So here we are again. Malawi, a nation not exactly overflowing with surplus resources, has begun the expensive and humiliating process of repatriating its citizens from South Africa. Why? Because xenophobia, that perennial fungus of the human soul, has once again bloomed in the townships of Johannesburg and Durban. The United Kingdom, that erstwhile imperial referee, has called for calm. How very predictable. How very Victorian.
Let us not mince words. The current spasm of violence against foreign nationals in South Africa is not an isolated outbreak of hooliganism. It is a symptom of a deeper rot, a national identity crisis that has festered since the bright dreams of 1994 curdled into the harsh hangover of corruption, unemployment, and inequality. When a society cannot provide for its own, it looks for a scapegoat. And what easier target than the immigrant who works for less, who queues for longer, who dares to dream in a land that has stopped dreaming?
Malawi’s decision to evacuate its citizens is both tragic and prudent. It is tragic because it signals the failure of the pan-African ideal, that noble fantasy that our borders are mere lines on a map. It is prudent because when the mob is at the gates, a government’s first duty is to its own people. The Malawian authorities are not engaging in empty rhetoric; they are sending buses. This is the language of realism, not of sentiment.
And what of the United Kingdom’s call for calm? It rings with the hollow authority of a former imperial master who no longer commands the legions but still feels entitled to lecture. The British have their own history with xenophobia, from the Windrush scandal to the current absurdities of the Rwanda policy. Perhaps they should sweep their own doorstep before offering advice to others. But no, that would require the one thing our chattering classes despise: self-awareness.
The parallel to the Fall of Rome is almost too obvious to mention, but I shall mention it anyway. When the Empire crumbled, it did so because its citizens lost faith in its institutions. They turned on the ‘barbarians’ within their gates, forgetting that Rome itself was built by migrants, by refugees, by the desperate and the ambitious. Today’s South Africa is a microcosm of this decay. The Rainbow Nation has become a patchwork of competing tribes, each demanding their slice of a shrinking pie. No amount of official condemnation will change this.
The real question is whether Malawi’s move will start a trend. Will Zimbabwe follow? Will Mozambique? Will African leaders finally admit that the dream of open borders and continental solidarity is a luxury they cannot afford when their own people are being burned alive for the crime of seeking a better life? I suspect not. We prefer the comfortable lie to the uncomfortable truth.
So let us watch as the buses roll north. Let us note the grim irony of a postcolonial state forced to flee the violence of another postcolonial state. Let us realise that the Empire is long dead, but its diseases remain: tribalism, resentment, and the desperate need for an enemy. The UK calls for calm, but calm is not what is coming. A storm is coming. And for once, the forecasters of doom might actually be right.
