In a move that suggests the African continent has briefly mistaken itself for a particularly fraught episode of Love Island, Nigeria has begun evacuating its citizens from South Africa. This follows a spate of anti-migrant violence that has left five people dead and the British Foreign Office issuing a travel advisory that reads like a strongly worded letter from a disappointed aunt. The violence, reportedly sparked by a toxic cocktail of xenophobia, economic anxiety, and the sort of muddled tribalism that gives humanity a bad name, has seen foreign-owned shops torched and mobs roaming the streets of Johannesburg like extras from a dystopian Netflix series.
President Muhammadu Buhari, a man whose eyebrows have been known to quake with indignation, has dispatched planes to retrieve his nationals, describing the attacks as ‘unacceptable’ – a diplomatic way of saying ‘we are exceptionally cross’. The British Foreign Office, never one to miss an opportunity to be magnificently unhelpful, has advised travellers ‘to remain vigilant’, which is code for ‘don’t do anything stupid, like wandering into a riot without a helmet’. One can only imagine the sheer panic in Whitehall as they contemplate the horror of a British tourist missing their scheduled gin and tonic at a safari lodge.
Meanwhile, the South African government has condemned the violence with the vigour of a man who has just discovered his car has been keyed, promising action and deploying the army – a tactic roughly as effective as using a firehose to put out a grease fire. The whole affair has all the hallmarks of a farcical tragedy: bloodshed, bureaucracy, and the lingering suspicion that someone, somewhere, is going to blame the economy. As the evacuated Nigerians file onto planes, clutching their possessions and their dignity, one wonders if any of them managed to grab a souvenir ashtray from the airport gift shop.
The international community watches with the detached fascination of a man watching a train wreck while eating a sandwich. And perhaps that is the real tragedy: we have become so accustomed to chaos that we now view it as spectacle. But for the five dead, the hundreds displaced, and the millions of Africans forced to navigate borders that are simultaneously invisible and impenetrable, there is no spectacle.
There is only the cold, hard floor of a refugee centre and the faint hope that tomorrow will be less aggressively stupid than today. Or, as the British Foreign Office might put it: 'Passengers are advised to check the latest travel advice before departure.' Indeed.
Stiff upper lips at the ready, ladies and gentlemen.
