanwhile, is 'monitoring closely'. This is diplomatic code for 'we are doing absolutely nothing but we want to look busy'. Our Foreign Office mandarins are presumably staring at a map of the world, stroking their chins, and muttering about 'stability in the region' while their coffee goes cold. They will issue a sternly worded statement. They will 'urge calm'. They might even 'deplore the violence'. But they will not, under any circumstances, do anything that might inconvenience an arms deal or a trade agreement. That would be simply too gauche.
Let's examine the rioters for a moment. A charming collection of nativists, opportunists, and people who have clearly never had a proper chat with a Nigerian over a plate of jollof rice. They have convinced themselves that the answer to their woes is to chase out the 'foreigners' who are 'stealing their jobs'. What jobs? The ones that don't exist? The ones that evaporated when the mines closed and the factories moved to China? I swear, if you could bottle the cognitive dissonance of a mob you could power a small city for a year.
And what of the South African government? Ah yes, the ANC, that grand old liberation movement now reduced to shuffling from scandal to disaster. Their response has been the diplomatic equivalent of a shrug. A few press conferences. A few tepid condemnations. And then a silent, desperate hope that the whole thing will blow over. It won't. Because xenophobia is a festering sore that, once scratched, doesn't heal. It suppurates.
But let's not forget the absurdity. The sheer, gin-soaked absurdity of it all. Here we have a continent whose borders were drawn by drunk Europeans with a ruler and a total disregard for human geography. And now we watch as nations with a shared history of colonialism and struggle turn on each other like a pack of hyenas fighting over a morsel. It would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic.
Nigeria's evacuation is not just a logistical operation. It is a signal. A loud, painful signal that the dream of African unity is, for now, a bit of a damp squib. The UK's 'monitoring' is a grim reassurance that the world, as always, will watch from a safe distance. And the rioters? They will continue to burn, and loot, and wave their flags, and pretend that the answer is simple.
But it isn't. It never is. And until we all sit down, open a bottle of something decent, and actually have a conversation that doesn't involve blaming the nearest scapegoat, we are doomed to repeat this farcical tragedy again and again. Pass the gin.
Biff Thistlethwaite, reporting from a bar in London that has inexplicably run out of Nigerian stout.
