I think I once covered this topic before but it was in my vernacular. My blogs are often just based on fact or real experiences but today I feel I should be a little emotional. Ofcourse, all over the world there's going to be people you don't like & people that rub you up the wrong way. Many of you might have cousins you don't quite get. With foreigners, I think we need a little patience because there's far more to be angry at as black South Africans than foreigners claimed to be "stealing our jobs & women." We have foreigners that have been in this land for almost 300 years (almost 150 years in Zulu territory). Yet, we've done little to address their illegitimate presence. By Zulu Law, Boers & Anglos should be deported from Zulu territory*, to put it bluntly (this is fact & not me being emotional) because of their roles in attacking several Zulu monarchs. But then, as usual, they'll pull out the "San were here first" quip. To address this once & for all: a large portion of Ngoni (Nguni) people are descendants of San people. The Khoi lived in the far west of South Africa, here I am covering that story. Ngoni tribes never fought any wars against the San who lived in the region where Lesotho is now. The San lived in peace & intermarried with Ngoni tribes & Ngoni tribes even lended some of the San language sounds. They regarded the San as knowledgeable people & their knowledge as sacred as one of the oldest peoples on Earth but we must understand that no Ngoni tribes dispossessed the San of their land & that honour goes to the Sotho tribes that arrived 600 years after the Ngoni.
There's an advertisement that once played on South African TV that erroneously claimed that the Khoi & San owned all of South Africa. Which is indeed incorrect, Ngoni tribes could also do cave paintings & rock art so we can't claim that rock art or cave art is uniquely San & marks historical presence of San tribes in the area the rock paintings are found. The advert further went on to claim Congolese, Malawians, Nigerians, Kenyans, Mozambicans etc. are foreigners & should leave, including Asians (Chinese & Indians).
Let me express my sentiments in this analogy; In my socialist Utopia as a dictator, I'd keep certain groups & ensure their prosperity. I'd deport the Xhosa & Sotho as they have their own lands & keep any foreigners of other African countries who could, if they wish to be full citizens, be given surnames that sound like they're from the land & teach them to speak the national language so they're fully naturalised with special preference to Igbo, South Sudanese, Ugandan & any other countries with a Ngoni diaspora (this being; Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Congo, Malawi & Tanzania). Sure, I may never be a dictator of any land but through tracing origins, physical appearances & ethnicities in Africa, these are my people or people I feel, as Mthoko Mpofana, have a distant heritage with & will continue to favour with or without any real political & financial power.
My concept of what a foreigner is has changed a bit by reading African history & has become biased towards tribes I descend from but my sentiments in treating foreigners with dignity has not changed, do unto others as you would have others do unto you. You attack foreigners fleeing their country's hardship in your land, what happens when you get to their land? We must think things through as black people. There'll be the odd person from a foreign country you don't like but it won't mean that all people from that country are like him or her. If there's a big influx of undocumented foreigners, let's put them in refugee camps & see if we can help them or integrate them into our society, document them & should they wish to be citizens - give them naturalised names & surnames in the land's language so they're full citizens.
*Zulu territory mentioned here includes these territories as well as the southern part of Matuituíne district in Mozambique (south of Catembe River).