We must festina lente
One of the programmes I enjoyed most back in the 1980s on GBC Radio was a weekday afternoon show called ‘Down South’.
It featured songs and other messages around the liberation struggle in South Africa against the evil apartheid regime.
I think the host at the time was Lucy Banini, and her deep, rich voice in highlighting the injustices in that country set perfectly against the soulful, almost mournful songs that she played, both in English and Zulu.
Africa’s anti-apartheid effort
Beyond this programme, Ghana, back then, was one of the leading voices on the global stage against apartheid.
We joined Nigeria to lead a boycott of the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, UK, in protest against the Margaret Thatcher government’s refusal to impose economic sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa, as many other countries had.
Our passports specifically banned their holders from travelling to that country.
To artist activists like Hugh Masakela and Miriam Makeba, we offered a second home, as we had done in the 1960s for liberation struggle activists from other parts of the continent fighting against colonialism.
Ghana was a hub for freedom fighters and joined other countries to provide them with financial and military support in the spirit of Pan-Africanism.
Various countries close to South Africa, known as the Frontline States (Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe), coordinated political, diplomatic, and military support for liberation movements fighting to end apartheid and white minority rule in Southern Africa, including ‘uMkhonto weSizwe’, the paramilitary wing of the ANC movement.
They offered a haven for many black South African exiles involved in the struggle, including Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani and Thabo Mbeki.
After his release following 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela travelled extensively to thank various countries for their support in those dark days.
It is against this background that many Ghanaians and Africans are quite rightly upset and feel a sense of ingratitude over the way some black African migrants have been treated and attacked by marauding gangs of South Africans demanding that they leave South Africa.
From the images being beamed around, I believe it is safe to guess that many, if not all, of the marchers, protestors and attackers were either not born or were very young in those days and may not have been taught this important aspect of the history of the liberation struggle back in school.
Of course, this ignorance does not excuse the madness that we have witnessed, simply from the public order and justice delivery perspectives, where individuals feel emboldened enough to take the law into their own hands and consequently dish out directives.
It is important to emphasise quickly that one is not suggesting that South Africa must throw open its borders and allow any black African to stroll in and set up camp there without due process just because at some point in the past, Africa rallied to help the country throw off the yoke of apartheid injustice.
That would be absurd.
Far from that. I have always been a strong advocate of the position that every country reserves the right to control immigration and protect its borders. No country can survive an open-door, laissez-faire policy that abuses its laws, because these have social and economic consequences.
Controlling illegal migration must, however, be done in accordance with the law and enforced by governments, and not left to marauding gangs incited or inspired by individual activists, as is happening in South Africa.
As I argued here the other day, what is happening in South Africa, while the police look on, gives the impression that the South African government endorses these wanton, criminal acts as a convenient tool to distract from its inability to provide its people with jobs.
These acts, therefore, seem like a convenient valve to let out public anger and frustration to insulate the government and redirect blame, while the core, real issues remain.
Immigrants are always convenient scapegoats in times of public anger, it appears.
There can be no other reasonable explanation for the seeming refusal of the government to enforce the law against this ugly Afrophobia.
I believe this is what has angered many to call for a boycott of South African brands elsewhere on the continent, such as MTN, Shoprite and DsTV, and also fuelled the calls to our government to refuse to renew the mining lease for South African company Goldfields Ltd, with respect to the Tarkwa mine.
Value of boycotts
Historically, boycotts have been a huge and useful political tool to force change. As noted earlier, Ghana joined Nigeria and others to boycott the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh over apartheid. Trade, cultural and economic boycotts directed at the evil regime helped collapse apartheid.
In the wake of the 1948 Gold Coast riots that followed the killing of three ex-servicemen, Nii Kwabena Bonney led the Association of West African Merchants (AWAM) to organise a boycott of European goods, which contributed to the anti-colonial drive.
Further afield, the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow and the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles suffered from boycotts led by the USA and the then USSR, respectively, over political issues.
Again in the USA, the famous Montgomery bus boycott from 1955-56, following the Rosa Parks incident, was a huge weapon in the civil rights movement.
History is replete with other successful examples, from the Boston Tea Party in 1773 to Gandhi’s Satyagraha campaigns against British colonial rule in India.
Some facts worth noting: MTN earns more than 30 per cent of its revenue from Nigeria alone. Standard Bank earns over 40 per cent of its headline earnings from African countries outside South Africa.
Shoprite operates across 15 African countries. Sasol's Mozambican gas underpins South Africa's domestic energy supply.
Gold Fields' Tarkwa Mine in Ghana accounts for roughly a quarter of the company's total production.
It is no wonder Goldfields is reportedly including South Africa’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Ronald Lamola, in their lobby team to meet President Mahama and the Lands Minister for a potential mining lease extension.
These moments of annoyance and irritation are also the best moments to exercise restraint, not out of the saintly generosity of spirit, but a fuller, pragmatic assessment beyond the simplistic ‘eye for an eye’.
Beyond creating employment opportunities in this country for several thousand, some of these companies, such as MTN, have shares on the Ghana Stock Exchange owned by ordinary Ghanaians, as well as pension funds holding the funds of ordinary Ghanaians.
These, among several others, are significant points worthy of note in this conversation.
Of course, all boycotts come at a price for those driving them, and in many cases, it is a price worth paying for the greater, common good by bringing about fundamental change.
But I believe that there are better ways to manage this thorny issue and preserve our interests, including our international standing.
The Tarkwa lease renewal discussion, for instance, must be driven by data and facts, not sentiment dressed as nationalistic fervour.
The baby and the bathwater readily come to mind.
My Latin tutor at Opoku Ware School, the late Mr Acheampong, never tired of reminding us to ‘festina lente’ (hasten slowly) in all things we did.
I think it is a useful adage.
Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng.
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