As South Africa celebrates 21 years of the racist apartheid policy being abolished, Agenda speaks to the South African High Commissioner in India, FK Morule about recent events in his country, relations with India, and how the country is dealing with increasing xenophobic attacks against other Africans in his nation
Your Excellency, how is South Africa promoting itself in India right nowIJ
I have been travelling across India explaining to Indian companies the advantages of investing in South Africa. As you are aware many Indian companies such as the Tata Group and Mahindra have invested in South Africa and indeed their examples are the best that we can give other Indian companies. Much like your country’s ‘Make in India’ programme, we also have a ‘Make in South Africa’ programme which encourages companies not just to look at South Africa as a country to get raw materials. We have a large young population and it is important for us to get them jobs.
South African Tourism is also promoting itself heavily in India right now; do you think South Africa can attract more Indian touristsIJ
Indeed, I believe that we can double the number of Indian tourists who visit South Africa over the coming year. Our tourism board has invested heavily in selling South African adventures to Indian tourists and I believe my country has a lot to offer in terms of excitement and adventure to people from India. In fact, we believe that the state visit that your Prime Minister will make to South Africa soon should raise our profile even higher.
It is also a fact that South Africa has a long history with a long-established Indian community. This year is also the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi’s return from South Africa to India, an event that is part of our shared history. It is not just that, our Government buildings in our capital Pretoria were designed by Sir Edwin lutyens, indeed it is believed that those were a prototype for what he built in New Delhi.
However, South Africa has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately, including horrific instances of violence against immigrants from other parts of Africa. What are the underlying causes for such violenceIJ
Well, there is no doubt that in the last two decades, successive Governments have made South Africa into an economic beacon in Africa. This will naturally attract immigrants from elsewhere in the continent. The South African Government also provides free healthcare, education and social support to people below the poverty line, this is done no matter where these people come from. One simple reason behind the violence is that some South Africans would believe that if they chase away the immigrants, there will be more money and benefits for them. They believe they would get better healthcare and better education and so on. But it is not just as simple as that.
So there are more causes…
Indeed there are. A major cause is the lack of educational competence in our Black community, and that is because of the Apartheid regime, which to keep the regime going deliberately ensured that education levels among Black and Coloured people were kept lower. This was not the case across the border, in Zimbabwe for example, you could find a woman vendor on the street and you might discover that she has a college degree.
So what is happening is that a lot of these highly educated workers are coming in from the north. In addition, immigrants to South Africa also are very organised, they buy out small stores owned by South Africans by pooling their money and less their products for cheaper. You have to understand that even a single rand (South Africa’s currency) matters a lot in these poor neighbourhoods. So some local South Africans feel pushed to the boundaries by these immigrants. However, the violence against these immigrants is often nothing more than organized looting by criminal elements. The government has cracked down on these violent elements and promises to continue the crackdown.
And about controlling immigrationIJ
You have to understand that when we were suffering under Apartheid these countries across Africa stood by us often at massive cost to themselves. The Apartheid regime often attacked, bombed and killed people from these countries in addition to the economic price they paid. Today, when some of these countries are suffering under civil strife, we can not just turn our back on them. My countrymen should not forget the sacrifices that other countries made for their freedom.